Post-Apocalypse

In My Humble Opinion
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AuntiePam posted a long book list which included:

We had to read that book in my undergraduate Science Fiction Literature class, and oh God was it hard to follow! It’s written in a perverted form of English, which the author supposes is what the English language will evolve into in 2400+ years. It’s just dripping with metaphorical imagery and semi-hidden references to modern nuclear technology.

It destroyed any affinity I might otherwise have had for post-apocalyptic literature.

Nowadays, the closest I come to post-apocalyptic literature is conversing with my survivalist friend from up north.

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However, I did enjoy a post-apocalyptic Saturday morning cartoon called Thundarr the Barbarian.

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There’s the Tripods trilogy by John Christpher, which depicts a future where aliens used mind control to take over the human race, and technology has been abandoned.

*The White Mountains * A trio of teens seek a legendary refuge where free humans still live.
The City of Lead and Gold the teens become part of a daring plan to infiltrate an alien city.
The Pool of Fire The free humans launch a desperate attempt to defeat the aliens before the Earth is terraformed to an alien atmosphere.

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This is almost embarassing.

There was a series by Victor Milan (writing as Richard Austin) called The Guardians. It had about 20 books in it chronicling the activities of an elite unit of soldiers after WW III as they try to help ‘put the country back together again’.

Kind of dippy, but fun.

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A Canticle for Liebowitz is the best! Great book for this genre.

I also liked Brin’s The Postman, but I never saw the Costner movie version. Perhaps that’s a good thing. The book predates the movie by many years, but it still isn’t an example of Brin at his best (it was one of his early novels).

Does anyone remember an old TV series called “Oops” or something like that?

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Ape and Essence - Aldous Huxley

Deus Irae - Philip K. Dick

and I’ll say Cat’s Cradle by Vonnugut even though only the very end is post-apocalyptic.

(we could do a thread on during the apocalypse fiction)

“Threads” is still the best post- (and pre- and during) apocalypse movie. I mean in the non-speculative-fiction-all-too-realistic sense.

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Man, I’ve impressed myself…I’ve read almost all of these! A few more:
A Secret History of Time to Come, Robie Macauley
Re-Birth, John Wyndham
False Dawn, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
“The Place of the Gods,” Stephen Vincent Benet
Parable of the Sower; Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler
The Wanderer, Fritz Leiber

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Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham is one of the best. I can’t believe I forgot about it.

The idea sounds kind of goofy (blinded people and killer plants), but Wyndham writes so well he pulls it off. The book is written in the first person (in the tradition of H.G. Wells), which makes the story more personal and real, in my view.

Myron Van Horowitzki wrote:

So do us a favor and rate them. Which are the best? Which are not worth our time?

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The is a book set in post-apocalyptic England called Greybeard, IIRC. Don’t know the author, but it’s a pretty good read. Also, there’s a book called Through Darkest America, author(?). (Can you tell I’m lousy with names?) The latter is an OK read, involving tales of brutal behavior after the apocalypse.

Also, I have very vague recollections of a live-action Saturday morning children’s show from the 70’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, where a handful of survivors rode around in a Winnebago, of all things. My memory is fuzzy. I know there was a kid’s show based on Logan’s Run, but I think this was a different show. Maybe it was the Logan’s Run series; I can’t seem to dredge the details up from the sinkholes of my brain. Seems like there were some ecological themes…Help, anyone?

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The Ark II !

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I don’t believe I forgot about these. I just read them in the last month, and they were absolutely fantastic. I have become absolutely hooked on her books.

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Here’s a bump – I want more titles, and Myron’s opinion on the books he’s read.

Also, while not strictly P/A, there are a couple of short story collections you might like, if you also like horror.

The theme of “Under the Fang”, edited by Robert McCammon, is a world full of vampires, and “Book of the Dead”, edited by Skipp and Spector (they started the splatterpunk craze) does the same for zombies (or flesh-eating ghouls, I’ve never been sure which is which). “Dead” is for those with strong stomachs.

I think the Wild Cards series might fit here, although the world hasn’t “ended”, it’s just full of people infected by an alien virus. The virus affects people in different ways – many die, but some become super-human Aces and some are Jokers (your basic monster types).

Some writers in the first Wild Cards volume are George R. R. Martin (my hero, next to Joe Lansdale), Ed Bryant, Lewis Shiner, Howard Waldrop and Walter Jon Williams. Not too shabby.

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Not always horribly post-apocolyptic in tone, but, much of Robotech takes place after various wholesale destructions of Earth.

The Macross Saga starts as a devistating ‘Civil’ (apparently there was a shortlived world government in the early 90s) War, and ends with 2/3 of the habitable area of the planet being made uninhabitable by those aliens who remain loyal to their original masters. (Uninhabitable by Humans, that is. The Zentraedi seem to like it.)

The second arc takes place at the height of the rebuilding from that event (The ‘Rain of Terror’), and ends with another, much more vicious alien race being accidentally ‘invited’ to the planet.

The third (and final) arc takes place after the destruction and occupation by these aliens.

The ‘Lost Generation’ novels take place (mostly) between the arcs, so they generally have a decidedly more ‘devistated’ tone than the rest of the series. Tokyo in The Master’s Gambit, f’rinstance seems a decidedly unpleasant place to live. And Amazonia (I think…I really need to dig the books out of my closet) in The Zentreadi Rebellion is less than friendly to humans (Not the greatest place for Zentreadi, either.)

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dzray wrote:

That’s it!! Do you recall the show’s premise in any more detail?

There is a short story collection out there devoted exclusively to post-apocalyptic, last-person-on-earth sorts of tales. I have been trying to recall the title for days, but can’t seem to think of it. Anyone else seen this book?

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Oh crap. I shoulda known better than to brag. Well, I’ll have to refresh my memory on some of these. I’ll try to cough up some coherent reviews on them other than “Yeah, it was great!” or “Yeah, it sucked.”

To add to the confusion, I also read a lot of short story collections, and there are many stories with this theme that may not be as well known to those who usually read only novels.

I’m already thinking of the story I have to re-read when I get home, I can’t remember the author or title. It’s about-get this- hyperosmia. The end of the world as we know it happens when a mad scientist unleashed a chemical upon the world which causes everybody to have a heightened sense of smell. It’s exquisitely chilling. More on this later.

Another one I remember is “Knight of Shallows” by Rand B Lee. It’s not the end of the world per se, but about the protagonist visiting some other “parallel”, “possible” worlds where it IS. 'Nother one that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

Anyway, I promise, more later.

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Here’s the ones from that big list that I have read, and my comments on them…

Steel Beach by John Varley

One of my favorite books. It’s set long after mankind is wiped from the face of the Earth by aliens that don’t even see us as intelligent. Man is forced to find a way to live on other planets and moons in the solar system, and actually does a pretty good job of adapting.

Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

A comet hits the Earth, wipes out most of the population. Not one of my favorite Niven books (I’m a big fan of his) but it’s still good - a good one to recomend to readers of ‘mainstream’ fiction, very realistic.
The Postman by David Brin

I didn’t care for it much, but I like Brin’s space opera better. Much MUCH better than the movie.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

One of my reading assignments in high school that I liked. Very dated, though (all the characters in the book would be dead if modern nukes were used).

The White Plague by Frank Herbert

I couldn’t get into it, but I read it back when I was 10, maybe I should give it another try. Geneticist goes crazy after wife and child are killed by IRA terrorists, creates a plague to wipe out all the women on Earth.

Blood Music by Greg Bear

Guy injects himself with nanobots, which rapidly evolve into an advanced civilization - intent on colonizing other ‘worlds’. I only read the short story, very frightening - not sure if I would like the novel version, I liked the way the story ended leaving you to speculate on what was going to happen.

The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent

Hundreds of years after a catastrophic war, women rule from walled cities while men live as nomadic hunter gatherers in the wild. Great book.

You left off one of my favorites. Hiero’s Journey is a very strange story about a Canadian Metis priest who rides a telepathic moose that has to fight mutants some 7000 years after a nuclear holocaust. Not very realistic, but very involving.

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I remember Ark II, they had a talking chimp.

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Just to add a little bit, The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) falls under ‘during & after the apocalypse’, but since it’s a series of short stories, the later ones work on their own as post-apocalyptic. And if you think about the human destruction of the Martians, it’s post-apocalyptic for them in several of the stories.

Are there other stories that explore a non-Earth post-apocalyptic world (even one brought about my man’s doing?)

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Badtz Maru wrote:

Works much better as a short story. The novel fizzles out, in my view.

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Lucifers Hammer- I read it about every 2 years. A little dated, but still a great read… I read it like 3 times right after Shumaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter…

Alas Babylon- I thought I was the only person in my age bracket to read this. I thought it was good when I read it (I was like 12) and I want to get a hold of a copy and read it again.

Warday- This book was really creepy, in an “Wow, this could almost really happen” kind of way. The “Triage” method of dealing with walkinf wounded is great, and terrifying all at once.

Farnhams Freehold- Sadly, it doesn’t go into much history, but still an interesting tale. I believe it was quite controversial in its day…

I’ve read others, and I have to admit to reading a slew of Cheesy Post-Apoc novels… the Wingman series, wherein air power is the defining factor in everything. From the ashes, a very right-wing oriented series, almost to much so… several others, but the one I can’t believe none of you mentioned was

Battlefield Earth- I normally avoid this authors stuff, which isn’t very mature, but I do it anyways… and then I got a copy for free, so I read it. I feel that it kind of sets the Default for a lot of “alien invaders vs. the last of mankind” stories. It takes place 3000 years after aliens have almost wiped out mankind… I recomend it, but be aware it is a little stereotypical by today’s standards…