# Reccomend Post Apocalyptic Fiction
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 4, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304 "2008-01-04T19:31:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnsonlnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnsonlnl)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/1 "2008-01-04T19:31:18Z")
I’m sure I’ve seen this discussed before, but I can’t seem to find it.
What I’m looking for are a few reccomendations for good post apocalyptic fiction. (At least I think that’s what to call it.)
I enjoyed The Stand. I also liked Andre Norton’s Daybreak 2025 (Starman’s Son).
That’s about the extent of my reading in this area, though. I’d appreciate your favorites, or a link to where it was discussed previously.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/2 "2008-01-04T20:04:37Z")
I just bought an anthology called Wastelands that has stories by Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Gene Wolf, Orson Scott Card, George RR Martin, etc. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
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### Author:  [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/3 "2008-01-04T20:13:24Z")
A very early and good post-apocalyptic novel is **Earth Abides** , although the protagonist is kind of an arrogant prick. Can’t remember the author offhand.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s **Lucifer’s Hammer** is a fun one (pre-and-post apoc).
David Brin’s **The Postman** is worth checking out, although it is the basis for a Kevin Costner movie.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/4 "2008-01-04T20:21:17Z")
A Canticle for Liebowitz is one of the more thoughtful in this genre.
And there’s “Damnation Alley” by Roger Zelazny.
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### Author:  [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/5 "2008-01-04T20:21:35Z")
Here’s one [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=371565).
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/6 "2008-01-04T20:22:15Z")
**Alas Babylon** is a favorite of mine.
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### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/7 "2008-01-04T20:22:35Z")
Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake - but very disturbing on many levels.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/8 "2008-01-04T21:27:15Z")
[QUOTE=awldune]
David Brin’s **The Postman** is worth checking out, although it is the basis for a Kevin Costner movie.
[/QUOTE]
Please, _please_ don’t anyone skip the book on account of that gawdawful movie!
_Worlds Apart_ by Joe Haldeman. But read _Worlds_ first.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/9 "2008-01-05T00:52:15Z")
**Davy** by Edgar Pangborn. One of the greatest SF novels ever.
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### Author:  [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/10 "2008-01-05T01:08:36Z")
I recently read and enjoyed **World War Z,** about human society during and after the zombie apocalypse.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/11 "2008-01-05T01:16:55Z")
I really enjoyed **Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang**.
There’s three books that I considder the definitive post-apocalyptic novels: **Alas Babylon** , **A Canticle for Liebowitz** , and **The Earth Abides**. They’re all very good and laid the foundation that so many other people would follow.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/12 "2008-01-05T02:17:41Z")
John Christopher has written a lot of post apocalyptic novels. And there is a lot of variation on a theme. Different kinds of apocalypse, different age groups, different times.
A few examples:
The Prince In Waiting (trilogy) for young adults, set several hundred years after the apocalypse, where society has reverted to Medieval levels, and technology is banned.
Wrinkle In The Skin (novel for adults) a series of earthquakes and floods cause worldwide devastation, the story of one man’s struggle to survive the chaos.
Death Of Grass (novel for adults) a worldwide plague wipes out grasses, such as wheat, maize, rice, and animal fodder. Mass starvation follows, the story of one small group’s attempt to survive the chaos.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/13 "2008-01-05T04:13:56Z")
The **Dies The Fire** trilogy - S. M. Sterling (I’ll reserve judgement on the sequels for now)
**Emergence** - David Palmer
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### Author:  [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/14 "2008-01-05T04:18:38Z")
I read [WarDay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday) by Whitley Streiber and Jim Kunetka when I was younger. Was kind of an interesting tale. . .
Tripler
That’s all I got beyond the action flicks of _Mad Max_ and _Terminator_.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/15 "2008-01-05T05:31:33Z")
A lot of people seem to like Cormac McCarthy’s _The Road_. I read it a couple nights ago and I didn’t care for it. The writing style didn’t help. I really could have used a chapter break or at least some quotation marks in 250 pages.
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/16 "2008-01-05T05:32:05Z")
[QUOTE=silenus]
The **Dies The Fire** trilogy - S. M. Sterling (I’ll reserve judgement on the sequels for now)
[/QUOTE]
The _Dies the Fire_ trilogy reduced me to the kind of book addiction I hadn’t experienced since high school when I read it last year. I’ve no idea why – it’s not the kind of book I usually read now, but I _had_ to know how it all ended.
For the record, I enjoyed _The Sunrise Lands_ (the first book in the next trilogy) a lot, but I think a lot of that was because the new character, Vogeler, was from southwest Wisconsin, and that’s my territory, man. It was nice to see how Stirling visualized the Dairy State’s rise from the ashes.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/17 "2008-01-05T15:45:32Z")
[No Blade of Grass (originally released in the UK as The Death of Grass)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass) is an interesting read. The premise, as the title suggests, is that a disease wipes out all grasses, which includes the food crops upon which humanity relies most heavily (corn, rice, wheat, _etc_.).
I’ll second [Earth Abides](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides).
And [The Day of the Triffids](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids) is a surprisingly great read, given the goofiness of its premise. It’s almost like the book arose out of a bar bet: “I’m going to give you the stupidest premise imaginable. You turn it into a great book and the drinks are on me!”
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/18 "2008-01-05T15:54:20Z")
I read _Earth Abides_ on a recommendation from someone on the SDMB, and I thought it was excellent. Very well thought out in terms of the speculation, and gripping from start to end.
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### Author:  [@johnsonlnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnsonlnl)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/19 "2008-01-05T16:19:43Z")
Awesome. Thanks for all the info. I’m off to the library.
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-post-apocalyptic-fiction/432304/20 "2008-01-05T17:02:17Z")
It’s brand new to everyone else, but last year (galley proof) I read [The Pesthouse](http://www.amazon.com/Pesthouse-Jim-Crace/dp/0385520751) , and I was almost moved to tears. Very good read.
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