# Recommend a "realistic" post-apocalyptic story without magic, cyborgs or zombies! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238 "2010-06-15T01:57:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![NoLAFIN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9bcb4/32.png) [@NoLAFIN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoLAFIN)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/81 "2010-06-16T18:36:50Z")
> [@moldybread](#): > > OOOh almost forgot, another movie to check out is called “A Boy and his Dog” Sounds stupid but was a really cool movie. The movie was an adaptation of a short story by Harlan Ellison. As usual, the book is better than the movie. FYI: It does have a scifi-element, because the dog in question communicates telepathically with the boy. ---
**Author:** ![EhhMon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@EhhMon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EhhMon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/82 "2010-06-16T18:37:01Z")
As far as movies, I remember “A Boy and His Dog”. For video games, Fallout3. ---
**Author:** ![NoLAFIN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9bcb4/32.png) [@NoLAFIN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoLAFIN)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/83 "2010-06-16T18:50:34Z")
> [@Private\_Bin](#): > > Not really a ‘rebirth of the world’ story, but When the Wind Blows is a graphic novel adapted into a cartoon about a couple of charming pensioners slowly dying from radiation poisoning. WOW! That was a blast from the past! I read and re-read the graphic novel about a dozen times as a tween/teen in Finland. I kept checking it out of the library so often, that they had to put in a new checkout card in the back pocket to replace the one I’d filled out. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/84 "2010-06-16T18:52:33Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > \ > > Someone upthread mentioned _No Death of Grass_ by **John Christopher** as a ‘cozy’ catastrophe, but the characters shed their veneer of civilisation and start killing to get their own way almost immediately! Even before most other people realise there’s an emergency.\ [The Onion article: In Retrospect, I Guess We Might Have Resorted To Cannibalism A Bit Early.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/in-retrospect-i-guess-we-might-have-resorted-to-ca,10878/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/85 "2010-06-16T19:46:38Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > I like Lucifer’s Hammer (at least up to the war) but I’m curious what you found so depressing about _Earth Abides_? Or, at least what’s more depressing about it than other post-apocalyptic novels. It’s been quite a while, but I think what I found so depressing was the passivity of the characters. They really didn’t seem to want to get off their backsides and actually accomplish anything. As I recall (it has been a while), they didn’t have much of a problem surviving, but really didn’t have much interest in rebuilding a civil society. They just kind of hung around and ran out the clock. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/86 "2010-06-16T19:58:36Z")
Has anyone suggested ‘Damnation Alley’ yet? Personally, I loved ‘The Postman’. I read it as a serial in Asimov. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/87 "2010-06-16T20:48:05Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > Seconding “Earth Abides.” Wonderful book. This is what I came in to suggest. I have my own one-handed sledgehammer in the garage, just in case. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/88 "2010-06-16T22:54:04Z")
It’s funny you should mention ‘The World As We Know It.’ There’s a YA trilogy by Susan Pfeiffer where that’s the title of the first book. The disaster is unusual - a collision with a meteor brings the moon closer to earth - and the enormous repercussions of that trivial-sounding event are dealt with realistically. The first book starts a little slowly, but it’s well worth carrying on. Well, if you like YA fiction, that is. > [@Private\_Bin](#): > > Not really a ‘rebirth of the world’ story, but When the Wind Blows is a graphic novel adapted into a cartoon about a couple of charming pensioners slowly dying from radiation poisoning. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EbsrJuAoQo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EbsrJuAoQo) > > Also, a TV series from the 80s called Threads sounds good, but I haven’t seen it. > > [Thread - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads) I came in here to mention those. WTWB is incredibly touching, and Threads left me sitting stock still with my mouth open and tears streaming down my face. Definitely watch this if you’re in the mood for something really depressing. Sounds strange, but sometimes that’s what you want! 😃 I’ll be adding a few books from this thread to my Amazon wishlist. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/89 "2010-06-17T01:35:46Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Terry Brooks’ _Shannara_ books also take place in the far future after a global apocalypse, though those are fantasy novels. There’s a whole lot of what the OP doesn’t want in that trilogy. Lots of magic, monsters, the supernatural… If you can deal with some alt-tech (no robots/cyborgs etc) you might like **Oryx and Crake** and **The Year of The Flood** by Margaret Atwood. Or for a straight up “this is what happens after nuclear war” story, **Z for Zachariah** by Robert C. O’Brien. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/90 "2010-06-17T01:57:19Z")
[A Pail of Air](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air), a short story by Fritz Leiber, describes how people manage to survive when the Earth is torn away from the Sun, and all the gases in the atmosphere freeze out into drifts of “snow.” ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/91 "2010-06-17T02:00:01Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > There’s a whole lot of what the OP doesn’t want in that trilogy. Lots of magic, monsters, the supernatural… Absolutely. I wasn’t mentioning Shannara in response to the OP but rather to another post in the thread. Definitely not what the OP was looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/92 "2010-06-17T02:17:57Z")
Alas, Babylon. Still a great novel after all these years. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/93 "2010-06-17T02:55:01Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > Sounds a lot like [Testament](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/) Holy crap, I saw that on tv (PBS) in the 80’s. That movie nearly killed me, I cried so hard. It was really well done & very believable, which made it all the more devastating. I’ve never had the nerve to go watch it again. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/94 "2010-06-17T05:13:26Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Can you recommend a tale (novel, movie, or otherwise, but not video games) that takes place in a ruined future with regular humans facing non-supernatural, non-supertechnological forces? Bonus points if the story is focused on problems inherent in human society and makes external/environmental threats secondary. > > Basically, I’d love to read about what might happen if the World As We Know It ceases to function, but the laws of physics and biology stay the same. Orson Scott Card’s _The Folk of the Fringe_: stories _set_ in a post-apocalyptic world, but really they’re about people and families and religion and communities. Written before he went off the deep end, and in my opinion some of the best stuff he ever wrote. (Though be warned the last story has just a little bit of non-naturally-explainable mysticism, although I like it quite a bit.) I also second the Octavia Butler books already mentioned as fitting all the OP criteria. Although _Y, the Last Man_ technically fits the criteria, I thought it started strong but ended weak. I Do Not Like stories where a central mystery is presented and then not explained (and some of the potential explanations, err, don’t exactly follow the rules of physics and biology that I know). ---
**Author:** ![Kylede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kylede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kylede)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/95 "2010-06-17T06:10:37Z")
DUH, I already posted and I forgot one of my favorite books Evolution, by Stephen Baxter It is actually the total story of the evolution of primates. from the first proto-primate, a shrew like creature named Pura, through the extinction event that ended the reign of Dinosaurs. Then up through monkeys, ape, proto-human, and up to the current day…Then it gets interesting. It explores what primates may evolve and what the rest of our world may evolve into post-humanity. The best part is each story, each era, each part of our past, present and future, is told from an almost first person narative. It is truly tragic, when in the first few pages Pura, the shrewlike proto-primate, has to eat her young so she can survive the winter. But you know she will survive to have another litter, because she is the ancestor to us all ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/96 "2010-06-17T06:14:12Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Terry Brooks’ _Shannara_ books also take place in the far future after a global apocalypse, though those are fantasy novels. These (at least, the ones I read) definitely fall into the category of “magic”. I always thought that it might be a post-apoc setting; I never thought the author would explicitly make it one. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/97 "2010-06-17T11:55:36Z")
This is what I wrote about _The Death of Grass_ by **John Christopher** when I re-read it last year (contains major spoilers) [spoiler]I read this years ago, saw the film once, and heard an edited adaptation on the radio recently… so when this got reissued I was keen to read it again… It’s good; like John Wyndham with nasty characters as the protagonists! (And, indeed, most other people are very quick to throw off law and order as well, and look out for their own. Those that aren’t are mainly portrayed as being a bit slow on the uptake.) The crisis is slow to build, so everybody in the country is edgy, but when the balloon goes up (as one of the characters actually says) our little group of refugees are among the first to disregard the law and shoot their way through an army roadblock the same day! News of almost anything dries up almost immediately and our ever-growing gang travel northwards in a vacuum of news, towards a remote farm they should be safe at, sloughing off civilisation as they go… Of course, when they get there, the place is already overfull and the protagonist is unwilling to abandon his new lackeys, so trouble ensues. The end tries to be positive, but further disaster lurks ahead, if only because there are now way too many people for the place to support![/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/98 "2010-06-17T14:19:33Z")
> [@NeverWinter](#): > > **Wolf and Iron** by Gordon R. Dickson > > Review of the story here. > [http://www.sffworld.com/book/4608.html](http://www.sffworld.com/book/4608.html) I’ll second this. No magic, zombies, cyborg killbots, etc. No catastrophic “event,” just a gradual global financial/social meltdown. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/99 "2010-06-18T13:24:33Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > **The Quiet Earth** is IMHO a pretty impressive and depressing film that’s post-apocalyptic, but may not meet your requirements (it’s more a “last man on earth” story). I came in here to recommend this. When I saw it in the theater back in the 80’s, it was a big WTF/OMG/BRILLIANT!!!11! I haven’t seen it since it’s release, but it has always stuck with me. ---
**Author:** ![Tetramydes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/41988e/32.png) [@Tetramydes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tetramydes)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/100 "2010-06-19T01:47:12Z")
I recommend **Souls in the Great Machine** and its sequels by Sean McMullen. It is set in a post apocalyptic Australia where the population has rediscovered a medieval level of technology but orbiting EMP satellites left over from a long forgotten war frustrate nearly all further developments. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238.md?page=6)