# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/101 "2010-06-19T05:29:12Z")
Jean Hegland’s [Into the Forest](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86236.Into_the_Forest). It’s one of the few post-apocalyptic stories I’ve come across that are about women – in this case, two sisters trying to survive the end of civilization in their isolated Northern California home. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/102 "2010-06-25T06:31:17Z")
S M Stirling’s _The Peshawar Lancers_. Comets hit the earth in the 1870s, destroying the Atlantic countries by tsunami and global winter. The starving remnants of the British relocate to India, establishing a New Empire. The story takes place in the year 2025, when Delhi is the seat of the Lion Throne, controlling the largest and richest empire in the world. But someone is killing off members of a prominent family, and no-one can figure out why… ---
**Author:** ![equinoxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/22d042/32.png) [@equinoxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/equinoxi)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/103 "2010-06-25T07:34:51Z")
12 monkeys is one of my favorite, but time machine is involved. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/104 "2010-06-25T10:34:30Z")
I didn’t see any mention of Footfall, which is alien invasion based, but doesn’t have magic or alien technology that saves the day or anything. In fact the earth gets its ass handed to them quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/105 "2010-06-25T12:50:06Z")
Sorry if this was suggested already: Handmaid’s Tale. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/106 "2010-06-25T13:14:04Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > S M Stirling’s _The Peshawar Lancers_. Comets hit the earth in the 1870s, destroying the Atlantic countries by tsunami and global winter. The starving remnants of the British relocate to India, establishing a New Empire. The story takes place in the year 2025, when Delhi is the seat of the Lion Throne, controlling the largest and richest empire in the world. But someone is killing off members of a prominent family, and no-one can figure out why… A great yarn and one of my favourites but not, I think, what the OP is asking for. It’s post-apocalyptic but after 155 years the apocalypse is well in the past and the world is no longer a ruin. Oh, and you could argue it involves magic/the supernatural. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/107 "2010-06-25T14:59:49Z")
**J. G. Ballard** has various novels set during or after some sort of disaster, although his characters don’t necessarily deal with their problems entirely rationally! _Hello, America_ is possibly the one to start with. **M. John Harrison** ’s first novel was _The Committed Men_, about a post-disaster Britain, which I enjoyed, but I believe he’s not so keen on it! If you’re looking for something a bit different, _The Slynx_ by **Tatyana Tolstaya** (some sort of relative to Tolstoy) is set a couple of hundred years in the future in a collapsed Russia… ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/108 "2010-06-28T07:13:03Z")
Wow. Thank you all for the responses. I was away for a week or so and didn’t expect SO many… excellent! I’m trying to make sense of all the suggestions, so I think I’m going to start with the ones that sound most familiar and/or interesting to me, followed by the other most popular ones, followed by the rest if there’s time. **Dies the Fire** was actually the very reason this thread got started. I started reading the first book, got drawn in a bit, and then the world just got weirder and weirder and I couldn’t suspend disbelief any longer. I think I was hoping for an examination of human nature in the midst of collapse and the bending of physical laws just seemed unnecessarily distracting. Anyway. To prep myself for the coming Summer of Apocalypses, I watched The Road and The Book of Eli in movie form. **The Road** was incredibly taxing. I think one sentence from the film summed it up: “It was a world waiting to die.” There was no rebirth to speak of (or even one imminent by the end), no hope or change or drama, just despair weighed down by more despair with bleak desperation waiting at the end. In terms of realism, I can fully believe this is what might happen should some sort of catastrophe occur… but in terms of being a narrative, it didn’t work for me. It followed no traditional structure and instead started out bleak and only went downhill from there. I don’t think I’d be able to read a whole book of this without wanting to kill myself too… or is there something more redemptive about the book? **Eli** was an amusing watch, but not at all what I expected. I only remembered the name from this thread and not the comment following it talking about the Biblical aspect. That’ll teach me. :smack: Still, I suppose this is what The Matrix would’ve been if the religious right wrote it. I will say I actually loved the old **Postman** movie – it’s one of my favorites, actually – so I’ll definitely be picking up the novel. From there, might move on to **Alas, Babylon** , **The Lebowski Chronicles** , and then maybe **Lucifer’s Hammer** and the others. If anything I said in this post changes your suggestions, please do let me know… but otherwise, I’ll keep y’all updated as I go 🙂 See you on the other side of 2012… ---
**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 28, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/109 "2010-06-28T18:27:55Z")
I liked the movie “The Postman” okay, but I really liked the novel. In fact, I should probably own it so I can re-read it at will. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/110 "2010-06-28T18:30:04Z")
1.) \*\*Farnham’s Freehold \*\*by Robert Heinlein. The only bit of oddness to contend with is: the idea that a nuclear explosion could knock you through time. 2.) The 2008 film **Doomsday** had a very interesting premise (Hadrian’s Wall has been rebuilt to quarantine off pretty much all of Scotland due to a terrible virus) but execution so bad it’s laughable. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys terrible movies, see this; otherwise, skip it. 3.) **Grave of the Fireflies**. This film isn’t post-apocalyptic, per se, in that the rest of the world carries on, but it does deal with the lives of two children in the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe. ---
**Author:** ![Headrush042](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Headrush042](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Headrush042)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/111 "2010-06-29T02:28:25Z")
Showtime TV series _Jeremiah_. People make fun of me for liking it, as it stars Luke Perry, but he’s actually very good in it. A man-made virus being researched is let loose on the world and within weeks kills everyone who has gone through puberty. _Jeremiah_ picks up 20 years later and shows you what the pre-pubescent kids came up with to survive and rebuild. Very well-done series (2 seasons). ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/112 "2010-06-29T12:53:09Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > **Dies the Fire** was actually the very reason this thread got started. I started reading the first book, got drawn in a bit, and then the world just got weirder and weirder and I couldn’t suspend disbelief any longer. I think I was hoping for an examination of human nature in the midst of collapse and the bending of physical laws just seemed unnecessarily distracting. > > … Interesting! A bit of a hijack but could you expand on this? I don’t see how things got “weirder and weirder” in DtF. The Change was a one off event and, having changed the physical laws stayed the same. To me the first three books are very much about “an examination of human nature in the midst of collapse”. (Not trying to argue or convince you - genuinely interested in other people’s take on the book!) ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/113 "2010-06-29T14:45:31Z")
Oryx and Crake - as someone said, its a little alt-tech, but the vast majority of the alt tech are technologies being worked on now that aren’t out of reach - she doesn’t break the laws of Physics for the sake of a story. However, its far more about how the collapse comes about than the collapse itself. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/114 "2010-06-29T15:23:18Z")
Oh man, I can’t believe it took me so long to remember this and that no one else has mentioned it yet! **Dollhouse**. It took a couple episodes for Joss Whedon to figure out where he was going with it–but stick with it. It gets good. Really, really good. (And then FOX cancelled it, as per usual. But they got two seasons out of it, and enough warning to more or less wrap things up.) ETA: Most of the show itself is everything leading up to the collapse. It’s the two season-final flash-forward episodes that show you what life is like after. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/115 "2010-06-29T15:26:16Z")
If anybody here thinks that _The Road_ isn’t grim and depressing enough, then you should try [Through Darkest America](http://www.amazon.com/Through-Darkest-America-Asimov-Presents/dp/0373303025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277824924&sr=1-1), by Neal Barrett, Jr. A nuclear war wipes out most of civilization and exterminates animals, so people have to eat a breed of genetically dumbed-down people. And there’s constant war going on for no known reason. And the main character watches his family get murdered, then gets revenge, then the survivors of his revenge get revenge on him, etc… ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/116 "2010-06-29T15:35:48Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > The single most depressing book I ever read. Give me \*Lucifer’s Hammer \*any day. > [@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. > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > 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. I first read _Earth Abides_ as a teenager in the 1980s. Fantastic book, IMHO. I thought it held up quite well, though I haven’t read it in quite a while now. Here are some of my thoughts. I’ll put these in a spoiler tag for those who care about not spoiling a 60-year book: [spoiler]The most depressing thing about the book, I think, is the utter realism. The number of people that survive is not enough to maintain our current level of civilization. In the struggle just to stay alive, they don’t have the time or inclination to worry about preserving knowledge. In fact, as the protagonist gets older, he discovers that his children and grandchildren either do not believe his tales of civilization, or simply dismiss it as irrelevant to their lives. For example, they are completely uninterested in helping to get an old automobile working again, because there is little or no fuel available, and even if there were, roads have all deteriorated or become overgrown to the point that a car is useless. He struggles to teach his children to read, but they actively resist. IIRC, none of his grandchildren learn to read. Thus, all of the remaining knowledge around them is lost. Books are valued only as fire-starters. ☹ I find this completely realistic as I deal with my own son. Many things that I think are very important are completely irrelevant to him, and he actively resists me. (Even entertainment, for some trivial examples–he won’t watch _Star Wars_ or the LOTR movies, for instance.) I think this is fairly typical of children. As they mature into adolescence and adulthood, at some point in the maturing process, they start dismissing everything advocated by their parents. Anyway, back to the book. By the end of the novel, the descendants of the survivors are living a hunter/gatherer existence, and have abandoned the cities. The point of the book’s title is that the Earth continues on regardless of the human race and our civilization, or lack thereof.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/117 "2010-06-29T15:47:44Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Wow. Thank you all for the responses. I was away for a week or so and didn’t expect SO many… excellent! > > I’m trying to make sense of all the suggestions, so I think I’m going to start with the ones that sound most familiar and/or interesting to me, followed by the other most popular ones, followed by the rest if there’s time. > > […] > > From there, might move on to **Alas, Babylon** , **The Lebowski Chronicles** , and then maybe **Lucifer’s Hammer** and the others. If anything I said in this post changes your suggestions, please do let me know… but otherwise, I’ll keep y’all updated as I go 🙂 > > See you on the other side of 2012… You may want to save Pournelle and Niven until they finish their latest, an updated “big rock hits Earth” story. No title yet, but at their previous work rate, it should be out by next year or maybe early 2012. Just in time… As others have mentioned in this thread, **Lucifer’s Hammer** is painfully dated, and to a current reader, doesn’t wear its 70’s upbringing very well. (Though as Pournelle did work for the mayor of L.A’s office for awhile, perhaps the pre-impact political and social observations weren’t that far off?) The scenes of the comet hitting and the physical aftermath, however, are excellent. Think I mentioned **Warday** from Kunetka and Streiber earlier. It’s another child of its Cold War times, but it’s really quite good and gave a great feeling of verisimilitude. (Don’t worry, there aren’t any space aliens in it.) Love posts like these; I learn from them of so many new choices. ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/118 "2010-06-29T21:37:01Z")
Orson Scott Card’s “The Folk of the Fringe” is a collection of short stories that fit this description. The first story in the book is pretty good and has a sub-story that has stuck with me in a chilling way. The rest of the book was pretty forgettable, not one of Card’s best works. ---
**Author:** ![Mervyn\_Pumpkinhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@Mervyn\_Pumpkinhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mervyn_Pumpkinhead)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/119 "2010-07-01T06:49:24Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > If you’re looking for something a bit different, _The Slynx_ by **Tatyana Tolstaya** (some sort of relative to Tolstoy) is set a couple of hundred years in the future in a collapsed Russia… You beat me to recommending _ **The Slynx** _! I will be reading this just as soon as it arrives in the mail. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter for anyone interested: [http://www.wnyc.org/books/10196](http://www.wnyc.org/books/10196) ---
**Author:** ![Dennis3240](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@Dennis3240](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dennis3240)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/120 "2010-07-03T23:21:44Z")
“And The Earth Abides” is a book that covers just that. 99% of mankind perishes and the happy survivers go about there lives “post organized society”. No cyborgs or other silliness. Can’t remember the author but that is the book title. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238.md?page=7)