I’ve got a couple.
‘The City, Not Long After’ by Pat Murphy
‘Vanishing Point’ by Michaela Roessner
The latter is set in the Winchester House in San Jose. Both are great, women-oriented, exciting reads.
Another vote for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
Same story, published under 2 different names. I’m not sure the exact reason; sometimes there is a British title re-named for U.S. audiences, and vice versa.
Also, sometimes a slightly different version of the book is published in an anthology or pulp, as compared to the stand-alone novel. Sometimes the anthologized/pulp version comes first as an original, and the author later fleshes it out. Conversely, the latter version could be condensed from the original.
I’ve only read Re-Birth in an anthology. I wonder how it may differ from the version published as The Chrysalids.
Similarly, I’ve read two versions of A. E. van Vogt’s The Weapon Shops of Isher: as titled, and (a shorter version) anthologized as just The Weapon Shop. I’m not sure which version was first.
First of all, if someone liked Lucifer’s Hammer there is no reason that they wouldn’t like Footfall, which is by the same authors, and is in many ways similar.
For younger readers, I recommend the Tripods series by John Christopher, and his other, lesser-known series (which begins with The Prince In Waiting ).
Has anyone else here hear of a series of books called The Pelbar Cycle ? (by Paul O. Williams). They’re now out of print, but are 7 books set three or four hundred years post-nuclear-war, and are fun but cheesy.
My guess would be On The Beach. It is well-respected and well-known outside of the sci-fi world. It’s hard to imagine most of these books being taught in 10th grade English. It’s about a bunch of people in Melbourne who are waiting for the fallout to come kill them. Is that it?
Lynn–Nice to know that someone else out there re-reads Gate to Women’s Country periodically like I do. Sometimes, I get the urge to say “There’s no fucking in Hades” to someone, but I restrain myself.
I just thought of a great one. It’s not really a novel; it’s a long short story in Stephen King’s anthology Nightmares and Dreamscapes, but most definitely worth a read if you’re into the genre. The protagonists in The End Of The Whole Mess discover a small town where there’s never been any aggression or crime, so they develop a concentrated formula of its ground water and use a volcanic eruption to spread it worldwide, thinking that will be the end of war. It seems to work, but it turns out that it also causes the entire world population to contract Alzheimers’s.
I’m not a huge fan of Stephen King but this one is chilling…and very good. In his forward to the anthology, King says that his stories keep him awake at night. Serves him right.
Speaking of Stephen King–his short story “The Mist” could be included on this list. It gave me nightmares for weeks after I first read it.
Also, “Eternity Road” by Jack McDevitt is an interesting read, set a few hundred years into the future after a nuclear war.