What are some great post-apocalyptic novels?

[TheChristianSurvivalGuide]

PAW fiction has now become a favorite of mine. I suppose a favorite within a favorite as it could be deemed sci-fi.

I really liked Alas, Babylon and One Second After. However I did not particularly like The Postman.

What are some other good PAW books?

 

[Sphinx777]

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1000 Books To Read Before You Die​

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[SionDS]

The Walking Dead series is great.

 

[Singermom]

IMO, NOTHING beats "Alas, Babylon"!

 

[Lemmiwinks]

'Parable of the Sower' Octavia Butler

 

[Isambard]

The Road
World War Z
The Chrysalids
Day of the Triffids

 

[stonetoflesh]

Walter Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
Andre Norton - Star Man's Son
Brian Aldiss - Hothouse (The Long Afternoon of Earth)
Gordon R. Dickson - Wolf & Iron
George R. Stewart - The Earth Abides
Sterling Lanier - Hiero's Journey; The Unforsaken Hiero
Roger Zelazny - Damnation Alley
James Axler - Deathlands series, Outlander series
Paul O. Williams - The Pelbar Cycle
Philip Jose Farmer - Dark is the Sun
Poul Anderson - Vault of the Ages

 

[Blackmarch]

PAW fiction has now become a favorite of mine. I suppose a favorite within a favorite as it could be deemed sci-fi.

I really liked Alas, Babylon and One Second After. However I did not particularly like The Postman.

What are some other good PAW books?

Not a novel per se, however I've really enjoyed Battle angel alita as a post apocolyptic story.

 

[Gracchus]

One of the first science novels I got from the Science Fiction Book Club was "The Long Loud Silence" by Wilson Tucker. Not a classic perhaps, but a good read.

 

[AlexBP]

Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve. This book is nominally a "young adult" novel but is in fact wonderfully entertaining for all ages. The premise is that after most of the world is devastated by nuclear war, the survivors gather into enormous mobile cities that roam across the planet. It may sound silly but the author pulls it off with flare. Very fast-paced, entertaining, and funny.

 

[Shemjaza]

Other People have already mentioned: Earth Abides, A Canticle for Liebowitz and The Road

I'll add: A Plague of Angels and Children of the Dust (more of a young adult novel)

 

[Rai1234]

The Road
World War Z
The Chrysalids
Day of the Triffids

Definitely The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's so descriptive, realistic, chilling, sad and hopeful. I also found it a pretty quick read once I got into it/used to his style of writing.

 

[RadOwl]

It's not exactly post-apocalyptic, more like the events leading up to a totally unexpected Second Coming. Since I'm still new and can't post links, the book is Something Coming by J.M. DeBord. Website --just add .com to the title, or search Amazon. In the novel, the prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, and Jesus all come true. Just imagine if Stephen King wrote Left Behind in one big book....

 

[eclipsenow]

The Road
World War Z
The Chrysalids
Day of the Triffids

Go the Triffids! Awesome little book, with some good reflections on civilisation.

Chrysalids is also a personal favourite. The Road is so depressing! I liked "Postman" because of the internal musings of the main character rather than the plot... which seemed a bit 'cute' at parts, and the 'enhanced soldiers' battling it out at the end seemed a little forced and unnatural to the plot.

Then there's the wiki with a whole huge list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Post-apocalyptic_novels


For REAL LIFE Apocalyptic studies, try these websites that predict anarchy and breakdown as we hit peak oil.

Peak Oil, Matt Savinar, Life After the Oil Crash

or see "End of Suburbia" documentary from 2003.

THE END OF SUBURBIA

 

[Deleteriousnonsense]

However I did not particularly like The Postman.

What didn't you like about it?

 

[eclipsenow]

Personally, I loved the hero's internal dialogue, but thought the battle near the end sort of came out of nowhere.

 

[Gracchus]

Personally, I loved the hero's internal dialogue, but thought the battle near the end sort of came out of nowhere.

Real battles are usually unsatisfying.

 

[eclipsenow]

Hey, I forgot! The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling! Awesomely fleshed out world where there is still some super-high tech but also some nasty global warming scenarios.

The only problem is I found it to be more like 3 or 4 novels in 1, instead of actually 1 novel. It follows the story of 3 sisters, and if you are prepared to get 3 snapshots of the world of 2064 from very different perspectives and economies, and can cope with the novel jarringly moving from one sister to the other cloned 'twin' sister, then you might be able to enjoy Caryatids.

I also loved the Pheonix Legacy which is more of a Space Opera involving the interactions between some feuding Houses (which reminds me a little of Dune) but covers a long backstory of a post-nuclear world.

The great twist in the backstory? Civilisation starts in Australia, with us downunder types coming to rule the world! It's well worth it. Sweeping space opera, conflict, with post-apocalyptic history developing as a backstory.

Awesome! I thoroughly enjoyed this!
ChrisW's "Phoenix Legacy" page

Last but not least, you MUST read the AMTRAK WARS!

The Amtrak Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is set 1000 years after the holocaust, with the brave Amtrak Federation the last hope for civilisation in their burrowed tunnels and warrens and underground lifestyle. Their wagon-trains fight the terrible mutants on the surface, with old Indian warrior classes and names of power like "V8" and "Mega-byte". Some are even rumoured to have psychic powers. The Amtrack Federation is set to wage war with the mutants on the surface, but is everything as it seems?

 

[eclipsenow]

I KNEW I HAD FORGOTTEN THE CLASSICS OF CLASSICS! Forget Caryatids — too cerebral. Forget the space opera of the Pheonix legacy which is more of a space opera than a collapse novel. Forget everything I've said so far, especially about the Amtrack wars.

Run out and BUY these 2 novels!

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell — which is a Comet "Deep Impact" scenario, and then buy their novel Footfall which is their novel of alien invasion.

These 2 detail all the struggles of surviving in a world gone mad, when the electricity grid goes down, and the food supplies run out... what do you do?

I particularly love Footfall, set as alien invasion during the height of the Cold War.

Who would the President gather as advisors? OK — he gathers up America's best Sci-Fi authors and they have to learn to relate to the military down in the Norad Bunker! It has some darkly chilling moments, some hilarious scenes, and the mother of all incredible and awesome endings! This truly is the great comeback story against those naughty aliens. Well worth it!

 

[Henaynei]

Everything that stands: a trilogy of The Late Earth Chronicles
also the 4th in the series - Thy Kingdom Come - a really raucous ride of mind blowing imagination.