Do you have any recommendations for post-apocalyptic novels?
Asked by
Frankie (
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July 6th, 2010
I’ve recently discovered an interest in post-apocalyptic novels and would love to read more. So far I’ve read Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I’ve requested The Road from my university library, but I’m unsure how to go about searching for other novels of this topic—so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I’m not very interested in sci-fi, so post-apocalyptic novels of a more realistic nature would be of more interest to me. Thanks!
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29 Answers
Amnesiascope and/or Our Ecstatic Days by Steve Erickson.
You are on to a good one…The Road. Cormack McCarthy. Written in his spare prose, just like the landscape in which the story unfolds. Suitably depressing. Good post apocalypse tale.
I randomly selected a book from the library one day – “The Brief History of the Dead”.
It doesn’t fall into the tragically depressed agony of many post-apocalyptic novels, but the story is fascinating. I am fervently hoping someone falls in love with it and turns it into a movie. It deserves to be a movie.
The Stand by Stephen King
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
On the Beach
Central Passage
A Canticle for Leibowitz
War Day
The Postman
Alas, Babylon
Lucifer’s Hammer is a great read!
How about Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (the basis for the game STALKER)
World War Z
The Last Book in the Universe (it’s a YA book, but it’s good)
The Road, definitely. You’ll love it, but it’s extremely bleak.
Say what you will about the Left Behind series, it is set post the Apocalypse.
The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire by John Christopher. It is a trilogy a.k.a. “The Tripods”. England made them into a television series that is available on YouTube, if you want to check it out, but it didn’t make it through all 3 books. Disney know owns the rights.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I’ll be coming back to this thread throughout the summer as I work through all the books!
Z for Zachariah
The Gormenghast series
Y the Last Man (graphic novel)
In the Drift
Steel Beach
Between the Strokes of Night
Shadow of the Torturer (and the rest of the Book of the New Sun series)
Stephen King’s Dark Tower series takes place in a fantastical universe, loosely based on our own with post-apocalyptic themes. They are some of my all-time favorite stories. So it may not satisfy your criteria in the strictest sense, I think any fan of the genre would very likely enjoy reading the series.
Seeing that someone recommended Y The Last Man, I’d add Wasteland(comics), I realize you mentioned novels on your post but both Y and Wasteland are pretty far from your standard comicbook fare and are both great series, I’m sure you can get the gist of both of them from Wikipedia.
Don’t know about the book, but I enjoyed ‘the Book of Eli’ movie very much.
The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway
I’m sure I should be getting paid for the amount of times I’ve recommended this book… it really is awesome
Oh oh oh please do read “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood! It’s even more fun when you read it after Oryx and Crake as a previous person had mentioned!
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is amazing! It’s a trilogy, and the last book will be coming out August 25th.
If you are interested (or can be persuaded to become interested) in graphic novels, “Nausicaa from the Valley of the Wind” by Hayao Miyazaki is really worth checking out. It was the precursor of the anime that launched Miyazaki into the limelight, but explores the themes of human-nature connection, pacifism and spirituality in great detail.
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
I’ll second Walter Miller’s “A Canticle for Liebowitz” and Niven&Pournelle’s “Lucifer’s Hammer”.
More answers here and here.
I like S.M. Stirling’s Change Series myself.
@ParaParaYukiko I just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy, and it was incredible. I cannot wait for the third installment. You a Gale or Peeta fan??
@Supergirl I know – those books are so awesome. I lost so much sleep from not being able to put those books down… I’m definitely a Peeta fan myself. It’s so cruel of the publisher, making us wait until the end of August for Mockingjay!
I second the Hunger Games trilogy. Awesome read.
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