I'm off on holiday soon and am looking for a decent apocalyptic novel to read. Any recommendations?
Something like The Stand, The Passage, The Road or Swan Song (all of which I've read).
Thank you hive mind, see you in the wasteland!
One by Conrad Williams.
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
The Death of Grass - John Christopher
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Earth Abides - George R. Stewart
all very good and full of ideas, some more gentle than others.
I've read the last of those - Earth Abides - some interesting things about new tribes emerging.
Louise Welsh's Plague Times trilogy. two thumbs up!
a couple more
The Drowned World - JG Ballard
The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham
Both of these concern the ice caps melting; the latter tracks before, during and after.
The Wool trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust).
Thanks, all.
If you're looking for a pulp apocalypse novel series then Jerry Ahern's "Survivalist" series might be an option. I'm loathe to recommend it since there are a range of weaknesses but as brain candy goes it works fairly well. Mind you, I'm looking at this issue from the point of view of a teenage recovering from a week at Pwllehli Butlins with my family and grandmother so ...
It is jingoistic to say the least. Misogynistic might also be applicable. All said though it requires little in the way of thought or engagement. For all that though there is something compelling about the series.
Also ... Brin's "The Postman" is a far better novel than the film. "O-zone" is reasonable. Philip K Dick's "Penutlimate Truth" works well. I've a soft spot for "Trinity's Child" by Prochnau, filmed as "By Dawn's Early Light" and does a pretty good job.
Christopher's "Death of Grass" is quite a brutal variant to the normal 'cosy catastrophe' of Wyndham. If we're straying into this territory though I would also add in Hoyle's "Black Cloud".
Dated as it, I'd also have to include Wells' "Shape of Things to Come". The 'history' (novel is probably the wrong word) of coming generations makes for uncomfortable reading. Mind you, much of his output is challenging from the point of view of modern sensibilities.
Why-oh-why have I or anybody else not mentioned "Canticle for Leobowitz"? That has to be there for sure. Leaving aside pulp sensibilities there are so many other dimensions to it. Not least it's reference in later episodes of Babylon 5.
Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold" expores this territory although you may want to exercise caution regarding some of the sensibilities expressed therein.
Oh, and of course we have to include the prog's own "Strontium Dog" ...
1984.
Two more - The Dying Earth by Jack Vance from 1950. As the title might suggest, this is set in the distant future, when the sun is in its final phases and Earth is on the way out, the descendants of humanity living in the ruin of the old world (there's a phase I've heard somewhere before).
Notable for the use of techno-magic (both technology and magic were created in the forgotten past and there is no distinction made between the two). Spells are memorised and activated by speaking commands, the formulas then forgotten and have to be re-memorised in order to cast again. This magic system is still the basis of Dungeons & Dragons.
Second book is The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson from 1908 featuring visions of the decline of Earth and (spoilers) the death of the solar system in the far future. If Dungeons & Dragons was based on The Dying Earth then Cthulhu and Lovecraftian cosmic horror was based on this book.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.
It was the basis for the movie "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston.
The same author also wrote "The Incredible Shrinking Man".