Apocalyptic Fiction.

I've read The Road, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Pulse, I Am Legend and even The Walking Dead and Y The Last Man comic books but what else is good?

List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction

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The Freedom Roads

Just the first titles that came to mind. The first one Gyo is by far the best: super straight-forward and minimalistic but all that much more powerful. The last one Crossed is pretty much the most horrifying thing I have ever read. It's not particularly good. It's just horrifying.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Aye Y The Last Man is one of the best comics I've ever read. Galápagos is going on the list, they don't have it at the library.

Books like Lord of the Flies also interest me. Basically every author that disregards the world we live in and creates one out of desperation, survival of the fittest, coping, psychology, etc. has a very good chance of me eating it up.

uh is Waterworld a book? Checking... Darn.

Woops. I didn't read your post all the way already through, as short as it was.

No matter. Y The Last Man deserves numerous recommendations.

Same here. In fact, I'm sure it's a widely held interest. Not sure I can pinpoint my relationship with it. Not sure if it's the novelty of it, the imagination behind it, or the drama within it that captures my interest. It might also be that such stories are constantly tasked with saying something true about humanity, so they often feel profound.

utopian fiction FTW!

You compare utopian to apocalyptic fiction?

Utopian fiction would be like your movie question from a while ago: nothing but good times.

Well that's rarely the case. Equilibrium wasn't all good times. People died Planet! While reading poetry man! One man's blablah is another man's yadayada. Come to think of it I don't think I've read a single Utopian novel.

Yeah, but not said-utopia/actually-dystopia. I'm talking true utopia. Just good times all around. No conflict. Just fun. I've read stuff like that, but it wasn't a societal thing, just slice of life. I'd like to see an extended study of an entire society that lives that way and without any hidden dystopian ironies.

My next novel!

It'd be an island of women. With both boobs intact... And symmetrical.

Do you mind if I use that?

Hell yes.

No **** it I want to read that.

On a totally different note I'm picking up Neuromancer today.

While not strictly apocalyptic, you should read some Jack London stories. To Build a Fire comes to mind but he also did some fantasy-ish survival stories -- I remember one where a gold prospector or hunter or something fights a Mastadon but I don't remember the title.

Here are a few favorite Apocalypse/Post-apocalypse books:




A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The M.D. by Thomas M. Disch
Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban

I'll try and think of some more. I just read Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny. Not one of my favorites, but it's okay.

A Canticle for Liebowitz shows up on almost every top 10 list I've seen. Interesting.

I was saying this to K elsewhere, but I like apocalyptic fiction because of the "clean slate" aspect of it. There's still back story, sure, but in a way you already know everything important, because there's so little to know all of a sudden. It also puts you in the shoes of the character; everything they know is probably gone, too. So you get to "start over" with them. That's always appealed to me, narratively.

Anyway, this is probably why I like "Fallout 3" so much.

I read The Road as well (posted a review in the Reading Tab thread, I believe). Not sure if I've read much more in this niche genre. I'm reading the first of Asimov's Foundation novels which feel a tiny, tiny bit like them in that they're on such a large time scale, but it's just sort of a rough similar feel rather than a direct similarity.

I'm almost definitely going to check some of these titles out, though. Particularly if they're freely available or a few bucks in Kindle form.

I think the clean slate thing also give writers and their characters a tremendous amount of freedom. It's incredibly satisfying to read about characters finding a new safe house, new weapons or even just supplies. Even with books I get this RPG feeling of character development that's very unique in the post apocalyptic genre.

Gotta by me a Kindle. I have a birthday coming up. Hmm. Yoda how much are books when the writers are dead, generally? All the money I spend on English fiction the thing would pay for itself probably.