recommended reading

[daboarder]

Any one got any recommendations for good post apocalyptic fiction? its always so hard to find the good stuff.

[Wolfshade]

There are some suggestions for books here: http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?31205-BoLs-Book-Club&highlight=BOOKS

Though I do not know if they are any good or indeed if they are post apocalyptic

[daboarder]

cheers wolfshade, I didn't really see to much post apoc fiction in there so I figured I'd create a specific thread, see if anyone had anything specific they'd suggest.

[Wolfshade]

No that's fine most of the stuff I hadn't heard of in there so I didn't know. I thought that you might like some of those titles as generally the posters in there and down in the Oooob have similiar tastes.

The Time Magazine suggestes these: http://entertainment.time.com/2010/06/08/top-10-post-apocalyptic-books/

and there is another here: http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/post-apocalyptic-science-fiction.php#crowd

[Psychosplodge]

Electric Church, Jeff Somers. Very much feels like a Kal Jerico book set in the near future. There's four sequels as well...

[YorkNecromancer]

I really like John Wyndham - the "cosy apocalypse" is simultaneously less awful (because the protagonists are so rarely in the same sort of danger you get in, say, a zombie film) and more awful (because all they can do is watch as the world completely falls apart, powerlessly).

"Day of The Triffids" is obviously his best-known (and probably best), but I really like "The Kraken Wakes"; it's got a surprisingly "hard" sci-fi feel, despite being fairly ridiculous.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Kraken-Wakes-John-Wyndham/dp/0141032995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375184565&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Kraken+Wakes

In terms of more modern stuff, I think the best post-apocalypse is probably Garth Ennis' "Crossed", just because it's so relentlessly bloody horrible. It's an active deconstruction of the current zombie apocalypse wish fulfilment, and manages to include some of the most sickening violence ever seen in a comic.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crossed-Volume-1-Jacen-Burrows/dp/1592910904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375184575&sr=8-1&keywords=Crossed

It's a throwback to being very young, but I remain a huge fan of the "Tripods" trilogy. It's a sort-of sequel to "War of The Worlds", only with the central change being that the Martians won, and are now "mars-forming" Earth so that it's an optimal environment for them. Human civilisation has been utterly pacified through brain surgery done at puberty. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tripods-Trilogy-White-Mountains-Puffin/dp/0140317228/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375184980&sr=1-2&keywords=the+tripods+trilogy

Finally, by the same author, while I've not read it, but "The Death of Grass" is meant to be exceptional. I'm very impressed by the simplicity of the central idea. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Grass-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141190175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375184857&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Death+of+Grass

[Psychosplodge]

Kind of apocalyptic, especially in the sequels. Good read, couldn't put them down once I'd started.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Without-Warning-John-Birmingham/dp/178116603X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z

[Phototoxin]

Any one got any recommendations for good post apocalyptic fiction? its always so hard to find the good stuff.

This (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/index.html) is good because of this (http://www.anorak.co.uk/288298/scare-stories/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html/)

Tee hee!

[Psychosplodge]

This (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/index.html) is good because of this (http://www.anorak.co.uk/288298/scare-stories/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html/)

Tee hee!


http://youtu.be/fFfWykH05Gw

[scadugenga]

SM Stirling's Emberverse series

Original trilogy:
Dies the Fire
The Protector's War
A Meeting at Corvallis

Subsequent novels:

The Sunrise Lands
The Scourge of God
The Sword of the Lady
The High King of Montival
Tears of the Sun
Lord of Mountains

Ridiculously fantastic stuff. The original trilogy is perhaps the best as it takes things moving forward from the initial catastrophic event.

[Denzark]

Please ignore YorkNecromancer on this one, he is an English Teacher and therefore disqualified;)

For Post apocalyptic, I would try:

The Handmaid's Tale
The Hunger Games books (for 'younger' readers but still quite good).
The David Weber 'Safehold' series
The Tripods books by John Christopher

I know they are slightly different, but I find alternative histories where the Nazzys won, quite fascinating in a similar 'what if?' vein:

Fatherland (the daddy of them all)
The Man in the High Castle.

[YorkNecromancer]

Please ignore YorkNecromancer on this one, he is an English Teacher and therefore disqualified

Hey!

And I was all ready to recommend "The Handmaid's tale", but didn't because it was too Englishteachery!

WHICH IS TOTALLY A REAL WORD.

And I totally recommended The Tripods first! I totally did!

*makes a sad, lonely noise*

Back on topic, Denzark is right, "The Handmaid's Tale" is amazing.

[daboarder]

Its alright York I believe you......This time!

I've read triffids, Will be looking into everything you guys have posted with much enthusiasm. Won't touch hunger games I'm afraid though....read the overview and it just seems far to illogical and disjointed....

I must say despite Loving King's non-"horror" work I had not heard of the stand, that is going straight to the top of my list cheers wolf.

I guess if I can throw in my two cents for others,

I am legend.
Eternity road.
The Time Machine (though thats straying a bit into sci-fi)
The dark tower novels are fantastic
The Chrysalids

EDIT: Oh if you can find it amtrak wars is good

[Psychosplodge]

EDIT: Oh if you can find it amtrak wars is good

I second that. (it's usually available off those little second hand bookstalls in markets, picked up the entire series for less than £10)

If you like alternate history check out Harry Turtledove, and John Birmingham.

[Denzark]

Yorky - ha - j for joke - I know you're on your favourite time of year.... Do you remember a book where there is a loan Brit fella cutting about, not wanting to go in cars because he knows the rad-count inside is higher - seem to think that might have been forced upon me in school but can't think of the title for the life of me?



I give a big 'roger that' to Harry Turtledove on the alternative history side - I particularly like 'Guns of the South' in which a South African separatist faction travels back in time to the US civil war to give Robert E Lee AK47s.

[Psychosplodge]

I give a big 'roger that' to Harry Turtledove on the alternative history side - I particularly like 'Guns of the South' in which a South African separatist faction travels back in time to the US civil war to give Robert E Lee AK47s.

Yes, Brilliant book.
Also the timeline that starts with "How few remain" and runs through to after a different second world war.

[DarkLink]

EDIT: Oh if you can find it amtrak wars is good

Terry Brooks is technically post apocalypse, though it's more Lord of the Rings until you get much later into the series and you find out that it really is post apocalypse. But he's got a series now that covers the immediate post apocalypse that is a lot like what Amtrak Wars sounds like from reading the wikipedia description.

[Denzark]

Aha - David Gemmell Sipstrassi tales anybody?

[daboarder]

Aha - David Gemmell Sipstrassi tales anybody?

Gemmell's are good, but the only really Post apoc one is wolf in shadow, the rest are kinda like fantasy with guns....Great reads, but not what I would call post apoc fiction, I mean technically speaking even the drenai is a "post apoc" setting as discovered in the skillganon books.

Gemmell is one of my favourite writers but his stories do tend to have a habit of converging into a bit of the same mess so to speak.

His best book is still probably his first, legend is just so awesome.

And John Shannon was so much cooler before Gemmell nocked his hard edges out....the whole crazy holy man gunslinger with no compromise.....LOVE IT!

[Cap'nSmurfs]

The one indispensible novel set after the nuclear apocalypse is A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller. Extremely good.

Excellent for fans of the mystery and obscurity of the 40k imperium and their mindset, too.

[YorkNecromancer]

Do you remember a book where there is a loan Brit fella cutting about, not wanting to go in cars because he knows the rad-count inside is higher - seem to think that might have been forced upon me in school but can't think of the title for the life of me?

That does sound very familiar, but I suspect a little before my time, so to speak. :) Our current novels are "Coraline", "Holes", "The Hunger Games", "Abomination", "Private Peaceful", "The Woman In Black" and obviously "Of Mice and Men". None of which have radiation. Though I have managed to work a frankly inordinate amount of references to the Fallout universe into several lessons now.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Another fun one is Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

[Ze_Shoggoth]

There is a book I have been looking for that post apocalyptic (ish) it has vampires kinda (and no its probably not the vampire earth series before anybody says it was written at least 2 decades before)
Id recomend that if i could.
handmaidens tale is okay.
I am legend, just try to ignore the film.

I like keeping it real. But that's more magical

[daboarder]

There is a book I have been looking for that post apocalyptic (ish) it has vampires kinda (and no its probably not the vampire earth series before anybody says it was written at least 2 decades before)
Id recomend that if i could.
handmaidens tale is okay.
I am legend, just try to ignore the film.

I like keeping it real. But that's more magical

handmaidens must be pretty good if people are recommending it this often.

[YorkNecromancer]

handmaidens must be pretty good if people are recommending it this often.

It's one of very few post-apocalyptic nightmares that feel completely and utterly real, like they could genuinely happen.

[Ze_Shoggoth]

It's one of very few post-apocalyptic nightmares that feel completely and utterly real, like they could genuinely happen.

I have to agree though do try to avoid the TV movie.

[Denzark]

I try to avoid all made for tv movies - excepting feature length episodes of stuff like BSG...

[Psychosplodge]

Have you considered reading Battle Royal?
Just finished it, and while it might not be post apocalyptic, it's certainly dystopian...
Very good book.