The Post Apocalyptic Book Club
Sharon June 11th, 2008
Ok, back in my end-of-days (end of book, actually ;-)) mode, I mentioned the idea of a post-apocalyptic novel reading group, and there was much rejoicing (ok, maybe not rejoicing, but at least some enthusiasm). This sort of things warms my Lit-Geek heart, so I thought I’d put together the beginnings of a reading list. What fun! And yes, I know I’m stealing Crunchy Chicken’s eco-book club idea - I promise, Crunch, I’ll pay royalties.
So in order for you to have time to have a life, but also to cover the range of things, I thought we’d do two a month. That doesn’t mean you have to read two of them, but I know a lot of people have already read these, a lot of them are, shall we say, light reading, and you don’t have to read both - or any - you can follow along and decide whether you’d like to read them later.
I’m also going to go all Professorial on y’all and offer up the option of discussing a third text, an older, literary piece that I think has something to say about the idea of post-apocalyptic novels, and I’ll offer some recommended reading as well if you want to follow the month’s theme out further. This is really mostly about me - I want to think about these things together, so I’m throwing them out. I’m still working it out, but here’s what I’m thinking.
July - Month One: The Classic Guy’s Apocalypse: Cannibalism, Cannons and Doom!
Books: _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ by Robert Heinlein and _Lucifer’s Hammer_ by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Supplemental High Culture Piece: “The Wasteland” by TS Eliot
I could have picked a lot of books to start this off, but I wanted to go to books that I think are “classic” versions of the post-apocalyptic science fiction story (the really classic 20th century ones are nuclear holocaust novels, but I think we’ll do those seperately, as their own theme later on). These aren’t the earliest science fiction books, but they are very representative of a particular genre.
The Heinlein book is, I think, flat out his best, and I used to teach it in a class on political fiction. It is not, in fact, a post-apocalyptic novel, but a novel about narrowly averted apocalypse. Heinlein has a couple of actual post-apocalyptic novels, most notably the transcendently awful _Farnham’s Freehold_, but TMIAHM has two advantages - it doesn’t suck and it also is a meditation on what is required to avert an impending environmental apocalypse.
I’m going to say upfront that I don’t think highly of _Lucifer’s Hammer_ but I include it for two reasons - one, it gets a lot of airplay. It comes up in PO discussions fairly often. The other reason is that it does a very good job of exploring the survivalist vision - something I think we’re going to end up talking about a lot.
Again, nobody has to read both, and you certainly don’t have to read “The Wasteland” - I include it because I think both Heinlein and Niven/Pournelle, both technocrats, are in some ways dancing around the self-destructiveness of modernity - both believe in technological destinies, and fundamentally dismiss the idea that self-limitation is mandatory. But neither can finally get away from what I see as an underlying unease about this idea - an unease that Eliot expresses so beautifully. So I’ll probably write a post about the links between the three texts, and if you want to read Eliot, I’d love to hear what you think.
Here’s a tentative schedule of my plan for the rest of the year, including months in which I’ll take a poll and do the books you folks want. Most of these books should be available from your local library, or through inter-library loan.
1. July - Classic Guy Apocalypses: Cannibalism, Guns and Doom: Heinlein and Niven/Pournelle, with Eliot as an option.
2. August - The Girl’s Guide to Apocalypse : Sherri Tepper’s _The Gate to Women’s Country_ and _Life as We Knew It_ by Susan Beth Pfeiffer. Optional: _The Handmaid’s Tale_ by Margaret Atwood.
I probably should have included Atwood as a primary text, but I’m assuming a lot of us read it at some point, and I think Tepper’s for all that it is very troubling, is a more creative approach to the question of gender and apocalypse. If you aren’t familiar with _Life as We Knew It_ it has been a very popular book among teenagers - including lots of teenage girls (it is a Young Adult book) and is shaping the discourse a bit. I think it is important to read popular fiction.
3. September - Energy Crash Month! Caryl Johnston’s _After the Crash_ and SM Stirling’s _Dies the Fire_. Optional Supplement: Selected poems and essays from Thoreau, Emerson and Berry
I haven’t read Johnston’s book yet, but am looking forward to it. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Stirling, who I think is a weak writer, but who I enjoy nonetheless. I want to talk about differing visions of life without much or any fossil fueled energies.
I haven’t picked the texts for each month yet, and I welcome suggestions, and votes. Here’s what I’m thinking.
4. October: Reader Choice Month - I’ll take a poll and select your faves, and put together a theme. Will it be “Zombies?” “Time Travel?” “Reversion to Hunter-Gatherer Society?” or something completely different. And how shall we choose?
5. November: Nuclear Holocaust Month! (Don’t I have the best, most cheerful titles? ;-))
I definitely want to do _Alas Babylon_ and am considering _On the Beach_ but if someone has a suggestion for a less-obvious choice than OTB, I’d welcome it. I can’t remember is _The Postman_ explicitly post nuke? I want to get that one in somewhere. I’m probably going to suggest that instead of a novel, we all watch “Dr. Strangelove” one more time, but maybe I’ll come up with something more literary. The fun is in the juxtaposition, isn’t it ;-)?
6. December: Ecological Doom Month!: Still mulling over the choices on this one - got a fave? There are so many options! Perhaps something by Kim Stanley Robinson? Suggestions? I’m almost tempted to include the horrible Michael Crichton climate-denial novel, because again, I do think it is enormously important to read and discuss the books that alter our culture, but I’ll only do it if everyone swears they will not buy it ;-).
7. January: High Culture Month - I’ll be reversing the order of things, and offering literary primary texts and a trashy supplement. Hey, it is January, right? You’ve got time to read. Maybe McCarthy’s _The Road_ and selections from _The Canterbury Tales_ (I bet you didn’t know they were post-apocalyptic - but several are plague narrative) and Boccacio’s _Decameron_ or maybe Ben Jonson’s very funny and very sad play “The Alchemist” or Mary Shelley’s _The Last Man_. Or maybe you have a suggestion? For a supplement, I’m going to to find the trashiest, worst post-apocalyptic novel ever. Suggestions?
8. February: Horrible Disease Month! - Stephen King’s _The Stand_ and Jose’ Saramago’s _Blindness_. High Culture Text: Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” - a classic plague text.
9. March - Religion and Apocalypse: Ok, this is going to generate some controversy. I’m going to suggest we read Butler’s _The Parable of the Sower_ alongside the first of the _Left Behind Novels_. The reason for the latter is that they are the single most frequently read and influential apocalyptic novels in history - and most of us ought to know what they say. One of my lit profs once observed that there has never been a time in history where what we treated as literature was so deeply disconnected to what most people are actually reading. That’s a disconnect that shouldn’t exist - because it is shaping the popular perception of apocalypse. Literary Supplement: I’m torn between _The Swiss Family Robinson_, or the Book of Revelations.
10. April - The Collapse of States: If we don’t do _The Postman_ elsewhere, certainly this. Roth’s _The Plot Against America_ is a good option. What Else? High Culture options: _Things Fall Apart_ or Narudin Farah’s _Close Sesame_
11. May - Internet Fiction Month - This month I want to showcase some of what’s out there that isn’t being formally published. I’ll put up a range of short stories and online novels that we can explore. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff being written out there. If I can get my act together, I’ll also put up a short story or two of my own, and encourage you all to do some fiction writing.
12. June - Population Apocalypses: Too Many? Too Few? Certainly PD James’ _The Children of Men_, and again, so many choices, so little time. Suggestions?
Ok, obviously, I need your input. And you might want to get reading - I’ll start with the Heinlein in the second week of July (I’m out of town the first).
Cheers - and what fun! Doom, doom and more doom!
Sharon
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- Comments(119)
This is going to be fun even if I won’t have timer to read all those books (I’ve read some of them).
I LOVE The Waste Land. But I’ve never read it as a post-apocalyptic text (must have missed something). I will certainly read it again!
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of dead land, mixing
Memory and desire…”
Sends shivers down my spine!
For nuclear holocaust month, may I suggest A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller?
And of course, this is a requisite!
http://www.siberkat.com/thedoomsong.html
For Ecological doom , might I suggest a couple by John Brunner, “Stand on Zanzibar” and “The Sheep Look Up”.
For horrible disease month, there was a book by Margaret Atwood…. I can’t remember the title…. I don’t even remember how good it was…. (though it probably was — I tend to like Atwood) but it was definitely a post-apoc. horrible disease book. sigh….. where has my brain gone?
When the going gets tough, the tough get reading and thinking…
When we do the Postman can we do the origional, not the fix-up post movie one?
There is a new companion book to Life as we knew it — The dead and the gone, from the POV of a 17 year old male in NYC, trying to care for 2 younger sisters.
For Horrible Disease Month - how about Albert Camus: The Plague?
I am totally in! I’ve been looking for a new category of things to read on the way to class…
I’ll also see if I can add to my collection of children’s dystopian fiction…for some reason, I’ve always had a sort of morbid affection for it. I particularly recommend “Children of the Dust” as an auxiliary to the nuclear month, and “The City of Ember” and “The People of Sparks” for society-rebuilding. (And probably the prequel, “The Prophet of Yonwood”, but I haven’t read that one yet.)
Warday, by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka would fit in with Nuclear Holocaust Month. The 2 main characters travel around the US, a few years after the nuclear war to interview people in various area’s, collecting different stories of survival. It covers medical triage, famine, new deseases, and how area goverments cope. Worth consideration, I think.
“Earth Abides” is a nice reversion to hunting and gathering book - sort of in the horrible disease category also, but the disease is never seen in action. And if you want zombie hordes, “World War Z” is the best ever! For “collapse of states,” there was a decent novel called “Wolf and Iron” (if memory serves), possibly by Gordon Dickson - but it is very long out of print and probably hard to find. (As is Earth Abides, come to think of it.)
Fantastic idea. Always looking for excuses to re-read the Waste Land.
“Here is no water but only rock.”
For Ecological Doom how about a duo. Richard Moran’s Empire of Ice and Earth Winter. Volcano stops the Gulf Stream and causes an Ice Age.
Another good book is Emerence by David R. Palmer about a child who survives a nuclear war in her father’s bomb shelter and her subsequent re-emergence into the world.
Not necessarily a post-apocalyptic series but I have always enjoyed Leo Frankowski’s books bout Conrad who time traveled back in time and his need to get Poland ready for a Mongol invasion. Some great stuff about re-inventing the industrial age and the problems of going from sheep to shawl so to speak.
I probably have most of the books on your list already which says something about me, not sure what *lolol*
I’m not sure if this is the book Bess is thinking about, but Margaret Atwood has another (more recent) apocalyptic novel out called “Oryx and Crake.” It simultaneously deals with after the apocalypse as well as the events leading up to it. I found it remarkably disturbing when I read it - much more than the Handmaids Tale did for me.
@ Bess
Are you thinking of Oryx and Crake?
Oh this is going to be great! But I don’t want to read The Road again. I still get depressed shivers when I think about it.
Sharon, that is a full buffet of doom right there! Ummm, yum.
Postman was both a post atomic/ post bio plague world so could qualify for either.
I remember Frank Herberts White Plague as a decent book for the illness catagory, but it’s about the spread and immediate effect rather than the life after.
As was David Brin’s Earth for the ecological collapse catagory. Despite the story being mainly about man made black holes eating the core of the planet the side vignettes give a good look at Brin’s possible future where bio engineering runs rampant trying to fix things, where sun worshipers and Gaians are the religions of the young.
I enjoy Brin’s Writing even though he’s only about 50% on creating a statisfying ending.
Those Left Behind books scare me more than an apocalypse, I can’t help but believe that people who think they will get floated off to Nirvana don’t give a rats ass about leaving the earth livable for the rest of us. I’d love to see a poll on how many evangelicals consider themselves environmentalists vs the average.
I second John Brunner’s “Stand on Zanzibar” but for the Population Apocalypse more than Ecological Doom - Brunner pre-”Population Bomb” novel walks through the population aspects on how society could change after overpopulation becomes a serious issue (if we cut back on pregnancy, we make sex almost meaningless and yet all-consuming). IMHO it is a bit more coherent than “Sheep Look Up” - which does have brilliant bits.
Plus SoZ has such an awesome 1967 take on hypermedia - snips of advertising, narrative, and the actual plot. Like a less wacked version of Naked Lunch’s hypertext. Blew away my 15 yr old mind when I blindly took that home from the library.
And, the title premise of SoZ is a brilliant opener and closer. Great novel.
Just remember Kim Stanley Robinson’s end of the world series, but it’s v. long.
Just want to point out that one can be an evangelical Christian without believing that Rapture is coming.
Woo hoo! Librarian here rubbing her hands in glee…
I just read Life as We Knew It. It was fantastic. The author did a good job of keeping the really horrific stuff (think The Road) off-stage.
For the Girls month I suggest Into the Forest by Jean Hegland.
OK, so I’m cleaning up from snorting coffee out my nose as I came to the academic description of the book, “because it doesn’t suck.”
I do think it’s good to read the left behind series because many of these fiction books get mistaken as religion. I noticed this particularly when we lived in the south and these were read more than the bible.
I don’t think I’m going to participate because I’m already fighting a low level panic and don’t need to feed it - but I’m happy to listen to the discussions!
I was thinking “Oryx and Crake” as soon as I read the title of this post, and I’m pleased to see others have beat me to it in the comments section. Atwood does apocalypse scarier than anyone, though “Handmaid’s Tale” deals more overtly with gender. “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is my top favorite Heinlein ever (and has one of the best book titles of all time), and it will be fun to reread it with an apocalyptic eye - I don’t remember seeing it in that light at all. I’ve never read “Lucifer’s Hammer”, so that will make for an interesting discovery.
I’m also thinking of a book I read years ago about a pair of sisters who are left on their own in a remote cabin after an end-of-the-world event and I can’t remember the title at all. Sound familiar to anyone?
Into the Forest, Jean Hegland! Thanks, Nancy, you answered my question as I was typing it.
Hah! I gave away my crate of Heinlein paperbacks I’d hauled around since adolescence, but kept TMIAHM as “the one that doesn’t suck.”
I would suggest a different Tepper, because I think we had a lot of the gender discussion already when we talked about World Made By Hand, but the one I would suggest would be The Family Tree and I think people might get hung up on the magical elements. I do Family Tree is worth reading, though, because it’s more overtly ecological.
I’m really glad you suggested Handmaid’s Tale, though - I hate Oryx & Crake.
No LeGuin? No Robinson? Always Coming Home and KSM’s however many Signs of Rain both express the sense that everyday life can still be full of joy even as the world falls apart that I get from your writing as well.
Also, for Horrible Disease Month, I nominate Pat Murphy’s The City, Not Long After, which is a post-apocalyptic novel about San Francisco and the Valley, written during the some of the worst AIDS years.
(I said I was not going to participate but I’ve read almost all these books already, so I can keep up my cheerful reading program with maybe a little rereading.)
I sure hope ya’ll don’t think I’m a total lightweight, I am all about reading a couple extra books a month, but what if we also added some movies to the theme– a very easy way to add an extra layer.
And I’m wondering how to incorporate some of the ten easy steps into the agenda– I mean sitting around and bantering about fiction and poetry is great, but I’m thinking, if I’m not actually DOING SOMETHING about our impending doom, I feel anxiety.
like what if we decided to practice video by presenting comments on UTube, we could make fun of stupid people in a literary context, and put wall posters of George Clooney behind us… or present comments nude from behind poster boards of famous people
I hope all these ideas aren’t just rhetorical.
I let three of my onions go to seed, but I’m not sure when to take the seed; if I’m going to make seedballs, does it matter when I make them?
For a lighthearted avoiding of the apocalypse, may I heartily recommend Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett?
I’m so happy you have Parable of the Sower covered. I just finished rereading it!
Hurray, this means you think the internet will still be around in a year!
How about Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler for horrible diseases? Or population.
Oh fun!
You too have touched my inner lit-geek(:
Off to the library….
Dear Sara,
Those of us who were taught to knit at age five have moral advantage over the rest, because we can read AND knit (a Sharon-approved PO activity) at the same time. Of course, those three year olds who were knitting stockings while herding geese leave me in the dust.
MEA (tongue somewhere behind her upper molars)
Oh this so great and I’m too busy today to read this post carefully. I even like actually have many of these books in a box or two or three somewhere, and could use an excuse to reread, and these are books the library should have. I doubly (trebly) second the John Brunner books, for no other reason than the horribleness of the organic earthworms in The Sheep Look Up. And while I know it’s not low energy as in no electricity, can we do a movie club paralelling the readings (not necessarily the same story in video, just the theme) ??? Maybe I’ll have to start a blog in my nonexistant freetime.
‘Life as we knew it’ was the summer reading assignment for the kids going into 8th grade honors English at my son’s school last year. The current “youth of today” are much more aware of the state of the world than it would appear with all of their tech gadgets they carry about.
I don’t have the time to do read-alongs and such, but love most of the selections posted.
Oh Sharon, you sneaky devil you… what a great way to get me excited and looking forward to the coming year!!!
Instead of the oft heard “it’s not all doom and gloom” let’s just revel in it.
It tickles me to see that so many of us (most?) are book geeks (fanatics).
Grandma Misi
Oh and I forgot to suggest two excellent comic books? DMZ by Brian WOOD and Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan. DMZ takes place in NYC (the DeMilitarized Zone, hence the title) after the Second Civil War breaks out. We aren’t really clear as to why it breaks out or who is on what side, becuase it doesn’t matter. A great illustration of what a post-PO urban community would look like. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
In Y: The Last Man, all the men on earth mysteriously die, except for one guy. Also VERY good.
Both are in collections at this point (at least the issues that are published - they are both currently running comics) and really are fantastic. Perhaps as supplemental pairings?
I have what might be a lesser known suggestion: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. For the ecological disaster month, or maybe apocalypse and religion. Its written from an ecofeminist, pagan perspective. Its about a utopian San Francisco being invaded by forces from distopian Southern California. Its one of my favorite books. I love the descriptions of SF as a city of gardens and fruit trees and flowing streams, and how the author sets up the social and political structure there.
Hamster wrote
“Fantastic idea. Always looking for excuses to re-read the Waste Land.
“Here is no water but only rock.””
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief
And the dry stone no sound of water
I’m in. I’ve been reading aimlessly for years and am sad to admit I haven’t read many of the titles you list.
But this helps cure my depression over the fact that I only have time to read approximately 900 more books in my lifetime.
At least they’ll have some value and I can share it with web-friends.
Not sure if I’m in. I’ve read a few of those, don’t know if I can take much more gloom and doom than I already get on the internet.
I did just finish reading a new(ish) book called _The Witch’s Trinity_ by Erika Mailman. It was in my library’s “new fiction” section and it looked interesting. It takes place during the famine in Europe around 1507 and it depicts one scenario of what happens when people are starving. Very interesting, well written little book.
Lisa in MN
I’m getting fairly seriously freaked out about the extent to which we agree on literature. Your comments on Heinlein? I’m exactly with you; MIHM is his best, Farnham is icky. Lucifer’s Hammer? Everything Niven wrote with Pournelle is pushed towards the facist side; Niven is vastly better writing alone. yup.
scary!
These ARE great places to start people thinking; and make them aware that a heck of a lot of thinking has already gone on.
From my bookshelves…
May I suggest Starhawk’s ” The Fifth Sacred Thing”? Maybe for the ‘Religion & Apocalypse’ month ?
I second the call for “Into the Forest” by Joan Hegland. I read it in 2 days last month & loved it.
I am glad to see “The Parable of the Sower” on the list.
Might Daniel Quinn ’s “Story of B” or “Ishmael” & “My Ishmael” find a place on the list? ‘Post -Civilization Mindset’?
And how about Ernest Callenbach’s “Ectopia” and Ruth Mueller’s “The Eye of the Child” ( maybe be out of print - old NSP title)?
I have just started “Forty Signs of Rain” by Kim Stanley Robinson. The other two titles in the trilogy are awaiting me…
Looking forward to the discussions!
Colleen
That’s why I love working in a library…..several of the off topic books are here! Now if I just can cram them into my reading time……
I see while I was ‘hunting & pecking’ , Kate put up a comment suggesting “The Fifth Sacred Thing”.
Great, Kate! : )
Religion and Apocalypse: _Only Begotten Daughter_ by James Morrow. I will never forget the talking embryo doll–shudder.
I’ll suggest ‘The Telling’ be LeGuin. It could fit in the religion section or maybe a cultural apocalypse section. It’s a great read.
Did I miss Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in there? I just got done with it, and IMHO it is THE BEST of the genre, though also the most frightening. Fortunately it’s also biologically implausible. No wonder it won a Pulitzer! It’s either post-nuclear or biological collapse (book doesn’t specify).
I bounced hard off of Lucifer’s Hammer, and I don’t see myself giving it another go. Life’s too short, and I haven’t read any of Wendell Berry’s poetry books yet. I was warned about Farnham’s Freehold, so I never even started that one.
For YA, how about The Girl Who Owned A City? If nothing else, I’d love to hear all of your opinions of it.
My problem with post-apocalyptic fiction is that too many authors feel the need to add a mustache-twirling eeeee-vile villain to the mix. Rebuilding after an apocalypse is complicated enough, the story doesn’t need further conflict than that (and I hate villains).
Sharon - y’all are scaring me with this book list. I’ll keep the happy eco-book club to myself.
Give this woman some free time and she goes nuts!
Another vote for The Fifth Sacred Thing! One of my favorite books ever. It’s a great, compelling story that covers nonviolent resistance, militarization and the prison-industrial complex, how to break people away from pathological social structures, humane ways of living, various kinds of family/community structures, ecological collapse (and restoration), alternative healthcare, and spirituality. There are so many great characters of all races, genders, and sexualities. There are even people breaking up concrete streets to plant gardens and restore waterways. It’s the only collapse novel I’ve ever read that gives some hope, and presents a future that has been through collapse but is still a place I’d want to live in.
Okay, I’m normally the lurker supreme but Sharon’s book club is enough to draw anyone out of hiding.
For anyone who is strapped financially or wants to cut their paper consumption, Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is available as a free download from gutenberg.org.
DUDE!!! I am SO in on this one! Not that I haven’t read a couple of these, but….. Ooooh, to read them (or, reread) and see what other folks think at the same time…. Too fun! And I promise not to buy any if I absolutely don’t have to, and working at a library 5 days a week….. Yeah, should be able to borrow them without problem.
Have we considered _Earth Abides_ by George Stewart?
Watching modern civilization’s dance of death, the literary work I most often think of is Poe’s _Masque of the Red Death_.
I have to agree with previous commenters about Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake.” It’s perfect for February’s theme.
This is a fabulous idea and I am looking forward to reading along!
Goodness. I thought I had done a lot of post-apocalyptic reading. And here in one post you give me ten or fifteen extra books to read.
I liked “Into the Forest” too, not the best literature in the world, but definitely worth including in Grrlz’ Month.
For a incredibly well-written, very funny (in a dark, post-apocalyptic way, of course), thoroughly enjoyable read, how about “Jamestown”, by Matthew Sharpe? It’s fabulous. Very postmodern, very witty. He re-imagines the disastrous settling of Jamestown in a postapocalyptic America. Manhattan and Brooklyn are at war. Pocahontas sends txt messages to John Rolfe.
This is in the first paragraph:
“Some great, quaint pre-annihilation philosopher described the movement of history as ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’, whereas I’ve seen a lot of ‘thesis, antithesis, steak knife, bread knife’.”
What about Book of Daniel instead of Revelation?
Also, regarding “Children of Men”, having both read the book and seen the movie, I would recommend both. They’re almost the same story, plot-wise, but completely different genres. Very different versions of post-apocalyptic England, very different worlds.
I would have to say the movie version is my favorite. It’s kind of an updated version of the book and is a good example of how visions of the future - even a dystopian future - can evolve with time.
Also, (sorry, keep thinking of more), “Engine Summer”, by John Crowley. It was recommended by Ran Prieur. It has a beautiful vision of how meaningful communities could be reconstructed in a post-apocalyptic world (he calls it “after The Storm”). Very lyrical, very focused on how communities could reconstruct more humane, communal networks of relations. With a bit of earthy magic and some helpful herb to smoke, of course.
I’m big PO reader!
I also recomend “Into the Forest” for women’s month.
A great natural disaster book is “The Rift” by Walter J Williams. It is a wonderful look at the personal/cultural recovery.
A short nuclear holocost survival story is “Z for Zachariah” by Robert C O’Brien.
I’m a HUGE fan of the SM Stirling books! Hits close to home, as I live in a “dead” zone and have worked all thru much of the OR, WA, and ID landscape that the series is set in. I was thinking a lot about this series reading your post from yesterday. It’s an interesting take on survival in city, suburb, and countryside.
Have you read Volodine’s Minor Angels (trans. from Des Anges mineurs)? Awesome. Short but literary and dense.
I second Quinn’s Story of B (maybe for the religion month?)
This is so cool!!
I can second “The Parable of the Sower”. I just finished reading that one.
“Lucifer’s Hammer” borders on ludicrous. Ghetto cannibals, indeed! It sort of went downhill for me after the accounts of the meteor strike. I loved the surfer, though…
One that’s not too bad is a story about an apocalypse caused by alien invasion: “Footfall” also by Niven and Pournelle. The government recruits SF writers as their consultants!
As far as Internet books, I’m about 2/3 through reading this one called “Lights Out”:
http://www.survivalmonkey.com/SF%20books/LightsOut!/LightsOut-Current.pdf
It’s quite good so far, and has given me a lot to think about.
oh, and can we have a zombie month?
There have been a surprising number of zombie books out lately. I thought the political differences between World War Z and Monster Island were really interesting, especially because the base reality of WWZ was a lot like Parable of the Sower, but then the disaster was a lot different. And none of the recent zombie books (as opposed to movies, like 28 days later) are gory and terrifying, like The Road.
I’m surprised at how many of these books are familiar to me! I even have a couple: The Fifth Sacred Thing has been a favorite since I first read it a decade(?) ago. After the 2nd (or 3rd) reading, I even bought the prequest, Walking to Mercury - but still haven’t read it.
I’ve read “The World Ends in Hickory Hollow” by Ardath Mayhar so many times, I think I could recite it by heart. I’m not sure - it may considered young adult literature.
My question: when do you all find so much time to read?!?! Especially now that planting season is here…
Carla in N ID
[sorry - that should be prequel instead of prequest - don’t know what sort of Freudian slip THAT was…]
C.
For postapocalyptic children’s fiction, there’s also the classic Children of Morrow and Treasures of Morrow, by H.M. Hoover. Good luck finding that; I haven’t seen a copy in 25 years or so. But it was always one of my favorites when I was a little kid; that probably explains a few things.
Wow, I don’t know where I fit in with you people. I have only read one of these books, The Handmaids Tale, and maybe only heard of one other- The Road. I guess I will certainly be broadening my horizons. I am up for reading these books. Maybe it will exercize my brain enough that I can think again like I used to before I had children.
I have a book I have been wanting to read that I found in someones curbside trash. It is called Year of Wonders (A novel of the plague) by Geraldine Brooks. Anyone else read this? Is it any good?
Cindy in FL
I second the nomination for A Canticle for Liebowitz, it really is an exceptional quality read for the SciFi genre, and is realy haunting in its way, too.
Ok, I’ve ordered Lucifer’s Hammer! One of my favorites is Swan Song. I read it at least once a year.
Kim “Chipman” LaSusa
Just to warn you Sharon, the Left Behind book is worse than Farnham’s Freehold ever thought about being. Not the plot either; the writing. I was forced to listen to it on audiotape on a long trip as a teenager.
Seems to me that Daniel Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year ought to be in there somewhere… I looked it up when I read Blindness by Saramago. Some similar scenes…
Ecotopia is a shiny positive vision and might be a good antidote to all the gloom and doom. It’s also interesting as a document of how a utopia can go out of style - California of 1970 was a very different place, full of factories that made things - made the Ecotopia look a lot different than we might imagine it today when our factories have all been turned into luxury live-work condos for trust-fund artists (and the organic coffee latte cafes that fuel them).
Fabulous idea!
And thanks for the great blog Sharon, as a newcomer to PO, your writing has been extremely useful, inspiring and encouraging.
[…] I call this session of the Post-Apocalyptic Book Club to order… […]
Sharon, I hope you will give “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” by Jim Rawles a thought. I am not much that into the conservative Christian aspect of it as much as I am how it describes a financial collapse. The idea of planning, and prep work is very good. Anyway, Thought it would be a good candidate for your list.
Love your writings since way back on the Yahoo list days.
I second the nominations for “Lights Out” and “Patriots”, as well as “Into the Forest.” I also second “Wolf and Iron” — I easily found a cheap used copy on eBay or Amazon, and enjoyed it immensely. It’s making its way around my community now being read by friends. I’ll also suggest a mediocrely-written but conceptually interesting (and scientifically reasonable, as far as I can tell) global warming apocalypse story called “The Rising” by Pollock and Seybold.
I’m pretty full up these days, so my participation will depend on whether I’ve already read the works of the month…
Sue
A third for Liebowitz, an all time favorite.
As it happens we live in the Postman’s route. He came to Oakridge, right up the Middle Fork of the Willamette from us about 40 minutes drive, then unaccountably went over the hills above Dexter (presumably up Rattlesnake Creek, a few miles from here) and down into the next watershed over, a hard journey in post-apocalyptic times, then approached Eugene from the south, on or near the Row River, which pours into the Coast Fork of the Willamette. I work at the University, and spend at least one lunch hour a week in what the author calls the Theodore Sturgeon Center, and the glass ceiling that surprised the Postman is in the area known as the Skylight. The fireplace, however, is in another room; you can’t fire into it from the Skylight. Artistic license…
Oh, how fun!
I think this will be a good compliment to Crunchy’s Non-Fiction picks!
This is the first time I have commented on this site I believe, even though I have been lurking for quite some time. I think this is a very interesting project. I have read or own several of the books that you all have mentioned and will probably buy some of the others. I would just like to suggest that the selections, and maybe even the suggestions by commenters, be saved on a page somewhere on your site so that it would serve as an addressable resource for this subject. Maybe a Post-Apocalyptic Book Club page. I have unsuccessfully tried several times to find a comprehensive discussion of this genre on the web and would love to have it become a central collection point for this information. Thanks Sharon for all of you informative and stimulating words.
OK OK. I really think that we need to agree on a protocol for identifying books, and authors because i can’t read this. What happened to Underline- oh, I see that it doesn’t work, but that doesn’t mean we can’t come to some agreement on how to recognize titles.
Wastewear, “A Year of Wonders” is worth reading. It’s about the plague in England, but it’s not terrifying and the characters are interesting. Plus you get to learn about premodern coal mining.
Carla, I live in Minnesota. I read all winter. Not so much right now.
Bill M, I think if you google “Apocalyptic genre fiction” you’ll find some good lists - the Church of All Worlds had a fiction section in its recommended reading list at one point that covered a lot of novels mentioned here, though it ended in like 1985. And I know some college instructors are doing different flavors of SF for courses - I would be surprised if no one is teaching “Apocalypse in Popular Fiction” right now.
Just now on the BBC news a reporter asked an Iowa farmer if his neighbors were attributing this floody year to anything, like global warming? No, it’s just seasonal, he said. My friends in Cedar Rapids are not evacuating despite it being “mandatory”
And my stepsister downriver of the Coralville dam doesn’t even watch or listen to the news or weather radio. I’m worried.
Oh, and! Most people, I think, don’t know that this, by Defoe, which is darned apocalyptic, is a novel rather than in-person reportage. The “journal” format is a device; he was about five at the time depicted.
_Journal of the Plague Year_
Online at:
http://uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/defoe3.html
(transcribed by yours truly, yet another English major)
A gripping read!
risa b
This post and the comments section have given me a great summer reading list! Read the first month’s selections years ago, but may check them out of the library for a refresher.
“No Blade of Grass” by John Christopher–better than “Alas, Babylon” (but alas, out of print). Posits a grass killing fungus that wipes out the world’s grains. The current spreading wheat blight sounds like the same sort of thing. Scared me to death in the seventies. A movie came out and disappeared almost immediately. May have been too real for TPTB.
You never stop, do you Sharon. Amazing!
Those of us stuck on dial-up would be left out of a YouTube type format.
I too hated Oryx and Crake.
Loved Into the Forest!
how about some fred and geoff hoyle? “october the first is too late” is sort of post apocalyptic but does have some thoughts on what happens when the smoke clears. I like heinlein and the wasteland (and I agree about farnam) John Wyndham has a few good ideas along these lines too.
I’m not into action stuff much. I prefer the more thinking stuff if possible. One of my favourites is “A Choice of Gods” by Clifford Simak….plenty to think about there!
I vote for Revelation for a few reasons. First, it’s a pretty good timeline of the apocalypse. With all the food shortage stories out there, perhaps some might read the verse about the black horse of famine with new insight. Second, it would balance the pre-tribulation view of the rapture presented in Left Behind. Third, I think all people looking at the coming societal changes should have at least an introduction to biblical teaching on apocolypse.
Say what you will about the Left Behind series being taken as a religious text, the story is very engaging and addicting. I really enjoyed the whole series. The authors do a good job of describing how the sulfur spewing horses ride and what the locusts with human faces might look and sound like. And, you get caught up wanting to know what happens to the characters. If you read Left Behind, you really need to read Revelation too.
Lesley
Zombies.
The Road is one of the best ones I have read. The reason you have so many post I think is that people know deep down they can not do much about a lot of things, better to accept and wallow in it than fight it. It’s like depression, just pull up your blankie, and the fire and the dog at your feet and feel crappy. Go ahead, the dark side has it’s rewards. Fighting depression just prolongs it and makes you feel worse. Besides it has much to teach you if you listen. Just like the gloom and doom of our current state of affairs. Much to teach us. Much to learn. So read up on all these books.
Oh yes, Viv - “Day of the Triffids,” “Out of the Deep,” and “Re-Birth” are all excellent.
Other than the old and very old texts I won’t participate. I don’t watch television or look at web videos either. I can’t even watch films other than well made comedies, and I don’t bother anyway. Honestly, the entire doom or post collapse or apocalyptic genre severely depresses me. I find the immediate future to be all too distressing and unstable and have felt that way since about 1973.
I already live in a very much post apocalypse sort of quotidiana and that is how I have dealt with this anxiety. Most of Sharon’s activities related to growing and ecological awareness are very inspiring and I enjoy them immensely. I limit my reading to research related to my work and related to growing and off grid living these days. Tragedies, real or imagined, crises, near or in the middle distance, I find to be too alarming and I can’t handle anxiety drugs or the feelings of depression that go with dwelling upon the shadows.
I’ll read those posts and discussions I’m sure, but just skimming. I have to avoid being clawed. I’ll
apply the time to the garden and nursery. It works for me.
Thanks to all of those who are willing to take on the scary questions! I’ll pass.
RC - aw, chea up, Bwian- fings could be wuss!
Used to wake my teenage boys up in the morning, playing that song at high volume; they were familiar with the movie…
I now have “The Wasteland” and “Lucifer’s Hammer”, and am just waiting on “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (but I’ve read that one before anyway).
Another YA recommendation for Collapse of States month is “How I Live Now” by Meg Rosoff. Not a complete apocalypse, but it is set during wartime England (an imaginary war sometime in the near future) from the voices of a group of cousins, and from their point of view, all the society they can contact has in fact collapsed.
You’ve hit many of my favorites already (especially Parable of the Sower, The Telling, (off topic if you have not read LeGuin’s Changing Planes do so the next time you have to travel), the Postman (yeah, I actually like Brin).
For children’s fiction: The Turning Place: Stories of a Future Past, by Jean Karl
Really weird ecological disaster along with scientific rigor: Hal Clement’s The Nitrogen Fix (may be hard to find).
Note of clarification: KSR’s book is Forty Signs of Rain. On another note, my favorite post-plague book is his alternate history The Years of Rice and Salt.
Oh, and RC…a couple of the books in my post (The Turning Place and The Years of Rice and Salt) actually have an off camera apocalypse, and are really more about different paths society could take, given a new place to sater.
good choices!
I too recommend “The Fifth Sacred Thing”, “Into the Forest” and Oryx and Crake”.
I really enjoy Stirling actually- I find him to be an interesting writer and I enjoy how he handles the female characters- I get the sense that he likes women actually, unlike say Kunstler……
The “Left Behind” books are something else- I made myself read most of them- couldn’t finish the series- or believe people really think like this…….
I’m delurking here to make a suggestion of an often (and unjustly) overlooked classic of post-apocalyptic fiction, Russel Hoban’s Riddley Walker.
You can read a bit about the book on Wikipedia, but I’d recommend avoiding anything that seems spoilerish there (like the full plot summary), because the revelation within in the book is such a joy. Even this briefer synopsis (with links and excerpts) might give away a bit too much of the fun.
Reading it is a bit like A Clockwork Orange, because you have a new language to get used to, and a bit like, oh, a Penguin edition of Chaucer or Malory - something half-translated from Middle English. For the first few chapters, you have the impression that you’re reading a bit of children’s fiction set in the Dark Ages. Then, gradually, you realize that something awful happened a generation or so previously, which is only remembered in traveling religious Punch-and-Judy shows. Myth, American imperialism, Christianity and atomic physics are all mashed together into mystical puppet shows. There’s a good chance the mystical-thinking children in the third Mad Max movie were based on Riddley.
Reading it is a real pleasure.
Well, since I’m on dial up, YouTube is not gonna happen with me ;-).
Thanks for all the amazing suggestions - the reminders of things I’d forgotten (I can’t believe I left out Stand on Zanzibar and A Canticle for Lebowitz), and the suggestions for things I haven’t read. I’m going to post a follow-up poll, and commentary with a final syllabus (sorry, that sounds too academic
- shades of my past).
I’m having fun!
Sharon
I remember back when I thought that the “Drinking Song” by Moxy Fruvious was post-apocalyptic! “And the band played on, while the helicopters whirred, drunk on the dawn in a nuclear dawn…” I was so disappointed when I found out its real premise.
First thought: I think that the book Snow Crash is post-apocalyptic; can that be argued successfully? Its premise is economic collapse, rather than a more traditional doom like disease, nuclear weapons, environmental change, or zombies. But the economic collapse has destroyed government authority and thrown everyone back on fending for themselves; can the book therefore qualify?
Second thought: you should add the book Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer to the list, as a nod to all of our friends who are middle school and high school media specialists.
I haven’t read _Wasteland_ since college, and I’m enjoying hearing all the different book ideas.
Has anyone read Marge Piercy? I have two suggestions from her:
He, She, It
http://www.margepiercy.com/books/heSheIt.htm
Woman on the Edge of Time
http://www.margepiercy.com/books/woman-edge.htm
I love Marge Piercy. Almost any one of her books would work, they’re all about surviving while shit falls apart.
Maybe after Sharon finishes this thing, next year, I’ll organize a utopian fiction course to complement it - Woman on the Edge of Time definitely fits that mold, and then everyone who didn’t totally hate Gate To Women’s Country can read The Wanderground.
Looking back, I see that Alas Babylon was proposed for Nuclear Holocaust month–No Blade of Grass would fit better under Ecological Doom.
Skip:
- Niven/Pournelle: the writing quality just isn’t there.
- Writers like Atwood and McCarthy: the deep knowledge of the themes just isn’t there - people think they are getting the real thing when they aren’t.
- “Dies the Fire” series: I love it totally but it starts with a deus ex machina so you really can’t take it seriously (e.g. guns won’t fire).
Include:
) Tibetan Buddhism.
- Robinson’s “Forty Signs” as part of the “apocalypse averted” month. He has *both* the writing skills and the knowledge. Great set of themes too: science operating within a government, living outdoors, the Prisoner’s dilemma, surveillance technology and (of course
Happy reading!
oh- and a nomination for worst apocalyptic trashy novel?- how about Kunstler’s WMBH??
Sharon,
This sounds wonderfully challenging and a little depressing. I have read some of these titles and will check out some others. I am knee-deep in school work and may not be able to handle some of these themes in my only free moments of light reading but they might be worth it.
I love Elliot and am glad to see Butler and Le Guin show up in the comments. I’ll be lurking and commenting when I can.
Happy reading!
Two words: Riddley Walker.
Oh, Ani, there have got to be much trashier apocalyptic novels than World Made By Hand. I mean, there was a whole post-nuclear fake-primitivism subgenre on the shelves of the used bookstores I spent my pre-teens in. Usually with women in big hoop earrings and sometimes metal bikinis on the cover.
Frost Flower & Thorn. That Spider Robinson one about America having a race-based Civil War (that one is not so great, but it’s actually not trashy at all). Um…damn. There are more titles in my brain somewhere, under the dirty laundry and weedy flower beds. Maybe Sharon will find them under her couch.
Maybe we should all have a party and screen Escape from New York, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and The Mayor of Frog Town. I’ll host, if people don’t mind airplane noise drowning out the dialogue.
If I read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” again I’ll go postal. Why do some people treat his work as if it’s true because he misused some citations? He’s a fiction writer, not a sooth-sayer! It’s not as if we have dinosaurs running around post-Jurassic Park because he called that one so astutely.
It will be easiest for me to participate if the book descriptions include a sense of how depressing the book is. Maybe a one to five nuclear holocaust doom rating. Or, better, which has the most positive rebuilding content, say one to five plowshares.
The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess is a pretty wonderful novel about population overshoot, crash, and restructuring.
Have to second Rosa’s comment - Ursula Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home” is my favorite post-apoc.
Oh what a great idea! This is going to be fun. I’ve read some pretty good online novel length stories if you need any suggestions for that part. There are many of these books I haven’t read yet, so I’m excited to get so many ideas. I’m getting ready to start The Road.
How about Ward Moore`s
“Bring The Jubilee”- set 70 years after the North`s defeat
in the Civil War.The USA is a rural slum, poor and inward looking.New York (the largest
“city” ) is largely a shanty town.
(Strictly Alternative S/F, but
may be a prediction more likely than Kunstler`s novel).
Oh, and “O-Zone” by Paul Theroux (ecological diaster)-
No technology in Mid-West,
small-town, arigcultural Amierica to East, 21st century
technology in New York.
I’m new here, followed the link over from Crunchy’s place, but I just want to say what a great idea this is. I am a big fan of apocalyptic literature, and love many of the books mentioned. I won’t be able to keep up with three books a month, but I will definitely follow along. I’m excited by all the recommended books I haven’t read.
I have a few additional suggestion I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang by Kate Wilhelm is a twist on the horrible disease genre, where survivors are (mostly) rendered sterile and cloning becomes the primary means of reproduction. It was the winner of the 1977 Hugo Award, and a great read.
A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle is a near future story of global warming apocalypse. Boyle is a magnificent writer, with sentences that make you simply marvel at their beauty.
One that I often recommend for nuclear holocaust novels is David Graham’s Down to a Sunless Sea - which looks like it was reprinted last year (though possibly with a slightly changed ending).
Thanks to everyone who recommended Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. I really liked it all the way through the end. And so many books fizzle at the end.
So now I have another book to buy for my overloaded bookshelves….
Ooh, the mention of Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home” (a favorite of mine) reminded me of one of her early works, “City of Illusions” - part of the Hainish cycle. In a way the whole Hainish cycle is “post collapse” but most of it is so far from our Earth as not to really fit the genre. “City of Illusions” is set on a far future Earth that has been conquered by an alien race - the hero of the story makes a long journey through a North American landscape that retains vestiges of our civilization. In a way, it almost seems like a precursor to “Always Coming Home.”
Sheep Look Up, Stand on Zanzibar, Soylent Green (gotta love the meat-easy)
Just anything by Brunner and you should be all set.
Will check back!
Nika
http://www.peaknix.com - living the peak
May I suggest “The PestHouse” by Jim Crace, recent novel takes place about a hundred or two hundred years in the future. Fairly well written, and interesting themes.
don’t have time to go through all 113 comments, but if it hasn’t been recommended, Davy by Edgar Pangborn was recently mentioned to me by JMGreer on his Archdruid Blog. From what I’ve read about it, sounds very good.
Hi Sharon and all,
No thanks, I’m not into post-apocalyptic fiction these days.
I need to maintain my optimism to keep working at measures that will (hopefully) alleviate the general screwed-up-ness-of-everything - even if only a tiny little bit. Post-apocalpytic fiction isn’t helpful to maintaining even a little degree of optimism.
I’m struggling already to keep on thinking that anything I do might make a difference.
I haven’t read the entire ‘Wasteland’ but will remedy that. I don’t regard that as post-apocalyptic, although maybe I will when I’ve read the whole thing. The bits I’ve read so far seem true already.
Pat
Cheers,
Pat
PS - Scratch the part of my prior comment about ‘The Wasteland’ - it isn’t the Eliot poem I thought it was.
I was thinking of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. Which is nothing like ‘The Wasteland’. Never mind.
Pat
I just started Riddley Walker because of this thread.
I am not so sure I would go out and even read my favs (sheep, zanzibar, soylent green) for the first time, right now myself. Those books are fantastically intense on a good pre-awakened day.
I can say tho that reading Brunner really helps “understand” or process the news of random acts of extreme violence by we monkeys - think muckers. Brunner was just so right on.
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