The RoadThe Stand
Y: The Last Man
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Drowned World
The Passage
World War Z
The World Without Us
The Day of the Triffids
The Last Man
From Time Magazine.
The Road was about the darkest ride I've ever had in a book. Every ten pages or so I had to put it down and go to the front door, just to make sure that everything was OK. Whew!
But they missed Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and Pulling Through by Dean Ing, plus Lucifer's Hammer, On The Beach and Level 7.
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This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper...
T.S. Eliot
The quote that begins the book The Stand. King himself wasn't a huge fan of his own book, but, with Pet Sematary it's my favorite of his works.
I'm gonna seek out a copy of The Stand tomorrow.
And I forgot to mention: Go-Go Girls Of The Apocalypse.
King himself modeled The Stand on George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. King lists the book as an influence in his book on horror influences, Danse Macabre. Earth Abides was one of the earliest post-apocalyptic novels.
Yet another good one is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.
Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" was. . .interesting. http://www.brautigan.net/watermelon.html
'Alas Babylon' certainly belongs on that list, as does 'On the Beach'.
We humans have a fascination with grand endings. Perhaps because all most will face is a quiet rattle of a last breath on a lonely bed of regrets.
One Second After.
Another interesting one was Davy by Edgar Pangborn; it showed the dark ages and the repetition of history following TEOTWAWKI.
I read "Level 7" when I was in grade school. It gave me nightmares for years. This was in the middle 50's when we had duck 'n cover drills in school and the local mine owners were debating using then for fallout shelters.
I've never cared much for the whole genre since. I've only read one in your list, "A Canticle for Leibowitz."
I just don't care much for downer novels. If I want to feel bad, I can bang my head on the wall a bit and get the same result and save money to boot.
I haven't read "The Road", but I did rent the movie a couple of weeks ago. It was as dark as you describe the book to be.
I checked my retirement accounts and started looking for survival properties online after watching it.
Thanks, Bob; I was immediately reminded of Earth Abides (sort of a kinder, gentler take on The Road) but could not bring the title to mind.
Edgar Pangborn's Davey and his other stories set in that world are excellent post-Collapse yarns, as is Parke Godwin and Marvin Kaye's Masters Of Solitude.
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