End of the World Novels: A Top 10 (Edit)

[ballad]

I have a request for you.  When quoting and deleting extraneous parts, please leave a mention of the poster you quoted. 

Of course, I do apologize, but I was not referring to any one individual post, but rather the general good reviews of the Kunstler novel.

I thought about tearing it apart in a synopsis at one point, but really thought it was not even worth the bother doing that.

But the Wild Shore is very, very similar, and far better.

The Three Californias Series as a whole is of course not suitable for this topic, but that specific novel can be read alone and does a far better job of conveying a picture of deindustrialized life than Kunstler does.

Robinson is an award winning writer of hard science fiction, his Mars Trilogie still counts as being scientifically accurate, and he is an interdisciplinary science writer with wide reaching ideas about environmentalism and ecology.

Kunstler, sadly, however correct he may be about some things, is an excellent populist, but a mediocre (and I feel I am being kind here) novel writer. If it were not for his prior publishing work and the fanbase that comes with it, I doubt he would have found a seller. As it is, the publisher must have realized enough 'fans' would buy it, no matter how bad. And of course they were right, because Doomers love Doomerporn.

Which sometimes makes you wonder how many doomers are actually hobbyists? They read the books, watch the movies, wear the t-shirt. if there were an official doomer music style,  bet they'd listen to it too.

And that is the point I think.

Kunstler just wanted to sell a book and write out how he would like thing to work out. And the readers want doomer porn.

Robinsons Three Californias in contrast, looks at ecological future possibilities; three different potential outcomes based on different actions available to people, and all extrapolated from the authors understanding of the 1980ies of course.

To even put Kunstler in the same category as P.D.James, Larry Niven or some of these other great thinkers I do not think fitting.

But in a culture that places Harry Potter on par with Tolkiens works, nothing surprises me

[graveday]

I have a request for you.  When quoting and deleting extraneous parts, please leave a mention of the poster you quoted. 

Of course, I do apologize,

Nice.  Another unattributed quote.  What's the apology for?

[Bill Hicks]

One of my favorites is "Swansong" by ???Oh, I forget...but I

Robert R. McCammon.  Yeah, it was pretty cool.  Sort of a poor man's The Stand. 

[Bill Hicks]

Kunstler, sadly, however correct he may be about some things, is an excellent populist, but a mediocre (and I feel I am being kind here) novel writer. If it were not for his prior publishing work and the fanbase that comes with it, I doubt he would have found a seller. As it is, the publisher must have realized enough 'fans' would buy it, no matter how bad. And of course they were right, because Doomers love Doomerporn.

Dissing on Saint Jim?  On LATOC?  That'll win you friends around here.   

Actually, I enjoyed WMBH, but wouldn't put it anywhere near my Top 10.  I found it interesting but somewhat limited in vision.  James Van Pelt's Summer of the Apocalypse, which I admittedly have a man crush for, is a much more compelling work about a post-apocalyptic society even though it is not specifically a PO novel. 

[Bill Hicks]

I just read Blindness by Jose Saramago (which was made into a movie last year starring Julianne Moore).  Interesting TEOTWAWKI concept -- a plague turns everyone blind and the authorities fail in their draconian attempts to contain it.  The story revolves around one survivor who can still see...sort of like Day of the Triffids without the Triffids.

The novel is written in a literary style ala Cormac McCarthy (no quotation marks), and in its own way it is as bleak as The Road.  The extended scenes in the abandoned mental hospital, where the initial victims are interned and end up preying on each other, are chilling. 

That said, I would have a tough time recommending it because it is not an easy read.  Some of the paragraphs go on for pages and the dialog is mashed in with the action.  Doomers who are fans of literary fiction, however, might find it to be right up their alley.

The movie was okay.  I thought it was interesting (and plausible) to see how people react when left to their own devices in a hell-hole like that.  The world they found after they left the shelter was interesting, too.  I'll have to try reading the book.

As far as ownership of books goes, put me down for roughly 3000.  Haven't counted, but I am overrun.

Oh, and we'll have to add 'One Second After' by William R. Forstchen to the list.

3000 books?  Wow, I thought I was bad with 1000.  As it is there's not enough hours in the day to read them.   

[quietnite]

Thanks for the author, bdrube, I think it was out of print for a while and my copy disintergrated over the years. Then a couple of weeks ago, I found it in sci-fi at bookstore, so happy it's back in print. Yup, poor man's stand, but I love the "growingness" of Swan...appeals to the doom gardener in me.

[Bill Hicks]

Whoo-hoo!  My first 10,000 read post.  That's worth a bump.   

I'm glad so many LATOC'ers have seemed to get so much out of it.   

[cindy]

I just read Blindness by Jose Saramago (which was made into a movie last year starring Julianne Moore).  Interesting TEOTWAWKI concept -- a plague turns everyone blind and the authorities fail in their draconian attempts to contain it.  The story revolves around one survivor who can still see...sort of like Day of the Triffids without the Triffids.

The novel is written in a literary style ala Cormac McCarthy (no quotation marks), and in its own way it is as bleak as The Road.  The extended scenes in the abandoned mental hospital, where the initial victims are interned and end up preying on each other, are chilling. 

That said, I would have a tough time recommending it because it is not an easy read.  Some of the paragraphs go on for pages and the dialog is mashed in with the action.  Doomers who are fans of literary fiction, however, might find it to be right up their alley.

The movie was okay.  I thought it was interesting (and plausible) to see how people react when left to their own devices in a hell-hole like that.  The world they found after they left the shelter was interesting, too.  I'll have to try reading the book.

As far as ownership of books goes, put me down for roughly 3000.  Haven't counted, but I am overrun.

Oh, and we'll have to add 'One Second After' by William R. Forstchen to the list.

3000 books?  Wow, I thought I was bad with 1000.  As it is there's not enough hours in the day to read them.   

Yes, I am trying to cull...and resist buying any more.  It's either that, or buy a second house to store them in (I once read about an obsessive book collector who did just that, but he must have had more money than I do), lol!  As it is, I turned the dining room into a library and just about every other room has shelves, or books in piles on the floor.  Sigh...I guess there are worse addictions...

[Tropicalgirl]

Didn't read every page of the thread to see if this one was mentioned, one of my favorites is "Into the Forest" by Jean Hegland   Its a great PA novel involving the survival of two sisters after TEOTWAWKI - it has a definite female slant, which makes it unique.

Here is a link to the Amazon Review page: http://www.amazon.com/Into-Forest-Jean-Hegland/product-reviews/0553379615/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

[quietnite]

Just read a goodish teen novel today, not EOTWAWKI but distopian. Called "The Bar Code Tatoo".

[kimberley862]

Haven't gone through all the pages of this thread (I'm late to the party as usual) but I would list "One Second After" by William Forstchen

If this has already been mentioned - I apologize

Don't wish for a happy ending though

[Pyotr]

Having skimmed through the pages, I'm fairly confident (and surprised) this one hasn't been mentioned yet:

'Last Light' by Alex Scarrow.

Mr. Scarrow is PO aware (so much so that at the end of the novel, he urges the reader to look up LATOC) and has written a fast-paced, occasionally trashy thriller on what would happen if a series of coordinated attacks were to shut down all the giant oil fields, refineries and pipelines. The effect is that of PO, except he compresses 10-20 years of slowly deteriorating doom to a week. The result is grim and highly entertaining. The protagonist, Andy, is an engineer with the British troops in Iraq. He has to get back home to London where his scattered family do their best to survive the rapid collapse of industrial civilization.

Recommended.

[graveday]

And another not mentioned, but it is not end of the world, per se, just doomy and anti-gov and beauracracy.

"The Death Ship" by B. Traven, who also wrote "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", of "We don't need no stinking badges" fame.

[Bill Hicks]

I just finished Jack Womack's Random Acts of Senseless Violence.  Though published in 1994 and not a Peak Oil book, it eerily depicts exactly the kind of TEOTWAWKI scenario a lot of us LATOC'ers are expecting post-collapse.  The story is told in diary form through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl living in New York City as American society is breaking down.

As the novel starts, her affluent but clueless parents are experiencing a deepening personal financial crisis that leads to unemployment and a loss of their middle class lifestyle.  As things get worse riots break out in the streets, the stock market crashes, hyperinflation sets in (sound familiar?) and the President gets assassinated while the media is full of mindless talk about how things are going to get better.  The plot builds up creeping dread as it becomes more obvious that things are not going to end well for most of the main characters.  This leads to as brutal a climax as I've read in any such story.

If I ever get around to redoing my Top 10 TEOTWAWKI novels, this one will definitely make the new cut.

[luna201]

I love S.M. Stirling's novels, so I have to second those recommendations. Andre Norten also wrote some great books, and those are suitable for young adults. Strangely enough, when I was a kid I read some fairly good post-apocalyptic books aimed at younger readers. H.M. Hoover and so forth.
I could be self-promotional and add my book to the list, but I won't.