I’ve been fascinated by the end of the world since I was a child, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and post-apocalyptic fiction helps me see different perspectives on the topic and explores different ways to feel about extinction-level events. I am a lawyer, an MBA, and a published novelist.
A mysterious new contagion is decimating the population. There is no vaccine, and none is expected, as the virus is protean and elusive. If it remains unchecked and mutates into a more virulent form, it will become an extinction-level event.
Jason Kramer has the disease, known by its nickname “Trips Lite”, but his body produces a unique antibody that kills the viruses inside him. This component in Jason’s blood can be harvested and given to anyone who needs it—his blood can heal. But pharmaceutical magnate Phillip Porter needs to keep people believing that only his expensive drug cocktail will slow Trips Lite down, and so if there’s any chance someone with the disease will live, Phillip Porter must make sure that Jason Kramer does not.
This book offers a very practical look at the effects of nuclear war and how society reacts to the blasts and the fallout. It discusses the societal decline and the loss of humanity but it is ultimately hopeful. It does not fear-monger; instead, it teaches and edifies using common post-apocalyptic tropes, like food riots and militarization of the populace.
“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker
“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.
But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and…
This book is limited in scope to a narrow cast of characters and focuses on just one part of the world, but it is terrifying and ultimately preaches a strong sermon against nuclear war. It has unusually well-developed characters for this type of book, and you care about them, which makes the ending even more horrific.
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Many of you are familiar with the movies The Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith. But the source material on which those movies are based, the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, is a superior work. Matheson was prolific in the horror and science fiction genres, and this novel well demonstrates his skills in creating a horrific post-apocalyptic landscape. Unlike some of my other entries here, this novel explores the “last man on earth” trope but combines it with classic zombie-type archetypes. Although the monsters here are neither true vampires nor zombies, lovers of those genres will be satisfied by Matheson’s depictions. If you ever feel like the world is too crowded and you wish for solitude, give this classic novel a read for a fresh perspective on that mindset.
An acclaimed SF novel about vampires. The last man on earth is not alone ...Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth ...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood. By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive like this?
This novel teaches the doomsday aspects of biological warfare and not nuclear warfare. Great hard science underpinning a very scary story of the government acting in a typical self-serving way to find a better weapon, a project that ends up almost ending life on earth. Crichton leaves open the possibility of a viral apocalypse and teaches us, in his typical science-dense prose, that man should not play God, especially when it comes to germ warfare!
From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life.
Five prominent biophysicists have warned the United States government that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, a probe satellite falls to the earth and lands in a desolate region of northeastern Arizona. Nearby, in the town of Piedmont, bodies lie heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. What could cause such shock and fear? The terror has begun, and…
So hard to read, yet so hard to put down. Dark, horrific, scary, and nihilistic, this novel caused me to have PTSD every time I heard the word “smokehouse.” Oddly, it is ultimately hopeful, but the cannibals and death and oddness of the landscape are all very disturbing. To be clear, this book is disturbing and off-putting, but the writing and the vivid imagery make it worth the trip.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse to share. And while the animals may not have Frankie’s exalted human brain, they know things she doesn’t, like what happened before she was adopted.
To prove she’s sane, Frankie investigates her forgotten past and conducts clandestine experiments. But just when she uncovers the truth, she has to make an impossible choice: betray the animals she’s fallen in love with—or give up her last chance at success and everything she thought she knew.
Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.
But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.
While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain,…
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