Most apocalyptic fiction I come across tends to be post-apocalyptic, where the dust has already settled and it’s about surviving in the aftermath.
I’m looking for books that document the onset too, when things go from normal to chaos.
Any recommendations? Thanks in advance!
by ah__there_is_another
15 Comments
Dies the Fire by SM Sterling
Madd Adam Book 1 goes all the way back and traces the cause of the downfall. While you are following someone who is alive after it all happened, it’s still a very active apocalypse, and the main characters connection to it is deeply insightful.
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60468332-the-light-pirate
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
The Left Behind series is the actual biblical apocalypse. It’s been so long since I read them that I can’t really say what I’d currently say the quality level is, but it definitely starts slightly before the rapture.
World War Z sort of fits the bill.
More dystopian than apocalyptic, but I’m thinking about the Divided We Fall series by Trent Reedy a lot these days.
Station Eleven. It flashes back and forth between the before times, the start of the apocalypse, and years after.
The Stand / Swan Song
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel includes parts just before & during the collapse of civilization
A Children’s Bible by Millet
One Second After is pretty interesting from that point of view.
Walk the vanished earth by Erin swan
The Last Policeman trilogy. It’s about a cop who is solving murders as a asteroid is heading for earth. It has a good bit of how society breaks down as the end of the world is nearing.
Swan Song, Robert McCammon