Im realizing that I really enjoy books where main character(s) are left to survive in futuristic or apocalyptic scenarios. The Hunger Games series, The Martian/Project Hail Mary, Bird Box, The Stand, The Handmaids Tale, things like that. Where the general vibe is "the world as we knew it has ended, we are all that is left, and its us vs it "
by musicals4life
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Finally Some Good News by Delicious Tacos
*World War Z* by Max Brooks
There’s a whole subgenre of prepper novels. Post EMP, post pandemic, whatever. Only problem: this stuff is *infested* with right-winger ‘murica ideology. Where the irony kicks in: all-American hero prepper dude eventually ends up fighting fascist DHS goons.
Authors:
– J. L. Bourne (of Day by Day Armageddon fame): Tomorrow War series.
– Franklin Horton: Multiple series in the same universe, e.g. Mad Mick series.
– Angery American: Going Home series.
Parable of The Sower
I Who Have Never Known Men. It’s not quite post-apoplectic but it kind of fits the scenario.
Old school recommendation—The Earth Abides. Society ends as we know it, survivors have to figure out where to go from there.
Station Eleven is also great too. I haven’t watched the show, but the book is excellent.
All three of these hit what you’re after:
The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin (*The Passage*, *The Twelve*, *The City of Mirrors*). A U.S. government/military experiment with an ancient virus goes awry and turns into a massive catastrophe.
*Moon of the Crusted Snow* and its sequel, *Moon of the Turning Leaves*, by Waubgeshig Rice. The story is set in a northern Anishinaabe community during a societal collapse.
*On the Beach* by Nevil Shute. It’s a classic and quietly devastating.
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife
Never Let Me Go
Before & After and Flesh & Blood by Andrew Shanahan. It’s a duology about a 600 pound man who is set to be crane lifted to a local hospital and while they’re setting up, the world ends and people start turning into a strange form of zombie and he’s pretty much the last one left in his area. Follows him and his dog, it’s a lot of fun! Some body horror in the first one.
Seconding World War Z. Adding two that haven’t been mentioned: Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer and Ashes by Ilsa Bick. The first the story of a family living through a Earth changing natural disaster. The second is a zombie(ish) book where adults are generally killed and the world is left to some *different* teenagers that the main characters have to survive against.
The Death of Grass – John Christopher. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
If you are OK with the slow slide into apocalypse definitely check out the last policeman trilogy by Ben Winters
The forgotten by M. R. Forbes
Dungeon Crawler Carl. The world has ended and the aliens have arrived to turn Earth into a death game spectacle for the galaxy. The remains of humanity have to navigate technology beyond comprehension and alien politics to stay alive.
It’s not apocalyptic, but *Hatchet* is a great survival novel. Kid is the only survivor of a plane crash and has to survive without any help from civilisation.
Ooh, my favorite genre!!
Parable of the Sower/Talents
The Silo trilogy.
Gray (this isn’t wildly well written, but it goes into the nitty gritty of survival, which I like).
Station 11.
A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World.
The Grace Year (very YA but sort of Hunger Games meets Handmaid’s Tale).
Swan Song.
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
I Who Have Never Known Man
Station Eleven!