I like post-apocalypses where the apocalypse was so thorough that humanity forgot everything before the apocalypse! My all-time favorite has got to be Riddley Walker (more than 2000 years after the atom bombs destroyed the world, and England is *barely* in the dark ages…), but books like The Book of Dave (a whole society based on one guy’s psychotic break!), The Slynx (Russian post-apocalypse where even the *idea* of department stores is alien to the people in the apocalypse), and Canticle For Leibowitz (making one scientist guy into a Catholic saint? COOL!) but I want **more**. I’m looking for books where people don’t even know what the word “America” means.
What I’m not interested in: Apocalypses like World War Z, Station Eleven, or Swan Song. Maybe it’s cheesy, but I like apocalypses that are either without hope or without memory. I don’t want Cozy Catastrophe stories, or “Wow, the world is different now, but that’s okay!” Seriously, I want these people miserable. The worse, the better. I’d prefer next to no “rebuilding of society,” the less civilization the better!
What are some post-apocalypse books you’ve read where the world is destroyed so thoroughly that no one remembers what came before? Where the bombs almost completely exterminated humanity?
P.S. I have read every single post-apocalypse book featured on a listicle, before anyone tries to recommend The Road or The Tripods or The Chrysalids or The Nouns. I appreciate the suggestions, but if it has more than five reviews, I’ve probably read it!
by bonvoyageespionage
6 Comments
Denis Johnson, *Fiskadoro*.
I was gonna suggest the road but you’re way ahead of me 🙂 IMO you are the one who should be suggesting to us :). BTW do you have suggestions for any of these that have been turned into good movies?
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Been a long time since I read it, but I think Earth Abides possibly. I don’t think it starts that way but by the end I think that’s where they are.
I’m not sure if it fits exactly, but if you’ve not read it, I can recommend Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky.
It’s quite a bleak world they live in.
There are sequels (2034 and 2035), too
Earth Abides comes to mind. I read it over a year ago and I still think about how it ended.