In the last year I've read The Martian, Project Hail Mary, Atmosphere, Airframe, and Whalefall. They're all kind of travel disaster stories. (Whalefall could be considered an exception but I think it's in the same category because it's just The Martian but set inside a whale.) Any more recs?
I think I like things that are more tethered to our reality as opposed to hard sci fi. (I started the Expanse but put it on pause because it's not quite my thing at this moment.) Thanks in advance!
by Rosiecoloredglasses
15 Comments
Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer – it’s incredible
Moonfall by Jack McDevitt
One second after
Tilt
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. It’s about the Donner Party….and if you’ve never heard of the Donner Party, it is the furthest thing from a party I can think of.
Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash. It’s about a Dutch East India ship getting stranded in 1629 and things did not go well.
Also, I second Into Thin Air by Krakauer!
Read David Grann: The Wager and Lost city of Z are very good (currently reading the latter)
Twist by Colum McCann
Pompeii by Robert Harris
Dune
Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling.
Station Eleven
Ministry For The Future
Stern’s *The Buffalo Creek Disaster* is about the survivors and legal battle that followed. (I have relatives from that area, so the story is also part of family lore).
In fiction, the later part of Hurston’s *Their Eyes Were Watching God* is set during the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane.
Ward’s *Salvage the Bones* is set around the time of Hurricane Katrina.
*Lord of the Flies* isn’t so much a disaster novel, but one of school boys becoming marooned on an island and what they become.
For a human disaster, Kang’s *Human Acts* opens during the Gwangju massacre.
Dead wake, his majesty’s airship, the Wager, Endurance, and Challenger were all fantastic and all about transportation or exploration disasters. They are page turners but definitely a bit more on the non fiction side than narrative novel side of things
Wave. Blindness.
*Zero Stars, Would Not Recommend* by MJ Wassmer