Five Post-apocalyptic books I love to re-read*
Oct 24th, 2007 by jeremy
*The fact that I have read them more than once does not speak to their quality. Especially number 4.
From Wikiedia: Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction (or, in some cases, the more general category speculative fiction) that is concerned with the end of civilization through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster.
One night we were staying overnight at my Aunt Renees house. We had gone to bed while she and my mom stayed up to watch the movie Testament, a Day After-type movie about a small California town that slowly falls apart after a nuclear war. I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck out of bed and started watching the movie from the side of the couch. I was nine or ten, and what I saw was terrifying. People losing their hair, having to give up their speak-and-spell batteries to run a radio, and worst of all, a mom washing her son in the sink and noticing he’s starting to bleed from his rectum because of radiation sickness.
Thus began the nightmares. Pretty much every night for the next ten years I dreamed about nuclear war. Bombs going off, people dying from radiation, my parents dying because they slept on the top floor, etc. I have no idea why it affected me so much. Anyway, then one day I read The Stand. Great book about a group of people that gather after living through a plague that kills 99% of the populations. After that I was hooked. This thing that had terrified me was suddenly my new favorite genre. I read Alas Babylon so many times that the cover fell off and the library bought a hardback version. Great stuff. So these are the Post-apocalyptic books that I’ve read more than once. Most of them are over twenty years old, but The Road was just released last year (and the author won the Pulitzer Prize for it).
- Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
- Alas Babylon by Pat Frank
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Battle Circle by Piers Anthony
- Warday by Witley Strieber
This is the Stephen King’s The Stand Memorial List, I’m not listing it, but it’s the granddaddy of them all for me.
There you go, another list of five things.
Oh, no! Scarred for life! I remember that situation pretty clearly. I remember not being aware of your presence for a while, they shooing you off to bed. You wanted me back in the bedroom with you to sleep rather than sleeping in my own room. It WAS a scary movie - I remember that the family was not together when the nuclear accident happened and their failed struggle to be together. This movie confirmed my commitment to regulate more carefully the movies both my children and me were watching.
I had nightmares about that movie too. I always wondered what it was, now I’ll know to avoid it.
Actually a couple of years ago I decided to face my fear and watch it again. It was strange how different things scared me now, instead of the Nuclear fallout and stuff I was more concerned with the mother’s feelings and how horrible it must be for her to lose children.
And I hope you don’t feel guilty mom, look at all the great books this trauma lead me to read.
I love the Stand, and most King novels I’ve read, but haven’t even heard of any of the others. I’ll have to check them out.
I read Battle Circle and the Stand both back in high school and liked them both. Not sure if I’d still like them now.
Battle Circle was a hoot. It’s actually a trilogy of stories, SOS THE ROPE, VAR THE STICK, and NEQ THE SWORD. Glad to see someone else enjoyed these books
BTW, Testament was so much better than The Day After. Scared the crap outta me back in the 80s….
[…] you know, I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction. Folk of the Fringe is Orson Scott Card’s collection of short […]