Good post-apocalyptic novels in ebook format?

[jfrancis]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone had a line on some good post-apocalyptic novels (i.e. post WW III, plague, meteor strike, etc.) that can be had in eBook format? I've really liked Stephen King's "The Stand," and I enjoyed "Lucifer's Hammer" (Larry Niven) as well. I've also read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and it was okay, too.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Regards,
John Francis

[Hadrien]

You can try "After London": http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1986

ichard Jefferies fits right in with writers like Wordsworth and William Morris in their distrust of, if not outright disdain for, civilization and how “progress” was steadily destroying and perverting everything England once represented. In After London, Jefferies depicts an England 100 years on from a great cataclysm (never specified) that utterly devastated London and rooted what society was left back into a Medieval way of life, foreshadowing Morris’ News from Nowhere, which also would see the post-apocalyptic future as a return to the pastoral. After London is divided into two sections, the first of which is a sort of taxonomy of the eventual plants, animals, tribes, and landscape that emerged over the first generation or two “after London.” Jefferies shows a gift for this type of cataloguing, especially when recounting how relentless nature was in sweeping away all the remains of “progress” left after the destruction—roads, bridges, cities—and when describing the new order of human society. Bushmen and Gipsies live nomadic and larcenous lives, while a new nobility based on literacy emerges to reestablish the feudal system. Jefferies’ hatred of all things progressive really comes out in his account of the fate of London; once the Thames clogged with debris and reduced the site to marsh, centuries of trash, waste, and the dead—“the rottenness of 1000 years”—combine to create what could be called a Victorian Superfund site—the ground becomes sludgy and a poisonous mist overhangs the area. No one can hazard a visit unless he has a death wish. The second section of the book is a more pedestrian fantasy of a young nobleman named Felix Aquila who makes a name for himself by exploring the wild lands of England and uniting shepherd tribes under his kingship; this section is quite readable however, and chapters 22-24 give an account of his journey into the area that once was London—these passages portray a land as strange and unfamiliar as anything out of William Hope Hodgson.

"The Last Man" from Mary Shelley: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1347

"The Star" from HG Wells: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/607

“The Star” is the first story I know of that treats the subject of a heavenly object wreaking destruction on the earth. A planet beyond Neptune (Pluto being unknown at this time) collides with that planet, jolting both out of orbit and on a course toward the sun. An astronomer labors over some calculations and comes to a devastating conclusion: the conjoined planets will come so close to the earth that life will be wiped out: “Man has lived in vain.” As the object gets closer, brighter, and hotter, people embrace religion, head for high ground, or scoff at the idea of the end of the world. More primitive peoples have had the right idea all along though—new bright “stars” in the heavens portend disaster. Wells, as he invariably does, predicts disater with uncanny accuracy: “Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floods, and a steady rise in temperature to I know not what limit”—sounds like the environmental holocausts predicted for us today, does it not? Wells spares humanity in the end, or at least a small remnant of it, and those left attempt to slowly rebuild civilization. In a foreshadowing of the next year’s War of the Worlds however, the last paragraph of the story informs us that Martian astronomers watched the event with the keenest interest but with no sympathy: “how small the vastest human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles.”

[AlexC]

I was going to recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr. and Deus Irae by Phillip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, but they don't appear to be available electronically. Ah, what the heck. They're classics, grab them from the library!

[Penforhire]

Try browsing "post-apocalyptic" tag results at Amazon.

[BenG]

I'm not sure if they are available as ebooks but here'sa few:
I Am Legend by Richard Mathieson
Earth Abides by George Stewart
City by Clifford Simak
A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Rebirth by John Wyndham
Death of Grass by John Christopher
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney
The Night Lands by William Hope Hodgeson (available here on Mobileread)

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by BenG

The Night Lands by William Hope Hodgeson (available here on Mobileread)

I have read the rest of your exellent list, but had not heard of this one. It is actually Hodgson, William Hope: The Night Land. v1, 28 Apr 07 and it is, unfortunately, not currently available in MOBI.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by jfrancis

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone had a line on some good post-apocalyptic novels (i.e. post WW III, plague, meteor strike, etc.) that can be had in eBook format? I've really liked Stephen King's "The Stand," and I enjoyed "Lucifer's Hammer" (Larry Niven) as well. I've also read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and it was okay, too.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Regards,
John Francis

Depending on just how far post-apocalypse you're talking about, You might try the John Ringo series that starts with "There Will Be Dragons" from Baen Books. Sort of a combo of "Everything falls" with "technology might as well be magic".

And you're in luck, it's in the Baen Free Library. The rest of the series will cost some money, though.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I have read the rest of your exellent list, but had not heard of this one. It is actually Hodgson, William Hope: The Night Land. v1, 28 Apr 07 and it is, unfortunately, not currently available in MOBI.

I think the text is available at Project Gutenberg.

Actually it takes place millions of years in the future so it may not be strictly post-apocalyptic. For me it was a chore to get through some passages but ultimately it was worth the effort.

I'm currently working on the Darkness and Dawn trilogy by George Allan England, which takes place after the fall of civilization. I'll post it later this week.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by BenG

I think the text is available at Project Gutenberg.

Actually it takes place millions of years in the future so it may not be strictly post-apocalyptic. For me it was a chore to get through some passages but ultimately it was worth the effort.

I'm currently working on the Darkness and Dawn trilogy by George Allan England, which takes place after the fall of civilization. I'll post it later this week.

The Darkness and Dawn trilogy ? It was also recently uploaded on Feedbooks:

• The Last New Yorkers: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1990
• Beyond the Great Oblivion: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1991
• The Afterglow: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1992

[Xenophon]

For some other variants on post-apocalyptic fiction, try:

• "Brain Wave" by Poul Anderson
• "Godspeed" by Charles Sheffield
• "The Forlorn" by Dave Freer
• "Simply Human" by L. Warren Douglas
• "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber
• "A Hymn Before Battle" by John Ringo

I'm not sure whether the first two are available in bits, but the others can all be found at Baen's Webscriptions site. I note that I've taken a rather expansive definition of 'post-apocalyptic' -- some of these (The Forlorn, Off Armageddon Reef') involve the near-destruction of humanity with a few survivors on some other planet. Or the 'apocalypse' isn't quite what you might think (Brain Wave). Or the author actually kills off 95%+ of humanity on-screen during the course of the series (the Ringo 'Posleen' series starting with 'A Hymn Before Battle', which begins with everything seeming hunky-dory).

Xenophon

[nekokami]

Asimov edited a collection of short fiction called (appropriately enough) Catastrophes, which started with stories about the destruction of the universe and gradually wound down to the mere destruction of human civilization. I don't know of any electronic copies, but if you can find it in used paper, it's worth picking up.

[Azayzel]

and if you want fast action and a simple plot, you can try... James Axler's Outlanders or Deathlands series. There are a ton of books in each series and they read really quick. I usually pick up one of them when I want a quick read with some crazy action.

[slayda]

My favorite & the first book I read when I was young that started me really reading is Starman's Son, 2250 AD (©1952) by Andre Norton.

[Andanzas]

I really enjoyed Parable of the Sower and the trilogy Lilith's Brood (its original title was Xenogenesis), both by Octavia E. Butler, but I can't find digital versions.

Parable of the Sower takes place in the immediate future, in a California whose economy is devastated by global warming (water is so expensive that being dirty becomes fashionable). Lilith's Brood takes place after a nuclear war; a mysterious race of aliens help the few survivors to rebuild their lives... but according to those aliens' rules.

[Sparrow]

The finest example of a post-apocalyptic novel I ever read was John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath".

From an SF pov, John Wyndham and John Christopher both wrote recommendable post-apocalyptic books.