Science Fiction

One of my favorite sub-genres.

Try: Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt. Sometime in the near future people die off from some kind of plague. Fifty or more years later a man re-lives a trek he'd taken as a child right after the plague. I loved it. Also, Van Pelt writes lots of wonderful short stores and has four, count 'em four, collections out: "Strangers and Beggars", "The Last of the O Forms", "The Radio Magician", and "Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille". I don't think any of the stories collected are post apocalyptic fiction, but I REALLY like his stuff. I also need to add that I've met Mr. Van Pelt a couple of times, most recently at MileHi Con in Denver last month. He's a great guy and cheerfully autographed books for me.

Anyway, back to what you asked about.

Level Seven by Mordecai Roshwald. In an unspecified future (the novel came out in 1959 and trust me, it's scarily relevant) underground bunkers have been built in case of nuclear war. The narrator is important enough to be in level 7, the lowest and most secure of the levels. Haunting.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. It also came out in 1959 and is much better known than Level Seven. It has never been out of print in over fifty years. A man in Florida has a brother with the Strategic Air Command who gives him a heads up about a coming nuclear war. Brief nuclear war ensues, and for the next two years or so the small community in Florida struggles to survive. This is a must read.

A World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron by James Howard Kunstler. They both involve a world in which the end came more slowly, thanks to peak oil and a general collapse of the world economic system. I'm hoping Kunstler will write more in this world.

There's also a lot of military post apocalyptic stuff out there, such as the three by John Birmingham: Without Warning, After America,and Angels of Vengeance. In this series, a mysterious force field kills off a lot of people around the world, including most of the people of the United States. Birmingham has also written the Axis of Time Trilogy, which involves a hole in time. I liked that series better.

Years ago I stumbled across a book-length annotated bibliography of nuclear war and post-apocalyptic fiction. Years ago as in sometime right before 1980, and I of course have no idea of the name of the book or who wrote it. I got it out of the library, and I'd already read most of the books in it, and read any number of the others. Sigh. Wish I could be more helpful.

I hope others here will mention even more books.