Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: 25 Picks
Explore the best post-apocalyptic science fiction with our top 25 picks. Discover gripping tales of survival, dystopian worlds, and futuristic chaos in these must-read books.
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The Stand
by Stephen King
Horrific disaster as a plague virus sweeps the U.S., leaving only a handful of survivors.
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This Is the Way the World Ends
by James Morrow
George Paxton was an ordinary man until something extraordinary happened--nuclear holocaust. Now George Paxton is about to discover what happens after the end of the world. "Astute, highly engaging, and finally moving".--Los Angeles Times.
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This Immortal
by Roger Zelazny
“Vivid and elliptical... If you've ever asked yourself what would have happened if Philip Marlowe had been Odysseus... here is a clue to the answer.” —NEW WORLDS THE HUGO AWARD-WINNING FIRST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER! Conrad Nomikos has a long, rich personal history that he'd rather not talk about. And, as Arts Commissioner, he's been given a job he'd rather not do. Escorting an alien grandee on a guided tour of the shattered remains of Earth is not something he relishes-especially when it is apparent that this places him at the center of high-level intrigue that has some bearing on the future of Earth itself! "Roger Zelazny [was] the compleat New Wave author, so daring he could pen nothing without perturbing some creaky icon... so strong a writer, so moving in the sweep of his plots and imagery."—David Brin
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The City and the Stars
by Arthur Charles Clarke
An omnibus edition featuring two science fiction classics presents The City and the Stars, about a man born into a society of immortals who wants to find out what lies beyond his narrow existence, and The Sands of Mars, in which science fiction writer Martin Gibson get a chance to visit Mars and discovers more than he had ever dreamed. Reprint.
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Sixth Column
by Robert A. Heinlein
When the U.S. is occupied by an invading army, six individuals secretly work on a weapon to help restore freedom to the world.
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The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham
Explores the timeless tale of Earth's survival against alien forces (man-eating plants) and blinding meteor showers.
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Earth Abides
by George Rippey Stewart
Returning from a field trip, Isherwood Williams discovers that a mysterious plague has destroyed human civilization during his absence and makes his way to San Francisco, where he finds a few survivors who build a small community, living like their pioneer ancestors. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.
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The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity. Reprint. Movie tie-in.
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World War Z
by Max Brooks
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies.”—Entertainment Weekly We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic. The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE “Will spook you for real.”—The New York Times Book Review “Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone. . . . It’s Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.”—USA Today “Will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. A.”—Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick “Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.”—Dallas Morning News
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Footfall
by Larry Niven
"NOBODY DOES IT BETTER THAN NIVEN AND POURNELLE. --Tom Clancy They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender--or death for all humans. "ROUSING . . . THE BEST OF THE GENRE." --The New York Times Book Review "From the Paperback edition.
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Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy...why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction...why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph...why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill. Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand’s most extensive statement of Objectivism—her groundbreaking philosophy—offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists.
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Swan Song
by Robert McCammon
In a nightmarish, post-holocaust world, an ancient evil roams a devastated America, gathering the forces of human greed and madness, searching for a child named Swan who possesses the gift of life.
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Resurrection Planet
by Lucas Cole
Monsters can come in various forms...On the remote desert planet Sybaris, a research station is under constant siege by savage packs of living corpses known as "deadheads." To make the situation even more hellish, the terrified survivors are under the iron rule of the station manager, a man becoming increasingly psychotic.Newly assigned to Sybaris is Ronald Crisp, a former Marine logistics officer who specializes in quick-and-dirty solutions to impossible scenarios. Crisp finds himself stranded outside the station by its unstable station manager and has to face the diseased army of ravenous zombies. But Crisp has no peer when it comes to survival, ambition, and the ability to use others to his advantage...no matter who gets hurt.