Your favorite post-apocalyptic stories

[ThatNewGuy]

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction. Anyone else like to lose themselves in some end-of-the-world escapism? What are some of your favorite stories/films/games? Here are a few from my list.

Fiction

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
Maybe my first exposure to the genre

The Stand by Stephen King
Read this one at probably the perfect age

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Bleak bleak bleakity bleak

Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Wanted to like this more than I did

The Passage by Justin Cronin
Enjoyed the world building, but I bailed after the sequel

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Memorable mostly for the vivid description of the asteroid impact

Film

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (this one is pre-apocalyptic, but I'm including it)
Donald Sutherland haunted my dreams as a kid

A Quiet Place
A compelling premise, masterfully executed

28 Days Later
That Brendan Gleeson scene. Oh my.

Literotica

Three stories/series pop to mind:

• Voodoo Girl by @GirlintheMoon
• Epilogue by @AwkwardApple415
• The Dome by @StillStunned

My Favorite in the Genre ...

... is not listed yet. I'm saving it for a separate post later in the thread. Unless this thread dies immediately. In which case, I'll wander the barren forum wasteland on my own, searching for that most elusive thing of all: hope.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The Chrysalids & Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M Miller
Mad Max: Fury Road

 

[ThatNewGuy]

A Canticle for Leibowitz and On the Beach are two classics of the genre that I still haven't read.

Also haven't seen Mad Max: Fury Road, but have been meaning to check it out.

 

[Bamagan]

Does the news count?

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Does the news count?

It should.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

Fallout's about as far as I go. I tend to really, really, really dislike the genre.

 

[GlennJenko]

The Last of Us games, though I do love A Quiet Place and Fury Road as well.

In terms of literature, it's more apocalyptic than post but Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. I also think the Hunger Games classes as post-apocalyptic.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

I tend to really, really, really dislike the genre.

I can understand that. With a few exceptions, I'm generally not a big fan of the zombie subgenre. For example, I've never seen The Walking Dead. A friend lent me some of the graphic novels years ago. While I enjoyed reading them at the time, I really have no interest in the show.

 

[BearNextDoor]

Threads is the most extraordinary post-apocalyptic film I've ever seen. A gut-punch for anyone that grew up believing the world could end at any moment in a rain of Soviet hellfire.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Lord Byron's 1816 poem "Darkness" is included in The Prisoner of Chillon collection. Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826). Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839). Richard Jefferies' novel After London (1885). The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898), both by H.G. Wells. Childhood's End is a 1953 novel by Arthur C. Clarke. I especially loved Alice Sheldon's Nebula-winning novelette "The Screwfly Solution" (1977), in which aliens are wiping out humanity with an airborne agent that changes men's sexual impulses to violent ones. Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide series (1979–2009) is a humorous take on alien invasion stories. Al Sarrantonio's Moonbane (1989) (werewolves, mmm, fun). Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's novel The Killing Star (1995).

EDIT: I had to look up Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide and copied it from Wiki.

 

[Nynah]

The Stand by Stephen King
Read this one at probably the perfect age

There was a thread on the "Men Writing Women" subreddit about all the times King mentions "breasts" in The Stand and it's pretty darn funny. I'll grant that it was written in 1978 but it's comical how he views women sometimes.

I haven't read too much of the genre in written works but I do have some favorites in TV/cinema:

Battlestar Galactica (2004) - might be slightly cheating since it's primarily in space but there was an apocalypse!
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - one of my favorite Ghibli movies, ends on a hopeful note which is needed in these trying times.
Dredd (2012) - the one with Karl Urban (my beloved) and not Sylvester Stallone. Honestly supremely underrated and one of the best movies that will probably never get a sequel.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Threads is the most extraordinary post-apocalyptic film I've ever seen.

I love it when I run across something I've never heard of before. A quick search shows it has very positive reviews on the aggregator sites. The summary looks interesting. Will have to check this one out.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

There was a thread on the "Men Writing Women" subreddit about all the times King mentions "breasts" in The Stand and it's pretty darn funny. I'll grant that it was written in 1978 but it's comical how he views women sometimes.

I haven't read too much of the genre in written works but I do have some favorites in TV/cinema:

Battlestar Galactica (2004) - might be slightly cheating since it's primarily in space but there was an apocalypse!
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - one of my favorite Ghibli movies, ends on a hopeful note which is needed in these trying times.
Dredd (2012) - the one with Karl Urban (my beloved) and not Sylvester Stallone. Honestly supremely underrated and one of the best movies that will probably never get a sequel.

BG was a post-apocalypse pre-apocalypse, lol.

And I agree - the Keith Urban Dredd is very underrated. I do think that the best movie that will never get a sequel is Master and Commander, though.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Opps, forgot Whiteout a novel by R.S. Burnett. There is a movie of the same name that includes a rape scene, but its based off a Graphic novel not Burnett's book.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But it isn't post-apocalyptic, it's the Napoleonic period.

BG was a post-apocalypse pre-apocalypse, lol.

And I agree - the Keith Urban Dredd is very underrated. I do think that the best movie that will never get a sequel is Master and Commander, though.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Battlestar Galactica (2004) - might be slightly cheating since it's primarily in space but there was an apocalypse!

Good call! Really enjoyed that series. That first episode where they have to jump every 33 minutes just pulls you right in. Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos are terrific together.

There was a thread on the "Men Writing Women" subreddit about all the times King mentions "breasts" in The Stand and it's pretty darn funny.

Yup. This line from the end of the original Reddit post sums it up nicely: "Has King every seen a breast before?"

 

[ThatNewGuy]

The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898), both by H.G. Wells.

I read an illustrated version of The Time Machine as a young kid (I think it may have been the Random House "Stepping Stones" classic, adapted by Les Martin). The Eloi and Morlocks creeped me out soooo much.

 

[Nynah]

And I agree - the Keith Urban Dredd is very underrated.

I feel like Keith Urban would play a very different Dredd from how Karl did it. But hey, they're both Kiwis by birth so who knows?

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Roadside Picnic by Arkadi and Boris Strugatski, the Metro trilogy by Dmitry Glukhobsky, and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. I have to say one thing about Russian writers: they really know how to do a post-apocalyptic world. As for Harlan Ellison goes... yeah, that short gave me more nightmares than the crowned King of horror ever did.

Those two books and that one short stories also have their videogame counterparts: Roadside Picnic is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, the Metro trilogy is the Metro series, and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream has its own point and click adventure that it's as unfair as a Sierra adventure, but also as disturbing as the original short story. I would add here the first two Fallout games and Fallout: New Vegas, with the latter being called a simulator of our own country by my compatriots. Taken up to eleven during the pandemic.

 

[lovecraft68]

Swan Song Robert McCammon.

Puts the Stand to shame.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've always been so sad that he cut the Greys out of the story.

I read an illustrated version of The Time Machine as a young kid (I think it may have been the Random House "Stepping Stones" classic, adapted by Les Martin). The Eloi and Morlocks creeped me out soooo much.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I feel like Keith Urban would play a very different Dredd from how Karl did it. But hey, they're both Kiwis by birth so who knows?

lol, brain fart

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

But it isn't post-apocalyptic, it's the Napoleonic period.

It’s post-apocalyptic if you’re French!

(I thought Nyah was making a more general comment about that movie, which does deserve a sequel, with Karl and Keith Urban in it together)

 

[MillieDynamite]

I get your point, and yes, from a certain point of view, it might work as a French Post-apocalyptic war with Britain!

 

[PennyThompson]

I have mixed feelings about the genre. I don't really enjoy Suffering Porn, I think most post-apocalyptic stories are just violent wish fulfillment for guys who are bored with their day jobs But I love exploring what comes after the end of the status quo. Mad Max movies and whatever can be fun, but I'm much more interested in stories that look at what it means to rebuild the world.

Station Eleven is my absolute favorite post-apocalyptic TV series. Strange, harrowing, occasionally funny, deeply, deeply empathetic to every character One detail that I liked a lot from it was that people weren't dressed like extras from Mad Max... there are gigatons of clean, brightly colored, non-biodegradable clothes piled up in every clothing store warehouse in America (Stars Mackenzie Davis, who I love ever-so much)

But a close second-favorite series would be The Leftovers, about what happens to society and families and individuals when 2% of the world's population vanishes without a trace, and how that impacts those left behind. It's a little spotty at times, but the final episode alone is worth the investment of watching all three seasons! (And it's got Carrie Coon in it, who I would either marry or ask to adopt me if given the chance, I don't care which one )

For films, it's gotta be Children of Men. Sooo bleak, which makes the one single ray of hope in the story just achingly good. Not one, not two, but three of the best-filmed action sequences I've ever seen.

For books, right now I'll go with A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. It's sort of a post-post-apocalyptic story, about an Earth that has just finally started to claw its way out of the climate disaster, finally started to heal, when an envoy of aliens lands and says that they've come to save humanity from itself, whether we like it or not!