Best apocalyptic fiction by new authors?

[lessonsintightropes]

I have read an awful lot of stuff written from 1950s to the present day, and am enjoying finding some new stuff via Kindle from self-published authors - some total trash but other things I've thought were quite well written, like Feed/Deadline etc by Mira Grant.

Any other suggestions?

[FanFuckingTastic]

Ooh, I have got to try and recollect names now, which I am rubbish at. Any and all suggestions otherwise welcome.

I also enjoy Dystopia, which can be a result of Apocalyptic scenarios, so those too for me.

Obviously going to mention The Stand as the one book that started my on this path.

[lessonsintightropes]

The Stand is amazing. I love all the old standards (especially the Handmaid's Tale and Margaret Atwood's newer Oryx and Crake trilogy), plus I've enjoyed quite a few YA series like Hunger Games and Divergent. The Gift by Lois Lowry was great. Newer stuff I thought was fun includes Madeleine Roux, Jack L Lee and Manel Loureiro - all authors with multi-novel series but I think all Kindle only. There is an awful lot of poorly written stuff out there too though. I love the fact there's a fair bit of beautifully written and thoughtful stuff out there too though, best of which I think is probably M Atwood - best was The Year of the Flood - adore that book.

What dystopian stuff would you recommend?

[FanFuckingTastic]

Hunger Games was good. Divergent film is out next week, I'm off to that as I really enjoyed the written series. I'm going to have to have a look at my Kindle to give you recent names.

Stephen King is a pretty good start, a lot of his books have a similar style. From The Mist, to Cell and more recent stuff from him. I've watched a lot of television stuff because I found it hard in the beginning to find library books of this genre. Lots of Zombie stuff and natural disaster style films - Poseidon, which is a mini-apocalypse, through 28 Days Later, and the BBC series I forget the name of, lol.

1984 and Handmaid's Tale were both fascinating. Inside Out was a more recent read that re-kindled my search for this style. Some fantasty/sci-fi style books too, Anne McCaffrey erm.. dammit, this is where I am hopeless. I forget names of things very easily.

[lessonsintightropes]

Ooh I will check out Inside Out, and Anne McCaffrey. The latter name rings a bell actually. Looking forward to kindle latest ideas!

[FanFuckingTastic]

Anne McCaffrey (hope spelling is right) did a series I liked in particular about the Dragons of Pern, which is cross genres in my opinion between fantasy and sci-fi. She also writes sci-fi straight. She is another of my most early reads, so I hope you like the stuff she does. I don't want to spoil it, because it's not 100% on topic, but explanation means spoilers. I found out the a society you think you know, you don't, and it's about survival of the unknown.

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

Marking place, it's my favourite type of fiction at the moment. Anyone read the WOOL series? I haven't but I just read Silo49 which is along the same lines.

[Jiina]

You don't mean the Freedom books by Anne McCaffrey do you? (Freedoms landing, Freedoms Choice, Freedoms Cahllenge, etc)

[Jiina]

Challenge

[lessonsintightropes]

Off to kindle store

[FanFuckingTastic]

Inside Out was pretty damn good from memory. I think it's aimed at Young/Teen Readers, but this is something I find fascinating. How can children/pre-adults change the world for the better? We don't expect it to be children fighting for us, but look at World Wars, they can and have. I found a lot of disturbing links between Nazi Germany and Hunger Games for example. And parallels as far as the world we live in today.

I'd never shut up in a book group.

[FanFuckingTastic]

Oh that's another one. All of the Wool series was fascinating. I bought and read it all straight away as soon as I discovered it.

[FanFuckingTastic]

I started in the wrong place in the Wool series, but even then the whole thing was great.

[lessonsintightropes]

I found Wool a bit hard to get into, but loved Devil on my Back by Monica Hughes.

ANd Fan a bunch of RL friends and their friends, maybe 20 of us in all, have a FB group to talk about books. Whilst the majority favour modern lit and detective fiction, there's a sub faction of five of us who talk about this stuff all the time. You need to find the right group/forum

[lessonsintightropes]

Which is the best series to start with Anne McCaffrey? Dragon or Brain and Brawn or Crystal Singer?

[FanFuckingTastic]

I couldn't answer. I'd pick Dragons, because I like a strong fantasy element. I always wanted to find a way to bring magic into an apocalyptic world. The death of technology, the rebirth of magic. Phwoar! That would be my ideal style, but I like all the others too, so how can I pick?

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

John Wyndham and John Christopher - almost everything they ever wrote - I do like my "cosy catastrophe" novels. I'm not sure if it was because it was when they wrote, or that they were both "upper class" in their style, but I love their insights into human nature, and how their stories are all about the people and the interactions forced upon them as their safe little societies crumble around them. (OOPS, just realised you said "new authors" in the OP still, to anyone who's never read them, they are new authors! )
I read a short on Kindle recently called "The Old Man and the Wasteland" iirc, and it was very reminiscent in style of JW.
The best zombie series I've read so far has been "White Flag of the Dead" by Joseph Talluto, and the two "Generation Dead" books that follow it.
There are so many zombie novels on Kindle, and loads of them are free or dirt cheap, so I've been in "zombie paradise" although, many of them are pretty instantly forgettable or just plain not very good, I have actually read and re-read White Flag and really enjoyed them.
Have you read "Swan Song" by Robert (or is it Richard?) McCammon? It's as if someone gave him and Stephen King the same plot outline and turned them loose, and King wrote the Stand and McCammon wrote Swan Song.
As regards the YA dystopian stuff, I read all 3 of the Hunger Games, and Divergent and Insurgent (and never realised there was a third on of those) and they were good, but whether it was because I first read them as an adult or something, I don't know, but they just don't seem as good somehow as the YA stuff I read when I was a YA iyswim.
I adore "Invitation to the Game" and most of Monica Hughes other stuff too - "Devil on my Back" and suchlike, and everything HM Hoover ever wrote. I still have my childhood copies of a lot of them, and re-read them as "comfort reading" sometimes
When I was homeschooling my no2 son, I used to get him to read a lot, and in the end he rebelled because it was "all that devastating end of the world crap" but I read them all anyway, and the "Tomorrow When the War Began" and "Among the Hidden" series were good children's/YA dystopian series that I remember.
I shall stop as I could witter on for hours about this stuff

[FanFuckingTastic]

I think I read an easier to get into part of Wool series to start, so the rest was filling in the details and I love details. Did have to take reading rests from it at times because it was wordy and depressing at times, but they had some great ideas and horrible ones too. Human remains to feed the plant life, government style versus individual silo style. Innovation not being regarded as a good thing. People seen as being unnecessary for survival, thus disposable.

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

And if you read Anne McCaffrey's "Pern" books, start with Dragonflight and end with All the Wyrs of Pern, and stay far far away from anything with the name of Todd McCaffrey on it!
He needed a job when he left the army, and she was old and ill and handed it over, and it was a disaster :( Just resist and you will get the true spirit of Pern and never have it sullied by his inane mundane witterings!

[FanFuckingTastic]

I think this is going to become my new favourite place on Mumsnet. Books and apocalypse. Oh my little heart is fluttering.

Amazon is going to be busy for a while. When I finish the series I am reading now. Urban fantasy style stuff, so not quite on topic, but another type of sub-culture versus the world type thing.

[CheckpointCharlie]

Ooooh! Blood Red Road is a really good youth dystopian novel.
And the follow up too, Rebel Heart. Think they're by Moira Young?

I bought my dad Wool for Christmas so I could read it after him!

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde is my fave book ever.
And Divided Kingdom is good but I can't remember who wrote it.

[FanFuckingTastic]

Agreed PomBear. Stick with Anne.

[lessonsintightropes]

I will start with Dragons then

John Wyndham is amazing and I loved the Tripods on telly as a kid.

Definitely checking out Joseph Tatullo and McCammon, R, and HM Hoover.

Thanks for recommendations everyone! We ought to come back and chat about which ones we've tried and liked. Fan this thread could be the post-apocalyptic (with fantasy leanings) book club

[lessonsintightropes]

And Pom thanks for that, I was struggling to know where to start!

[CheckpointCharlie]

fan is it by Christopher Moore? A poster called ThursdayLast recommended him to me.
If that's not the author you were talking about, you might like him. And Jasper Fforde too. And the London Underground series by Ben Aaronvich.

[blueemerald]

The girl with all the gifts by MR Carey is brilliant.