Your favourite apocalyptic novels?

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

Not my favourite necessarily, but I've recently finished the Last Policeman trilogy and loved it. The premise sounded a bit , but it was actually really good - the slow unravelling of society as the trilogy progressed was gripping, and very convincing.

There also used to be a lot of kids'books about nuclear war around in the 80s, remember them? I must have read Z For Zacharia and Brother in the Land 20 Times each.

I loved Z for Zachariah and Brother in the Land too.

But better than either of these is Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence - I'm quite surprised no one else has mentioned it.

I love The Road. It is bleak.but ultimately uplifting IMO.
Station Eleven is a blimmin work of art. Adore it.

My favourite genre! Will have a look on my shelves in a bit but the first that came to mind is Night Work. Really quite terrifying actually. I think it's by a German author and has been translated.

Mega femme - I really wanted to love station eleven. Female author, great premise, but I just thought something was missing somehow. Still a good read though.

World War Z by Max Brooks is fab. Different from other books and I love it.

The Stand is still my favourite but love Brook's style.

Shades Children by Garth Nix is great

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (quite a gentle apocalypse)

Engine Summer by John Crowley (post post-apocalyptic)

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky (horror)

You are making me want to dig out my battered and much loved copy of The Stand again! However bad a day I'm having, at least I don't have Captain Trips!

Last Light and Afterlight by Alex Scarrow are easy beach reads but suitably apocalyptic.

The Crysalids by John Wyndham was the first one I read, I think. Or maybe the Tripods by John Christopher? But The Postman by David Brin is really good.

I liked Station Eleven as well. There are loads, aren't there!

I mentioned it on page 1 Imch.

I'd totally forgotten children of the dust! That was a firm favourite here too. And all the John Wyndhams.

Oh, oh! The Drowned World by J G. Ballard.

I hated The Road, depressingly dismal.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies I've never "met" anyone else who has even heard of the prince in waiting trilogy!

IWannaSeeHowItEnds snap. I think The Death of Grass might have been my first apocalyptic novel and like you it has stayed with me since reading it in secondary school.

Soo glad I started this thread My Amazon wishlist has doubled.

I read The Road in a small tent in Anglesey during one particularly miserable summer holiday. It never stopped raining, my bowels went on strike and dd1 got pneumonia so it was a particularly fitting novel to go with the rest of the experience I felt.

ScribblyGum A tent! Luxury! The poor sod in The Road only has a tarp.

Yes but he wasn’t trying to have fun with two toddlers in North Wales was he?

Survivors by Terry Nation as well. Neuromancer by William Gibson is a classic, started all the cyber stuff.
Lots of teen novels are post apocalyptic, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent etc.

"The things that keep us here" - a different kind of apocalypse involving the outbreak of a bird flu pandemic. Not sure if that's the kind of apocalypse you were after but if you are looking for something a bit different it's worth reading. It scared the shit out of me!

The girl with all the gifts is brilliant! Totally not my normal type of book but gave it a go and so glad I did!

not exactly apocalyptic but headed that way: Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Scribbly I certainly know which one I'd choose.

This thread is ace Quite a few I haven’t read.

I liked world war z too, completely different to the movie.

And I’m so glad other people have read and liked the death of grass, no one I meet irl has ever heard of it!