Reading suggestions- Post apocalyptic

Ochobee wrote: A Canticle for Leibowitz is worth a read if you haven't already.

I second this recommendation.

For a fun one, try Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, by Victor Gischler. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, is great. Stephen King's The Stand is decent, but I also liked The Gunslinger as a standalone story with an oddly post-apocalyptic feel.

Robert McCammons "Swan Song" and David Palmers "Emergence" are two 80's era overlooked gems, IMHO. Both are hard to find and I'm not sure if they have ebooks but both are fantastic with Swan Song being the more rock'em sock'em nuclear war supernatural mishmash similar to the Stand.

copy the whole link, Andy. For some reason this forum software doesn't like the parentheses. Sorry! Silo(SERIES), emphasis on "series".

If anyone wants a copy of Infinite Jest, they're welcome to mine. I couldn't get through 20 pages of it.

It's on Kindle for $9.99 (Infinite Jest). Started reading a few hours ago as am suffering from insomnia at the moment.

It's OK so far but I'm used to reading Neil Stephenson stuff which is also quite rambly. I will definitely finish it just because I'm a stubborn bastard.

Damnation Alley, Canticle for Leibowitz amybe Hothouse and Cat's Cradle

I think someone already mentioned On the Beach by Nevil Shute. I read that at the same time I read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. Both are old-school post-apocalypse.

I recommend;

Metro 2033. The book is a lot lot better than the game it inspired. This is a really solid SF novel and a very engaging read.

A Road Side Picnic. - Similar, more original, but probably not as good as Metro.

Philip K Dick; Dr Bloodmoney, The Penultimate Truth.

If you are happy to have it mixed with fantasy you could consider some of Jack Vance's dying earth stories too.

My favorite authors are Philip K Dick and Joe Lansdale (thanks again, I forget who sent me the JL Reader as a Secret Satan...I now own a great many of his books).

Also, Chrichton's Androemda Strain is great but a little less PostApoc, while King's The Stand is a bit more bubblegum than something like Wool or Infinite Jest.

George Stewart's "Earth Abides" blew my socks off the first time I read it in college.

I liked Canticle a lot, but it's probably been 30yrs ago.
Beach isn't a happy read by any stretch. Though, The Road makes just about anything seem light & airy.

Still in the 'classic'/oldie vein, John Christopher's "The Death of Grass" is good.
For that matter, around the same time I tracked down a UK copy of J.G. Ballard's "The Drowned World" (was out of print). Neither is a particularly long read.

Thinking back, I remember reading Samuel Delaney's brick of a book, "Dahlgren", when I was about 12 or so - it took me probably six months to finally get all the way through. But it certainly stuck with me at the time. Heh, the substantial amounts of sex depicted probably didn't hurt.

Moving a bit more recent, and out of the "common" references, I enjoyed William Kunstler's "A World Made by Hand" quite a bit. I don't think it falls into the 'prepper' vein - he's a long way from the "bullets, bandaids & beans" set. And there's pretty much zero procedural to it.

For pulpy 80's entertainment, including a handful of great black & white illustrations; 'Among Madmen' by Jim Starlin and Daina Graziunas. It's a pastiche of 'I am Legend.'

For pulpy entertainment pretending to be grand literature; 'The Passage' by Jim Cronin. It's an amalgamation of 'The Stand' and 'The Road Warrior' among others.

For grand literature; 'The Pesthouse' by Jim Crace or even 'Zone One' by Colson Whitehead.