Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Any recommendations/favorites of yours?

Those are two distinct genres, but some of my faves;

Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes published as 1984) by George Orwell is the classic and on the ERE reading list.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourites.

The Stand - Stepehen King (part way through but so far, so good)

Two others on my wish list Brave New World, The Giver (haven't got around to these yet, would be interested on opinions if anyone has read these)

EDIT: How could I forget to add, The Culture Series by Iain M Banks! Not technically post-apocalyptic and more scif-fi.

The limits to Growth,MIT,Dennis Meadows,1972.
Translated in 37 languages,sold 12 million copies.

Recent update published by The Guardian (English quality paper) says that predictions are on target,our civilisation will end before 2100.

Not a novel but a must read to understand where our production driven society is heading to.

@vexed87: Yes, changed Apocylyptic disutopian future to Post apocylyptic disutopian future.

I think what vexed87 meant is that dystopian is a different genre from post-apocalyptic.

For dystopian, you could read classics like Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World. For contemporary stuff, there's Battle Royale or the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. A lot of science fiction is also dystopian in nature.

For post-apoc, the classics are Earth Abides and Alas, Babylon. Many modern post-apoc novels are thinly-veiled survivalist or political diatribes, but I like Steven Konkoly's stuff (The Jakarta Pandemic and The Perseid Collapse series). Doris Lessing also wrote some novels that I would categorize as post-apoc, and I love her work.

Honestly, some of the best books in both genres are published as 'young adult' novels these days. I'm thinking of series like The Hunger Games, The Divergent Trilogy, and the Tomorrow Series (Tomorrow, When the War Began).

Survivors by Rawles was entertaining.
Brave New World and 1984 are classics for a reason: greatness.
+1 to The Road.
Alas, Babylon by Frank, post-global-thermonuclear-war living in the southern US. It was my favorite fiction book last year.
On The Beach by Shute, post-global-thermonuclear-war living in Australia.
Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel has an interesting take on apocalypse. It was also refreshing to read a woman writing the genre.
Snow Crash by Stephenson felt dystopian to me.

These are ones I have in my reading list:

Island in the Sea of Time by Stirling
Earth Abides by Stewart, George
Some Will Not Die by Budrys
The Postman by Brin
I Am Legend by Matheson
Riddley Walker by Hoban
Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood by Atwood
Eternity Road by McDevitt
The Wild Shore by Robinson
Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller

I also love the Atwood novels, MaddAddam is also a decent read.

I'd add anything by John Christopher to the list if you're interested in 70s? English catastrophe fiction. Be warned, these are very English, but as a snapshot in time, they're great fun

The Silo Saga by Hugh Howey (Wool, Shift, Dust) is good and a little different than the traditional post apocalyptic stuff like The Road or I Am Legend.

I second the Hugh Howey books. Very entertaining.
Also, the Jeff Carlson Plague Year trilogy
The Justin Cronin Passage trilogy (one more to be released)
The Dan Simmons Illium and Oympos books
World War Z = book is way different than the movie
Swan Song - Robert McCammon
The Year of the Quiet Sun - Wilson Tucker
The Winds of Time - Chad Oliver

Not sure which category it falls into (maybe both), but
The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke

OTCW wrote: World War Z = book is way different than the movie

World War Z, I Am Legend, all of Phillip K Dick book to movie adaptations... Which ones aren't?

The difference in both media is so large that the integrity and plot of the book is almost always compromised when it is adapted.

The rule of thumb is if you really like a book, resist the want to watch its film adaptation. If you are indifferent to the book, you wouldn't care anyway.

This is similar to ERE: Those people who need FI most desperately, for those, it is hardest to reach the crossover point. Most of those who do, don't wish to quit working outright anyway.

Damnation Alley. I've never seen the movie and only have the novella, not the full-length novel.

My three favorites:

Brave new world (Aldous Huxley)
1984 (George Orwell)
We (Yevgeny Zamyatin)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Have-Waited-You ... +have+come

This was one of the few books in this genre which I have found believable.

OK, nobody's mentioned Kim Stanley Robinson:
- The Wild Shore
- The Gold Coast
- Pacific Edge

I second The Stand and would add the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. They are mostly for entertainment, not some sort of artistic commentary on the world.

This is one (two?) of my favorite genres. Love all the ones that have been mentioned before.

Also recommend:
Colson Whitehead: "Zone One" It's a post-zombie apocalypse story, but GOOD--much more about human nature than zombies. You actually see very few zombies... extremely well-written.

Jason Hough: The Dire Earth Trilogy--"The Darwin Elevator," "The Exodus Towers," and "The Plague Forge." Books take place after most of the earth is wiped out except for Australia. Mysterious aliens have erected a space elevator and left. But why?


Marcus Sakey: The Brilliance Saga--one more to be released, I hope soon! "Brilliance" and "A Better World" Humans are evolving, and some of them have new abilities. Sort of X-men-ish, but really good

This maybe sorta kinda fits the genre... but barely, I suppose. But I still like it: The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley. It's far in the future, and mysterious aliens have sent us a bunch of technology that we have put to use.

John Michael Greer
James Kunstler

Not post-apocalyptic but post-peak.

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

22nd century, only military has fossil fuels, everything else is sail and spring-powered mechanicals---spring wound by elephants, calories guide everything, agricultural companies unleash genetic plagues to maintain their profits on hybrid seeds, genehacking rules, takes place in Thailand, occasionally R-rated.

A very rich description of the world. I'd put it in the same class/style as the best of Neal Stephenson or Stephen Donaldson..