Apocalypse Watch: July 2008 Archives

At the beginning of the year I said that I was going to read twelve post-apocalyptic books, inspired by John Joseph Adams' Wastelands anthology and the associated reading list.

I've done pretty well so far, I've read eight (two reviews outstanding!), the most notable ones that I haven't read so far being A Canticle for Leibowitz and Wastelands itself, which sold out at Amazon and missed being bought for my birthday :-( .

Enter the Octopus has a few more suggestions, some of which are non-fiction:

and A World Beyond Healing” by Nicholas Wade (which has no cover picture on Amazon).

Interesting, I shall investigate.

That post was, by the way, inspired by Cory Doctorow's post Post-apocalypse without the militias: The Outquisition, leading to a post on worldchanging.com, which talks about "super-networked post-apocalyptic Peace Corps who respond to the Great Fall by figuring out how to put it all back together". Sounds good to me. It's interesting stuff, and worth reading.

I should however point out that not all post-apocalyptic books are full of Mad Max style militia and violence and gloom (although most have doom, by definition). Some of the books I've read this year are in fact filled with hope in particular the wonderful Earth Abides and the fantastic Alas, Babylon.