Literary Post-Apocalypse Novels

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7 books

Part of the reason that a lot of fiction tends to be dark, aside from the fact that with darkness comes conflict, is because readers crave the opportunity to vicariously experience disastrous alternative futures. The best post-apocalypse novels, in addition to being immersive to read, are “prophetic,” in that they offer readers a chance to experience the existential crisis of humanity in plain, accessible, and emotionally striking terms. Even though the actual future of humanity may not be truly apocalyptic (in the sense that the entire species risks going extinct), we will almost certainly be facing regionalized apocalyptic events wherever we live. These novels offer the hope that maybe, somehow, we can help change the paradigm in time for us save ourselves to some degree—or at least to mitigate the dark futures their authors are allowing us to experience in fictional terms. As a bonus (full disclosure), I include my own post-apocalypse novel, The Afterlife Project.

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The Road

Cormac McCarthy, 2007

You want dark? This 2006 post-apocalypse novel’s got dark. Reading it for the first time is like entering a horrifying, claustrophobic tunnel. You can’t stop, you can’t get out, and you can’t turn back. What The Road does so well is to give readers the experience of environmental apocalypse in purely emotional terms. It’s a frightening story, and again, an extremely dark story—not just in terms of what happens, but literally dark, with a nameless father and son traveling on foot through a world that is so dead and barren that it’s absolutely devoid of color. In emotional terms, it’s kind of like watching an old horror movie in black and white: think Night of the Living Dead. Fortunately for its readers, in addition to being perhaps the most existentially bleak novel ever written, The Road is also among the most beautifully poetic. And it ends on a note of subtle relief and happiness that feels like waking up from the worst nightmare you ever had.

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel, 2014

This harrowing but also ultimately optimistic 2014 post-apocalypse novel features a band of Shakespeare players on tour amid the ruins of central Canada and the upper U.S,. Midwest. With admirable clarity, Mandel shows us how easily it might happen—how quickly our complex society could fall apart. She also demonstrates how humanity might live on in the face of anarchy and evil and how—Mad Max and other familiar scenarios aside—brutal lawlessness and sociopathic violence aren't the only choices on the menu of human behaviors in a post-apocalyptic world. Despite the terror and hardship that's bound to come with the end of civilization as we know it, in Station Eleven, love, community, and creative expression endure. Paradoxically, this is a novel that, at times, almost makes you yearn for the apocalypse.

The Dog Stars

Peter Heller, 2012

Like Station Eleven, Heller’s 2012 novel The Dog Stars tells the story of a few survivors hanging on after a plague wipes out the majority of the North American population. The setting—the mostly deserted ruins of Denver and the Colorado Front Range—is quite beautifully drawn, with a nice mix of familiar and speculative elements that keep readers fully immersed. Heller’s novel delivers plenty of practical detail about surviving a post-civilization world, including pro tips about living in abandoned airports, hunting, fishing, keeping pets, flying small airplanes, and fighting off predatory fellow humans. The characters are believable, compelling, and sympathetic, with the two major plot lines of the story involving a surprising friendship and a love story. In other words, like Station Eleven, this is a fundamentally optimistic novel, and reading it will give you hope that the end of everything might not as bad as all that.

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood, 2010

Another example of a devastated alternative future for humanity is Margaret Atwood’s innovative post-apocalyptic novel, Oryx & Crake. Atwood uses the fiction writer’s superpower of concrete, specific, vivid, sensory detail to catch and transport the reader’s imagination: “The offshore towers stand out in dark silhouette against it, rising improbably out of the pink and pale blue of the lagoon. The shrieks of the birds that nest out there and the distant ocean grinding against the ersatz reefs of rusted car parts and jumbled bricks and assorted rubble sound almost like holiday traffic.” Notice the mix of familiar and strange in the sensory details; the familiar objects like a bed frame and car tires juxtaposed to the unfamiliar savagery of the daily “afternoon storm.” The weather is an essential aspect of Atwood’s world-building in Oryx & Crake, which is entirely fitting for a novel that sets out to portray the aftermath of a climate-induced apocalypse.

American War

Omar El Akkad, 2017

Omar El Akkad creates an admirable version of a late 21st century America battered by climate change, disease, and political strife, with echoes of the 19th century American Civil War. The storytelling is very good, and though I personally never quite warmed to the main characters. this is a well-written page-turner and a worthwhile entry in the expanding and necessary field of contemporary literature that some have called "climate fiction." Having characters from a darker future look back on our own time with a sense of regret and longing for all that has been lost is a powerful way to write about what humanity faces right now in terms of climate disruption and mass extinction.

Watership Down

Richard Adams, 2009

Yes, this 1970s novel is about bunnies. But these are relatable bunnies, badass bunnies, bunnies facing the imminent destruction of the only civilization they’ve ever known, who decide to follow a prophetic message to seek a new and better home. In the process, they have to confront powerful fascist bullies, escape the jaws of hungry predators, and overcome seemingly invincible obstacles like a flooded river and a cemetery full of rats. With the help of a few unlikely allies, the rabbits of Watership Down find a way to form a new civilization, one dedicated to equality, community, and mutual respect. At a difficult moment in history, this novel offers us the precious gift of hope.

The Afterlife Project

With humanity facing imminent extinction, a team of scientists uses technology originally designed for interstellar travel to send a test subject ten millennia into Earth’s future. Marooned in an uninhabited wilderness, microbiologist Nicholas Hindman searches in vain for remnants of the human race. Meanwhile, back in 2068 A.D., the team’s head physicist and its doctor lead a small crew of survivors on a sailing voyage to a small volcanic island north of Sicily on a harrowing quest for a second viable test subject. A finalist for the 2023 Prism Prize for Climate Literature, the novel features a scientifically plausible mechanism for one-way time travel, a post-apocalyptic wilderness setting, and a search for spiritual meaning across the inconceivable vastness of geological time.