For Further Reading
What follows is a selected bibliography of post-apocalyptic fiction. The list is not all-inclusive, but is intended merely as a primer for readers looking to better familiarize themselves with the sub-genre.
Like the stories collected in this volume, I’ve focused this bibliography on books in which the post-apocalyptic elements are vital to the story. There are many books, however, that while not “core” post-apocalyptic titles will be of interest to fans of the sub-genre nonetheless. These books—which employ the themes or settings of post-apocalyptic SF but are primarily noteworthy for other reasons—are marked by asterisks to denote their associational relevance to the sub-genre.
To learn more about the stories in Wastelands, visit the anthology’s website at johnjosephadams.com/wastelands.
Aldiss, Brian
— Greybeard
— Hothouse
Anderson, Poul
— Twilight World
— The Winter of the World
— Vault of the Ages
Anvil, Christopher
— The Day the Machines Stopped
Atwood, Margaret
— The Handmaid’s Tale*
— Oryx and Crake
Ballard, J. G.
— The Drowned World
— The Burning World
(a/k/a The Drought)
Barrett, Jr., Neal
— Kelwin
— Through Darkest America (et seq.)
— Prince of Christler-Coke
Bova, Ben
— Test of Fire
Brackett, Leigh
— The Long Tomorrow
Brin, David
— The Postman
Brinkley, William
— The Last Ship
Brunner, John
— The Sheep Look Up
Budrys, Algis
— Some Will Not Die
Butler, Octavia E.
— Parable of the Sower* (et seq.)
— Patternmaster* (et seq.)
— Dawn* (et seq.)
Carlson, Jeff
— Plague Year
Card, Orson Scott
— The Folk of the Fringe
Christopher, John
— No Blade of Grass
— The World in Winter
— Empty World
— A Wrinkle in the Skin
Crace, Jim
—The Pesthouse
Crowley, John
— Engine Summer
Dick, Philip K.
— Dr. Bloodmoney
Dickson, Gordon R.
— Wolf and Iron
Disch, Thomas M.
— The Genocides
Ellison, Harlan
& Richard Corben (artist)
— Vic and Blood
Frank, Pat
— Alas, Babylon
Florman, Samuel C.
— The Aftermath
Galouye, Daniel F.
— Dark Universe
Goonan, Kathleen Ann
— Queen City Jazz (et seq.)
Hand, Elizabeth
— Winterlong*
— The Glimmering*
Harrison, M. John
— The Committed Men
Heinlein, Robert A.
— Farnham’s Freehold*
Herbert, Frank
— The White Plague
Hoban, Russell
— Riddley Walker
Huxley, Aldous
— Ape & Essence
Jefferies, Richard
— After London
Johnson, Adam
— Parasites like Us
King, Stephen
— The Stand
— The Gunslinger* (et seq.)
— Cell*
Kirkman, Robert
& Tony Moore (artist)
— The Walking Dead (et seq.)
Koontz, Dean
— The Taking*
Kornbluth, C. M.
— The Syndic
Laumer, Keith
— Catastrophe Planet
Leiber, Fritz
— Gather, Darkness!
Lethem, Jonathan
— Amnesia Moon*
London, Jack
— The Scarlet Plague
Matheson, Richard
— I Am Legend*
McCarthy, Cormac
— The Road
McCammon, Robert R.
— Swan Song
McDevitt, Jack
— Eternity Road
McIntyre, Vonda N.
— Dreamsnake
Merle, Robert
—Malevil
Merril, Judith
— Shadow on the Hearth
Miéville, China
— The Tain*
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
— A Canticle for Leibowitz
— Saint Leibowitz and the Wild
— Horse Woman
Miller, Jr., Walter M. & Martin H. Greenberg (editors)
— Beyond Armageddon
Morrow, James
— This Is the Way the World Ends*
Niven, Larry & Jerry Pournelle
— Lucifer’s Hammer
Norton, Andre
— Star Man’s Son
(a/k/a Daybreak 2250 A.D.)
O’Brien, Robert C.
— Z for Zachariah
Pangborn, Edgar
— Davy
— The Judgment of Eve
— The Company of Glory
— Still I Persist in Wondering
Pournelle, Jerry (editor)
— After Armageddon
Reaves, Michael
& Steve Perry
— Dome
Robinson, Kim Stanley
— The Wild Shore
Sagan, Nick
— Edenborn (et seq.)
Sharpe, Matthew
— Jamestown
Sheckley, Robert (editor)
— After the Fall
Sheffield, Charles
— Aftermath
Shelley, Mary
— The Last Man
Sherriff, R. C.
— The Hopkins Manuscript
Shiel, M. P.
— The Purple Cloud
Shute, Nevil
— On the Beach
Simak, Clifford D.
— Cemetery World
Smith, Mitchell
— Snowfall (et seq.)
Stewart, George
— Earth Abides
Stirling, S. M.
— Dies the Fire (et seq.)
Swanwick, Michael
— In the Drift
Taylor, Justin (editor)
—The Apocalypse Reader
Tucker, Wilson
— The Long Loud Silence
— The Year of the Quiet Sun
— Ice and Iron
Van Pelt, James
— Summer of the Apocalypse
Varley, John
— Millennium
Vaughan, Brian K.
— Y: The Last Man (et seq.)
Wells, Catherine
— The Earth Is All That Lasts (et seq.)
— Mother Grimm
Wilhelm, Kate
— Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang*
Williams, Walter Jon
— The Rift
Wright, S. Fowler
— Deluge
— Dawn
Wylie, Philip
— Tomorrow!
— Triumph
Wylie, Philip & Edwin Balmer
— When Worlds Collide
— After Worlds Collide
Wyndham, John
— Re-Birth (a/k/a The Chrysalis)
— The Day of the Triffids
Zelazny, Roger
— Damnation Alley