Post-apocalyptic fiction: the definitive list.

It’s not like you had any other reading to do, right?

It’s a constant work in progress, but this is the most up-to-date version of my list of fiction about the end of the world. This post is going to get updated a lot – I’m going to try to link to the full text when I can, or links to their wiki.  On some links, I’ll have info or commentary in the rollover.  It’s currently clocking in at 423, mostly novels with some short stories and poems. I’ve read a very, very small fraction of these books, so I can’t attest to how apocalyptic they all are, so feel free to add, subtract, or change as you see fit.  UPDATE: Currently, every short story on the list which has the full text online somewhere is linked to, so you can start reading now!

Major update: BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER, for the most up-to-date version of the list, go here.  I’ve made a wiki page so everyone can add to the list if they see something that’s missing.  With any luck, crowdsourcing it out will make this list the last word on post-apocalyptic and apocalyptic literature!  Everything below, including the docs file, will be slightly out-of-date – still over 400 works, but not everything.

This link should take you to the Google Docs file, which includes the publication years.  You can also download it there, if you’re so inclined.  If that doesn’t work, the list also follows below, complete with hyperlinks to the available texts.

UPDATE: Because people have been asking, I’m going to add an explanation of the guidelines I used when compiling this list.

Basically, for a book/poem/story to be included on the list, it had to be

• published by a “real” publishing house, not a vanity press or self-published (nothing against these books – they just artificially inflated the volume of recent years)
• not manga, comic, or graphic novel (partly because they are a recent development, and partly because the addition of images changes the game a bit – as in, explosions tend to make for a more dynamic look than a blank empty landscape)
• be find-able on the internet (so I could independently confirm their existence/apocalyptic-ness)
• have the literal apocalypse in its universe, not just be an expression of apocalyptic anxiety (because that’s pretty much every book ever made at some level)
• by necessity, they also ended up being mostly books written in English or books so popular that they were translated.  I wish that wasn’t the case – one question I’m really interested in is how the American mind intersects with apocalypses, but I can’t do much comparing if I don’t even know if other countries have a post-apocalyptic canon (if anyone knows, btw, that’d be great).

Again, I’m not pushing those I cut out as somehow “not worthy” – it’s just information for a different chart!

Author	Title
Adams, Douglas	The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Adams, Robert	The Coming of the Horseclans
Adrian, Jach & James Axlen	Deathlands: Pilgramage to Hell
Aguilar, Grace	“The Escape – A Tale of 1755”
Ahem, Jerry	Survivalist: Total War
Aldiss, Brian	Hothouse
	Greybeard
Allen, Roger Macbride	Supernova
al-Nafis, Ibn	Theologus Autodidactus
Anderson, Kevin J. & Doug Beason	Ill Wind
Anderson, Poul	Vault of the Ages
	Twilight World
	The Winter of the World
	Orion Shall Rise
Anthony, Piers	Rings of Ice
Anvil, Christopher	The Day the Machines Stopped
	The Steel, the Mist and the Blazing Sun
Applegate, K.A.	Remnants series
Armstrong, Jennifer & Nancy Butcher	Fire-Us: The Kindling
Asher, Neal	Cowl
Asimov, Isaac	Pebble in the Sky
Asimov, Isaac & Robert Silverberg	“Nightfall”
Atwood, Margaret	The Handmaid’s Tale
	Oryx and Crake
Auster, Paul	In the Country of Last Things
Aylett, Steve	“Gigantic”
Bacipalupi, Paolo	“The People of Sand and Slag”
Bailey, Dale	“The End of the World as We Know It”
Ball, Brain N.	Night of the Robots
Ballard, J.G.	The Wind from Nowhere
	The Drowned World
	The Drought (The Burning World)
	The Crystal World
Bandy, Franklin	Farewell Party
Barnes, John	Mother of Storms
Barrett, Jr., Neal	Kelwin
	“Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus”
	Through Darkest America
	Prince of Christler-Coke
Baxter, Stephen	Titan
Bear, Elizabeth	“And the Deep Blue Sea”
Bear, Greg	Blood Music
	The Forge of God
Beaton, Alistair	A Planet for the President
BeauSeigneur, James	Christ Clone: In His Image
Benet, Stephen Vincent	“Nightmare Number Three”
	“By the Waters of Babylon”
Benford, Gregory	Shiva Descending
Benson, Robert Hugh	Lord of the World
Berman, Mitch	Time Capsule
Blade, Alexander	“The Brain”
Blish, James	The Devil’s Day (Black Easter, Day After Judgment)
Bond, Nelson S.	“Magic City”
Boulle, Pierre	Planet of the Apes
Bourne, J.L.	Day by Day Armageddon
Bova, Ben	Test of Fire
Boyle, Michael	Full Circle
Brackett, Leigh	The Long Tomorrow
Bradbury, Ray	“The City”
	“There Will Come Soft Rains”
	“The Visitor”“The Highway”
	Fahrenheit 451
Bradley, Robert	“Square of the Sun”
Brin, David	The Postman
Brinkley, William	The Last Ship
Brooks, Max	World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Brooks, Terry	Sword of Shannara (Shannara series)
Brown, Fredric	“Answer”
Brunner, John	The Sheep Look Up
Buchell, Tobias S.	“Waiting for the Zephyr”
Budendorf, Deric R.	Quentel
Budrys, Algis	Some Will Not Die
Budz, Mark	Clade
Budz, Mark	Crache
Bulychev, Kir	The Last War
Bunch, David R.	Moderan
Burton, Levar	Aftermath
Butler, Octavia E.	Patternmaster
	“Speech Sounds”
	Clay’s Ark
	Lilith’s Brood
	Parable of the Sower
Butler, Samuel	“The Book of the Machines” of Erewhon
Byron, Lord George Gordon	“Darkness”
Cadigan, Pat	Tea from an Empty Cup
Caidin, Martin	The God Machine
Cameron, Kenneth M.	Power Play
Capek, Karel	R.U.R. (coined ‘robot’)
Card, Orson Scott	The Folk of the Fringe
Carlson, Jeff	Plague Year
Carmody, Isobelle	Obernewtyn Chronicles: Obernewtyn
Carter, Angela	Heroes and Villains
Christopher, John	The Death of Grass (No Blade of Grass)
	The World in Winter (The Long Winter)
	The Ragged Edge (A Wrinkle in the Skin)
	The White Mountain (Tripods trilogy)
	Empty World
Clark, Simon	The Night of the Triffids
Clarke, Arthur C.	“The Nine Billion Names of God”
	Childhood’s End
	The City and the Stars
	Songs of Distant Earth
Colander, Valerie Nieman	Neena Gathering
Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre	The Fifth Horseman
Cooper, Dennis	“The Ash Gray Proclamation”
Cooper, Edmund	The Overman Culture
Corin, Lucy	“Sixteen Small Apocalypses”
Cowper, Richard	The Twilight of Briareus
Crace, Jim	The Pesthouse
Crowley, John	Engine Summer (in Otherwise omnibus)
David, Elliott	“So We are Very Concerned”
David, James F.	Footprints of Thunder
Delany, Samuel R.	Dhalgren
	Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Derby, Matthew	“Kraftmark”
Dever, Joe	Highway Holocaust (Freeway Warrior series)
Dick, Philip K.	“Second Variety”
	“The Last of the Masters”
	The World Jones Made
	“To Serve the Master”
	The Penultimate Truth
	Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K. & Roger Zelazny	Deus Irae
Dickson, Gordon R.	Wolf and Iron
Disch, Thomas M.	The Genocides
Doctorrow, Cory	“When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”
Douglas, Ian	Star Corps (Legacy trilogy)
Drum, D.B.	First, You Fight (Traveler series)
du Maurier, Daphne	“The Birds”
DuBois, Brendan	Resurrection Day
Dunsany, Lord	“The Last Revolution”
DuPrau, Jeanne	The City of Ember
Eckery, Allan W.	The HAB Theory
Elliott, Janice	The King Awakes
Ellis, Mark	Exile to Hell (Outlanders series)
Ellison, Harlan	“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”
	“A Boy and his Dog”
Elson, Ben	The Other Eden
Emshwiller, Carol	“After All”
	“Killers”
England, George Allan	Darkness and Dawn
Evenson, Brian	“An Accounting”
Federbush, Arnold	Ice!
Fleischer, Richard	Make Room! Make Room!
Florman, Samuel C.	The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival
Forster, E.M.	“The Machine Stops”
Frank, Pat	Mr. Adam
Frank, Pat	Alas, Babylon
Gaiman, Neil	“When We Went to See the End of the World…”
Galouye, Daniel F.	Dark Universe
George, Peter	Red Alert
Glynn, A.A.	Plan for Conquest
Goldberg, Jeff	“These Zombies are Not a Metaphor”
Goldin, Stephen	Caravan
Goonan, Kathleen Ann	Queen City Jazz
Goss, Theodora	“The Rapid Advance of Sorrow”
Graham, David	Down to a Sunless Sea
Grigg, David Rowland	“A Song Before Sunset”
Hamilton, Edmond	The Metal Giants
Hand, Elizabeth	Winterlong
	The Glimmering
Harrison, Craig	The Quiet Earth
Harrison, M. John	The Committed Men
Hart, Marcus Alexander	The Oblivion Society
Hautman, Pete	Hole in the Sky
Hawthorne, Nathaniel	“Earth’s Holocaust”
Heine, William C.	The Last Canadian
Heinlein, Robert A.	The Puppet Masters
	Farnham’s Freehold
	The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
	Friday
Herbert, Frank	The White Plague
	Legends of Dune triology
Herbert, James	’48
Herberts, James	Rats Quadrilogy
Hill, Douglas	Galactic Warlord (Last Legionary series)
Hoban, Russell	Riddley Walker
Hodgson, William Hope	The Night Land
Hoover, H.M.	Children of Morrow
Horowitz, Anthony	Raven’s Gate (Power of Five series)
Horvitz, Leslie	The Dying
Hohl, Jared	“Fraise, Menthe, Et Poivre 1978”
Hoyle, Trevor	The Last Gasp
Hubbard, L. Ron	Battlefield Earth
Hughes, Edward P.	The Long Mynd
	Masters of the Fist
Huxley, Aldous	Brave New World
	Ape and Essence
Ing, Dean	Pulling Through
Jackson, Basil	The Night Manhattan Burned
Jackson, Shelley	“The Hook”
James, P.D.	The Children of Men
Jefferies, Richard	After London: Or, Wild England
Johnson, Adam	Parasites Like Us
Johnson, Scott A.	Deadlands
Johnstone, William W.	Out of the Ashes (Ashes series)
Jones, Dennis Feltham	Colossus
Judson, Theodore	Fitzpatrick’s War
Kadrey, Richard	“Still Life with Apocalypse”
Kavan, Anna	Ice
Keene, Brian	The Rising
	The Garden Where My Rain Grows
	Conqueror Worms (Earthworm Gods)
	Dead Sea
Key, Alexander	The Incredible Tide
King, Stephen	“Night Surf”
	“Trucks”
	The Stand
	The Mist
	The Gunslinger (Dark Tower series)
	“The End of the Whole Mess”
	Cell
Kirkman, Rober & Tony Moore	The Walking Dead
Knight, E.E.	Way of the Wolf (Vampire Earth series)
Koontz, Dean	The Taking
Kornbluth, C.M.	The Syndic
Kress, Nancy	“Inertia”
Kunstler, James	World Made By Hand
LaHaye, Time & Jerry B. Jenkins	Left Behind (Left Behind series)
Langan, John	“Episode Seven: Last Stand…”
Lanier, Sterling E.	Hiero’s Journey
Laumer, Keith	Catastrophe Planet
Lawrence, Louise	Children of the Dust
	“Extinction is Forever”
Le Guin, Ursula K.	“Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time”
Lebbon, Tim	Naming of Parts
Leiber, Fritz	Gather, Darkness!
	“A Pail of Air”
Lem, Stanislaw	“The Cyberiad” series
Lesser, Milton	“Slaves to the Metal Horde”
Lessing, Doris	Memoirs of a Survivor
	Shikasta
	Mara and Dann
Lethem, Jonathan	Amnesia Moon
	“How We Got In Town and Out Again”
Lin, Tao	“I Am ‘I Don’t Know What I Am’ and You Are Afraid…”
Link, Kelly	“Miss Kansas on Judgment Day”
Levine, Stacey	“Sweethearts”
Levitin, Sonia	The Goodness Gene
Livingstone, Ian	Freeway Fighter
London, Jack	The Scarlet Plague
Long, Jeff	Year Zero
Lovecraft, H.P.	“Nyarlathotep”
Lutz, Gary & Deb Olin Unferth	“I Always Go to Particular Places”
Macaulay, David	Motel of the Mysteries
Macbeth, George	“Bedtime Story”
MacCreigh, James	“Let the Ants Try”
Macmillian, Ian	Blakely’s Ark
Mano, D. Keith	The Bridge
Martin, David Lozell	Our American King
Martin, George R.R.	“Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels”
Matheson, Richard	I Am Legend
Mayhar, Ardath	The World Ends in Hickory Hollow
McAuley, Paul	White Devils
McCammon, Robert R.	Swan Song
McCarthy, Cormac	The Road
McDevitt, Jack	“Never Despair”
	Eternity Road
	Moonfall
McGann, Oisin	Small-Minded Giants
McIntyre, Vonda N.	Dreamsnake
McMullen, Sean	Souls in the Great Machine (Greatwinter trilogy)
Mcnaughton, Janet	The Secret Under My Skin
Meier, Paul	The Third Millennium
Merle, Robert	Malevil
Merril, Judith	Shadow on the Hearth
Messac, Regis	Quinzinzinzili
Mieville, China	The Tain
Miller, Walter M.	Canticle for Leibovitz
Mills, Steven	Burning Stones
Mitchell, David	Cloud Atlas
Moody, Rick	“The Apocalypse Commentary of Bob Paisner”
Moore, Alan	Watchmen
Moorcock, Michael
	The Cornelius Quartet
	The Ice Schooner
	Some Reminiscences of the Third World War sequence
Morrow, James	This is the Way the World Ends
Murphy, Pat	The City, Not Long After
Nahmlos, John	Survivors
Nelson, O.T.	The Girl Who Owned a City
Nemett, Adam	“The Last Man”
Niven, Larry	Ringworld
	“Inconstant Moon”
	Flight of the Horse
	A World Out of Time
Niven, Larry & Jerry Pournelle	The Mote in God’s Eye
	Lucifer’s Hammer
	Footfall
Niven, Larry, Jerry Pournelle, & Michael Flynn	Fallen Angels
Nix, Garth	Shade’s Children
Nolan, William F. & George Clayton Johnson	Logan’s Run
Norton, Andre	Star Man’s Son
Novakovich, Josip	“The End”
O’Brien, Michael D.	Father Elijah: An Apocalypse
O’Brien, Robert C.	Z for Zachariah
Oates, Joyce Carol	“Apoca Ca Lyp Se: A Dip Tych”
Oliver, Chad	“Transfusion”
Oltion, Jerry	“Judgment Passed”
Orwell, George	Nineteen Eighty-Four
Palmer, David R.	Emergence
Pangborn, Edgar	Davy
	The Judgment of Eve
	The Company of Glory
	Still I Persist in Wondering
Parker, Daniel	January (Countdown)
Paulsen, Gary	The Transall Saga
Pellegrino, Charles	Dust
Pellegrino, Charles & George Zebrowski	The Killing Star
Percy, Walker	Love in the Ruins
Phair, Colette	“The End of the Future”
Poe, Edgar Allan	“The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”
Pollock, Frank Lillie	“Finis”
Pournelle, J.E. & John F. Carr	There Will Be War
Pratt, Fletcher	“The War of the Giants”
Prochnau, William	Trinity’s Child
Rand, Ayn	Anthem
	Atlas Shrugged
Raspail, Jean	The Camp of the Saints
Reaves, Michael & Steve Perry	Dome
Reeve, Philip	Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines Quartet)
Rein, Harold	Few Were Left
Reisig, Michael	The New Madrid Run
Rickert, M.	“Bread and Bombs”
Roberts, Adam	The Snow
Robertson, Pat	The End of the Age
Robinson, Kim Stanley	The Wild Shore (Three Californias series)
Roessner, Michaela	Vanishing Point
Rogers, Mark E.	The Dead
Roshwald, Mordecai	Level 7
Ruskin, Ronald	The Last Panic
Russell, Eric Frank	“Dear Devil”
Ryan, Thomas J.	The Adolescence of P-1
Saberhagen, Fred	Berserker series
Sagan, Nick	Idlewild
Sarrantonio, Al	Skeletons
Self, Will	The Book of Dave
Service, Pamela F.	Winter of Magic’s Return (Winter series)
Shapiro, Eric	It’s Only Temporary
Sharpe, Matthew	Jamestown
Sheffield, Charles	Aftermath
Sheldon, Alice B.	“The Screwfly Solution”
Shelley, Mary	The Last Man
Sherriff, R.C.	The Hopkins Manuscript
Shiel, M.P.	The Purple Cloud
Shute, Nevil	On the Beach
Siegel, Barhara & Scott Siegel	The Burning Lands (Firebrats series)
Silverberg, Robert	Time of the Great Freeze
	After the Flames (Allied Stars, vol. 11)
	At Winter’s End (New Springtime series)
	The Alien Years
Simak, Clifford D.	City
	Cemetery World
	The Visitors
Simmons, Dan	Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos)
Smith, Mitchell	Snowfall (Snowfall trilogy)
Starhawk	The Fifth Sacred Thing
Stern, D.A.	Black Dawn
Stewart, George R.	Earth Abides
Stirling, S.M.	The Peshawar Lancers
	Dies the Fire (Emberverse series)
Strieber, Whitley & James Kunetka	Warday
	Nature’s End
Svoboda, Terese	“’80s Lilies”
Swanwick, Michael	In the Drift
Swindells, Robert	Brother in the Land
Taylor, Justin	“Pole Shift”
Teasdale, Sarah	“There Will Come Soft Rains”
Tepper, Sheri S.	The Gate to Women’s Country
	The Visitor
Tevis, Walter S.	Mockingbird
Tilley, Patrick	Cloud Warrior (Amtrak Wars series)
Tillman, Lynne	“Save Me from the Pious and the Vengeful”
Tucker, Wilson	The Long Loud Silence
	The Year of the Quiet Sun
	Ice and Iron
Ure, Jean	Plague 99
Van Pelt, James	“The Last of the O-Forms”
	Summer of the Apocalypse
Vance, Jack	The Dragon Masters
Varley, John	“Bagatelle” (Eight Worlds series)
	Millennium
	“The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)”
Vaughan, Brian K.	Y: The Last Man
Vincent, Harl	“Rex”
Vonnegut, Kurt	Cat’s Cradle
	Galapagos
Waller, Nicholas	“Enta Geweorc”
Wells, Catherine	The Earth is All that Lasts
	Mother Grimm
	“Artie’s Angels”
Wells, H.G.	The War of the Worlds
	In the Days of the Comet
	(When) The Sleeper Awakes
	The Shape of Things to Come
	“The Star”
	The Time Machine
Westerfield, Scott	The Uglies (Uglies trilogy)
Whittenberg, Allison	“Think Warm Thoughts”
Wilhelm, Kate	Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Williams, Diane	“What is it When God Speaks?”
Williams, Michael	The Mind Machine
Williams, Paul O.	The Breaking of Northwall (Pelbar Cycle)
Williams, Walter J.	The Rift
Williamson, Jack	“With Folded Hands”
Willis, Connie	Doomsday Book
Wilson, Daniel	How to Survive a Robot Uprising
Wolfe, Gene	The Book of the New Sun
	“Mute”
Wren, M.K.	A Gift Upon the Shore
Wright, S. Fowler	Deluge
	“Automata”
Wylie, Philip	Tomorrow!
	Triumph
	The End of the Dream
Wylie, Philip & Edwin Balmer	When Worlds Collide
Wyndham, John	The Day of the Triffids (Revolt of the Triffids)
	The Kraken Wakes (Out of the Deeps)
	“No Place Like Earth”
	Re-Birth (The Chrysalids)
	“Time to Rest”
Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn	False Dawn
Zelazny, Roger	Damnation Alley

Aguilar, Grace	“The Escape – A Tale of 1755”
Ahem, Jerry	Survivalist: Total War
Aldiss, Brian	Hothouse
	Greybeard
Allen, Roger Macbride	Supernova
al-Nafis, Ibn	Theologus Autodidactus
Anderson, Kevin J. & Doug Beason	Ill Wind
Anderson, Poul	Vault of the Ages
	Twilight World
	The Winter of the World
	Orion Shall Rise