Survival Fiction

[rab1961]

I've read

Lucifer's Hammer

On the Beach

Alas Babylon

A Canticle to Lebowitz

And the Dies the Fire Series by S.M. Sterling

No guns in the last one. The premise is something has happened to change the laws of nature. Combustible engines no longer work. Neither do fire arms nor radios or electricity. Most people end up starving to death especially around the cities. Good series! Swords and bows are the weapons of choice.

Could you include the authors for the titles you have listed and email them to me?

Thanks alot.

rabrumit@gmail.com Ron Brumit

[Guest TurboniumOxide]

By Optimistic I mean that it has a happy ending of sorts, and the time frame is quite short until that happens. In my opinion of course. Who knows what is realistic.

I have finished Cell (which was an extraordinary story), and I am on World War Z, which if you listen to the audio book, has fantastic dramatization. Highly recommended.

Edited September 16, 2009 by TurboniumOxide

[Oh Shoot]

Just an aside, movie version of On the Beach plays frequently on cable, matter of fact, on tonight on Retro Channel at 8 Eastern which is on most folks' mid level cable package I believe.

Made in '59, quite faithful rendition of the novel. (yes, the unconsummated love story part is in the novel also, not just thrown in by Hollywood.) It's okay by me, I'd watch Ava Gardner read the phone book.

- OS

[Moped]

Could you include the authors for the titles you have listed and email them to me?

Thanks alot.

rabrumit@gmail.com Ron Brumit

I'll just post it here, along with a short summary of each, so everyone who wants it, can have the info.

Lucifer's Hammer was written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

It's about a large comet hitting the planet and how a small group band together to survive fighting off cannibals. Cannibals seem to be a re-occuring theme in most of these books.

On the Beach was written by Nevil Shute deals with the aftermath of a nuclear war. It's pretty bleak and everyone dies in the end from radiation poisoning. It will make you want to cap yourself if you survive a nuclear war. My plan after reading this book, was to drive to the nearest Weigel's or 7/11 as soon as I heard an attack had commenced. Buy a six pack and set on the hood of my car drinking beer, while watching for the strike on Oak Ridge.

Alas Babylon by Pat Frank deals with the aftermath of a Nuclear war. Here is a good summary of the book.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank Summary

A Canticle to Lebowitz by Walter Miller deals with a monastry that survived a nuclear war in Utah. It covers quite a bit of time though, where as the other books usually deal with the immediate aftermath of such an event.

Dies the Fire Series by S.M. Sterling. This is a science fiction series where some of the laws of Physics no longer work. For example combustible engines no longer work, nor do firearms. However, and this is where the books go off a little bit, people are still able to use forges to create plows and swords and such. The value of these books are that they will make you think how you and yours are going to get by longer than a week or two. Oh Shoot spoke of something 90% mortality if something bad were to happen. Well that happens here, especially in the cities. People simply starved to death because they didn't know how to hunt or farm. Cannibalism returned, because that's how people fed themselves. But not our heroes. Any way, the story is interesting, if a little far fetched.

The Road by Cormac MacCarthy (a Tennessean) is a bleak novel about a father and son that are moving through a world that has largely died. He doesn't tell you what actually happened but it either had to be a nuclear war, a super volcano or a meteorite strike, because the world around them is covered in ash and everything is dead. Cannibalism again raises it ugly head in this book. Great page turner, but you have to get used to Cormac's style of writing. You'll see what I mean with the first sentence. You won't be uplifted by this one either, but it is entertaining in a morbid sort of way.

[Guest TurboniumOxide]

Did anyone watch Jericho on TV? I think that show woke a lot of people up. I think it was killed because it was highly thought provoking.

[Moped]

I watched and enjoyed it for the most part. I wasn't impressed with the battle at the end. Seemed a little lame. It was a show that made you think about what you might do in that situation, though.

[Oh Shoot]

...

A Canticle to Lebowitz by Walter Miller deals with a monastry that survived a nuclear war in Utah. It covers quite a bit of time though, where as the other books usually deal with the immediate aftermath of such an event.

....

Btw, proper title is A Canticle For Leibowitz...

It's not a EOTWAWKI or SHTF in the sense that most all the others are...begins several hundred years AFTER the nuclear destruction, and history at that point doesn't even really understand what the world had been like before. Spans about a 1500 years or so, best I remember, until science has "caught up" again....

Anyway, don't expect any contemporary "action" or "adventure" out of it and be prepared for much theological underpinnings ...

- OS

[Guest TurboniumOxide]

They had to rush the ending to jericho because it had been cancelled once, brought back, then cancelled again. They only had three episodes to wrap it all up. At least they got to wrap it up and the network didn't just axe it.

[midtennchip]

One Second After and Lights Out are my favorites. Both give you a lot to think about and, at least with Lights Out, a good bit of helpful hints. Patriots was just okay. But as others have said, there were a number of contradictions in terms of moral choices.

In reading PAW fiction, you have to learn to overlook the poor writing of many of the authors. Very few are "professional" authors and I get the impression the stories are not proof read by professional editors. If you can look beyond that, there's a lot of information and entertainment in them. There's another guy named Jerry D. Young that writes a bunch of short stories and posts them on a number of forums. If you search for him, you can pick up a lot of free reading.

[Oh Shoot]

... Patriots was just okay. ..

Part of Patriots that really stuck with me was the 8-10 pages describing the sequence of events that lead up to the financial meltdown - seems to me about 75% of all that has already happened!

- OS

[Moped]

Btw, proper title is A Canticle For Leibowitz...

It's not a EOTWAWKI or SHTF in the sense that most all the others are...begins several hundred years AFTER the nuclear destruction, and history at that point doesn't even really understand what the world had been like before. Spans about a 1500 years or so, best I remember, until science has "caught up" again....

Anyway, don't expect any contemporary "action" or "adventure" out of it and be prepared for much theological underpinnings ...

- OS

Oops! My bad!!! Been a long time since I read that one. I think I was in High School at the time and dinosaurs still roamed the planet!