# What Are Some of Your Favorite Doomsday Novels?



## Hoss6193 (Mar 8, 2012)

Many a doomsday novel contains more than just a rainy afternoon's idle entertainment. Some of them posses anywhere from a handful to a hatful of "survival nuggets" well worth the mining!

I cobbled the list below together for a webpage I built back in ought seven. Personal lists on any subject are all just that, "personal". But I'd sure like any suggestions that would greatly expand on this list.

Here's A List of Two Dozen of My Favorite
"End of Civilization /Mankind" Novels

By Mr. Cary C. Jeffries

The titles below are listed in order of my preference. Where ever you see a price, it will be the publisher's current (as of 2007) suggested retail price for the "Mass Market" (4" by 7" paperback) edition of that book. OOP = Out of Print

1.) Out of The Ashes By William W. Johnstone - $5.99
2.) Fire In The Ashes By William W. Johnstone - $5.99
3.) Emergence By David R. Palmer - OOP
4.) The Postman By David Brin - $7.99
5.) Lucifer's Hammer By Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven - $7.99
6.) Alas Babylon By Pat Frank - OOP
7.) On The Beach By Nevil Shute - OOP
8.) Earth Abides By George R. Stewart - OOP
9.) The Stand: The Expanded Edition By Stephen King - $8.99
10.) Atlas Shrugged By Ayn Rand - OOP
11.) The HAB Theory Allan W. Eckert - OOP
12.) Tunnel In The Sky By Robert A. Heinlein
13.) A Canticle For Leibowitz By Walter M. Miller Jr. OOP
14.) The Man In The High Castle By Phillip K. Dick - OOP
15.) The Puppet Masters By Robert A. Heinlein - OOP
16.) Fail Safe By Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler - OOP
17.) The Long Tomorrow By Leigh Bracket - OOP
18.) Red Storm Rising By Tom Clancy - $7.99
19.) War Day By Whitley Streiber & James Kunetka - OOP
20.) The White Plague By Frank Herbert - OOP
21.) I Am Legend By Richard Mattheson - $7.99
22.) War of The Worlds By H. G. Wells - $4.99
23.) Farnam's Freehold By Robert A. Heinlein - OOP
24.) Earthwreck By Thomas N. Scortia - OOP

The first two novels in the above list are also the first two volumes in the thirty-four volume post-nuclear holocaust series written by the late great William W. Johnstone. Known simply as "The Ashes" series, they represent one of the most controversial pile of paperbacks that you're ever likely to see. Mr. Johnstone makes Rush Limbaugh look like a piker when it comes to his disdain for liberals in general, and the liberal mindset in particular. And since "most" of this country's news and entertainment media have been just left of Marx for longer than the last half of my fifty-four years, you can just bet what they thought and still think about Mr. Johnstone!

Note: Since I compiled this list a several of years ago, several of these titles have come back into print, while several of them have disappeared. You'll just have to do a book search to find out what's currently available. But I have yet to fail finding a good used reasonably price copy of any book by using a amazon dot com book title search.

Three major motion pictures were made from the twenty-first title from the above list. The first was "The Last Man On Earth (1964)" staring Vincent Price. The second was "The Omega Man (1971)", staring Charlton Heston. And the most recent version, "I Am Legend (2007)" staring Will Smith. It is my humble opinion that if taken in the context of the decades in which each was released, all three were very good films and should be in anybody's video library.

On the subject of books, we're running a "Springtime Special" on all of our survival/preparedness books and DVDs that will last until midnight of the last day of this month. Anyone interested can go to

http://www.survivalplus.com/specials/toc.htm

All The Best To 1 & All,
Cary Jeffries


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## neil-v1 (Jan 22, 2010)

I have read most of your list. I think the one TEOTWAWKI book I enjoyed reading most as far as being an "easy read" is one that is not on your list. It is titled One Second After by Forstchen. I thought it was very good. That is a good list you have there.


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## mdprepper (Jan 22, 2010)

Make sure you check out the great stories on here. We have some terrific writers in our little family! http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f55/


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## Bigdog57 (Oct 9, 2008)

"Lucifer's Hammer" got me started in my interest in prepping. I first read it in high school, and reread it every so often.
The "Ashes" series is good in it's first half dozen books - then gets to be too much boilerplate. When Raines goes to Africa, the series really took a dive.

Read "Alas Babylon!" and "On The Beach" in high school too. A bit too much "doom&gloom" - the authors basically assumed a nuke war was 'unsurvivable' in the long run.


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## Magus (Dec 1, 2008)

One second after.
The road.
Canticle for Leibowitz
Alas Babylon
Atlas shrugged
Red beard
Daybreak 2150
Battlefield earth
The invader's plan
Monkey planet[Planet of the apes]
Ozmydaius
The ice people
ICE
The book screamers was adapted from.lol


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## gypsysue (Mar 27, 2010)

Anything by me! 

gypsysue - here on the forum in the fiction section! (Also available on amazon!)

The new book, "Sample28" is one of the best zombie/PAW books I've read, also found in the fiction section by culexpipiens.

"First Strike" by D.K. Robinson (Amazon)

Off-forum authors:
"Alas Babylon" is my favorite.

"Life as we Knew it" and "The Dead and the Gone", both by Susan Beth Pfeffer


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## revolt1776 (Mar 13, 2012)

Left behind! Very good novel


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## Colonel (Mar 15, 2012)

"Malevil" the first post-apocalypse novel I ever read. I don't know what happened to my copy.


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## duffydog (Sep 4, 2010)

when the lights go out


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## Jezcruzen (Oct 21, 2008)

My latest reads - Deep Winter, Shatter, and remnant (trilogy)

I like "One Second After" and "Lights Out".

I hated "The Road". Wore me out just reading it.


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## DKRinAK (Nov 21, 2011)

*A good mix*

A lot of my tastes run to so-called hard science fiction, and lately, military SciFi.

John Ringo's "Through the looking Glass" is startling. Alien invasion writ big.

The classic RAH novels of "Tunnel in the Sky" and "Farnham's Freehold" - now found on the web as a pdf.

"Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth" a graphic noel - OK, comic book had an interesting take. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamandi)

"No blade of Grass" predates "White Plague", both are in the same vein.

"Lucifer's Hammer" is a cult classic by now, as is the "Mote in God's Eye. Both deal with ecology as an underlying theme.

Fallen Angels is another very good "post-apolitical" tale of an earth ravaged by climate change.

For a different, and current, look at the end of the world, my World of Chernyi books take a hard look at the aftermath of a collapse - not from alien invasion, but from within. worldofthechernyi.com is the site with sample chapters.

I have read Alas Babylon, from the mid 50s, and place it with such work as "Panic in the Year Zero, a movie directed by Jack Web. That society no longer exists, if it ever did to begin with. The same for "On the Beach" all of them are very dramatic, but fail on the science end of things.

Dean Ing has a few very good stories, His bio says it all -
"Dean Charles Ing was formerly a member of the United States Air Force, an aerospace engineer, and a university professor who holds a doctorate in communications theory. 
He has been a professional writer since 1977. Following the death of science fiction author Mack Reynolds in 1983, Ing was asked to finish several of Reynolds' uncompleted manuscripts. 
Ing and his wife reside in Oregon. Much of Ing's fiction includes detailed, practical descriptions of techniques and methods which would be useful in an individual or group survival situation, including instructions for the manufacture of tools and other implements, the recovery of stuck vehicles and avoidance of disease and injury. In addition to his fiction writing, Ing wrote nonfiction articles for the survivalist newsletter&#8230;"
His "Wild Country " series is really eye opening, a very different look at post0disaster politics...
"Pulling Through" one of his best - a cracking good story and as full of real information as -

"Nuclear War Survival Skills or NWSS" by Cresson Kearny.

It is non-fiction, but as scarey as the others.


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## gitnready4it (Dec 27, 2011)

Man I have a lot of reading to do! My favorite so far is "One Second After".


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## MsSage (Mar 3, 2012)

My fav is the left behind 
I have started reading some of the novelettes posted on here and they are pretty good. Short and easy to read. Well written and if you only have a small amount of time perfect.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

I liked The Road. Of course, I also liked Patriots by Rawles, so maybe it's me. 

One Second After was really good too.


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## oldvet (Jun 29, 2010)

mdprepper said:


> Make sure you check out the great stories on here. We have some terrific writers in our little family! http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f55/


"True Dat", there are some fantastic writers/story tellers on here and they have been gracious enough to allow us to read their works, and as the ones of us that have read any of their stories know, they are really, really good. :2thumb:


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## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

I just finished Desperate Times by Nicholas Antinozzi. It's a trilogy. I liked it because it was an easy read, but somewhat unrealistic. Guess that's why they call it 'fiction'. I also read Patriots and just skipped over the ad nauseum talk about guns. Probably pretty right on the money for how it will be in the future but certainly doesn't leave one with much hope of attaining that sort of "home". One Second After was good, but almost too much on the opposite side of the spectrum. Love to read so I'm enjoying all of the recommendations.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Here is one I picked up back in February from PamsPride's free kindle downloads thread. Just finished it last night. It grabs hold of you and won't let go. You can definitely tell it was written by someone seated on the right side of the isle, but for most folks here it shouldn't be a problem. 

*13 
Robert J. Thomas*

Bob Montgomery is sworn in as President of the United States on January 19, 2013. He finds the country almost bankrupt, deep in debt and political turmoil and things were getting worse by the day. He knew all of this when he ran for the office of President and figured it couldn't get any worse. He was wrong. In his first year in office, he oversaw the end of all military actions in the Middle-East. Then, in his second year, he lost his wife to cancer. However, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

In January of 2015, a terrorist group of 676 radicals who had been setting up shop in America over the last 20 years begin a series of deadly and brutal terror attacks on American soil. The attacks continue to get worse by the week and the President and his top leaders seem helpless to stop or catch these terrorists. The terrorists destroy the White House and the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. and kills the majority of Congress. President Montgomery, after an assassination attempt on his life and with thousands of Americans dead, decides to unlock a secret weapons program to help him fight back and stop the terror attacks.

He travels to Cheyenne Mountain, commonly know as NORAD and gives the order to initiate the new and highly-advanced weapons system call Silver Hawk. He uses the new system, which has been kept secret for years to help him track down the terrorists group called 13. At the same time, he makes some very radical decisions and moves that has the rest of the world spinning on their heals; and deathly afraid of the United States.

This book is a non-stop thriller that will make you shudder at the thought of just how easy it is for a dedicated terror group to kill thousands of Americans at will. And, with some very easy to aquire items that they turn into weapons they use against the American public on American soil. After you read this book, you will understand just how vulnerable we are to attacks and why we are never safe from terror.

http://www.amazon.com/13-ebook/dp/B006V5Q44Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1334750362&sr=1-2


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

UncleJoe said:


> He travels to Cheyenne Mountain, commonly know as NORAD and gives the order to initiate the new and highly-advanced weapons system call *Silver Hawk*. He uses the new system, which has been kept secret for years to help him track down the terrorists group called 13. At the same time, he makes some very radical decisions and moves that has the rest of the world spinning on their heals; and deathly afraid of the United States.


wow, sounds good 

the title reminded me of season1, episode 6 of Masters of Science Fiction, titled _Watchbird_... it's a bit _Minority Report_

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779497/

It seems like the perfect solution to a ballooning crime rate - filling the skies with flying robotic droids that can prevent murders *before* they take place. However, nobody told these "watchbirds" that all life depends on a formula of carefully balanced killing. Robert Sheckley examines one of the most important questions of our time - is it wise to sacrifice our liberty in the name of our security?


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

"One Second After" was great, "Alas, Babylon" was very good. Incidentally, I just convinced my cousin, who is an English teacher at a Christian private school, to use "Alas, Babylon" as a book for his high school class. 

All of Rawles fictional books are terrible. Don't waste your time; just buy his how-to books and save yourself the pain of dealing with his thin characters.

My favorite book/series (possibly of all time) is still "Dies the Fire" by S.M. Stirling, and the two books that follow, "The Protector's War" and "A Meeting At Corvallis". The first three books are by far the best, as they deal with the generation that loses technology and how they deal with being thrust back into the Dark Ages. There is a second arc (I believe six books in the second arc) which deals with the next generation and becomes more supernatural. The first book is fantastic, and the next two are also solid.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

I agree with you on Lucifer's Hammer.
realistic, gritty , well written and not everyone survives....

To me the quintissential apocalyptic novel.

I dont agree that red Storm rising fits into this genre though.
Its simply a war novel (albeit one of the best, just behind "The forgotten Soldier" )

I also liked battlefield Earth , so it is written in a style that makes it almost a juvenile but the imagination of the author (the infamous L Ron Hubbard) is just amazing.

I really enjoyed the Tripod Trilogy, it is a juvenile and i read it as a juvenile.
Great for your 9-14 year olds.

The road also wore me out reading it.. that reality seemed to have no hope at all with seemingly all agriculture destroyed...
I dont recall it ever saying what caused the problem, but from all the ash everywhere it was obviously a supervolcano.

Thats something almost impossible to prep for..
reading the Road is something I guess that is partially responsible for me ordering a little extra ammo every month, thinking of him with his one good bullet and one fake bullet so the revolver appears partially loaded..


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## CAN1975 (Mar 30, 2012)

I just read the Life As We Knew It tilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer. They are novels geared towards teens. An asteroid has just collided with the moon causing TSTHTF. I had a few issues with the series (like it was the third book before they thought to use the woods in their backyard for hunting & gathering) but overall they were enjoyable and fast reads.


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## MichaelK (Aug 3, 2011)

Wolf and Iron, by Gordon Dickson.

A realistic story focusing on the collapse of world society after an economic crisis. The central character is a graduate student trying to make is way cross country to his older brother's ranch in Montana.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Michael: Wow that <does> sound pretty good, especially knowing Gordon R Dickson for his hard core sci fi


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## Magus (Dec 1, 2008)

One second after and the road..


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

I read "Alas, Babylon" when it came out. I've reread it 3 times over the years.

Others;

"Fail safe"
"The Bedford Incident"
"Omega Man" the movie
"One Second After"
"The Trigger Effect" the movie

There's more but these are the only ones I can remember now.


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

Great thread! 

This has added a couple to my list, tho I've read most...

My additions not yet mentioned:

Piers Anthony, the 'battle circle' trilogy, and my personal favorite 'but what of earth'

Harlon Ellison, 'a boy and his dog'

And non-fiction:

Ishmael Beah, 'a long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier'


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

Oops, and one more fiction, by your kids favorite author, but it's not about a chick struggling to choose between necrophilia and beastiality...

Stephanie Meyer, 'the host'


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## mojo4 (Feb 19, 2012)

Well I can't read but my fav doomsday movies and shows are..... Mad Max, Book of Eli, The Walking Dead, Jericho, Red Dawn, Falling Skies and Zombieland. I can't remember the name of it but the one with chris pine after a viral outbreak where they drive to Mexico and the cheesy one with Patrick Swayze from the 80s. I love TV. I plan on catching up on my reading after TSHTF and there's no electricity to watch tv. The road was too depressing. I really hope there's tv after TSHTF otherwise I might get depressed.


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