Can anyone recommend some great (non religious) end of the world fiction?

Question

I recently read "The Road" and "On The Beach". What other books might I enjoy? It dosen't matter if the themes are nuclear war, plague/virus, etc. Thanks.

Answer 1

I am surprised no one said "the Stand" yet, by Stephen King.
That one is very good. Instead of religion, it deals more with "good and evil". I am not one to read books on religion, and this book did not put me off at all.

** oops. appologies to K H. he/she did say the Stand **

Answer 2

Well Shade's Children by Garth Nix is about Everbody over the age of 14 dying because beings from a different dimension take over!!! The oldest person is a 19 year old girl and her friends who are rebels trying to stop them. It's really cool. It's fantasy but it's still a good book.

Answer 3

There is a book I read out of boredom one day that turned out to be a keeper for me. It is called Malevil and it is by Robert Erle. It concerns a small group of french people surviving a nuclear war in a rehabbed castle in the Alps.

Answer 4

An Inconvienient Truth by Al Gore Don't know how good it is but its fiction. BTW have you seen the movie for On The Beach? Its Excellent! -- The Stand by Stephen King is also pretty good.

Answer 5

Try "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke.

The book is astonishing in its scope and "is a story of the end of the earth and, indeed, of the last man himself" (reviewer's words). It written a bit like a mystery and author keeps you wondering what is really going on.

The author is one of the most acclaimed sci-fi writers ever (wrote 2001: Space Odessey). But the book is about people and societies, its sci-fi mainly because its set in the future.

Answer 6

Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven.
About a meteor that hits earth and ends civilization as we know it. Facinating and quite exciting.
I bought this book 5 times, because I would lend it out and never get it back!

Answer 7

It's a short story, but read 'The Last Night of the World,' by Ray Bradbury (from 'The Illustrated Man.') It's not apocalyptic fiction, but it's quiet, moving, and touching, and I think you might like it.

Here. I found this online, and I believe it's the story, if memory serves:

"What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?"

"What would I do? You mean seriously?"

"Yes, seriously."

"I don't know. I hadn't thought."

He poured some coffee. In the background the two girls were playing blocks on the parlour rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of the brewed coffee in the evening air.

"Well, better start thinking about it," he said.

"You don't mean it!"

He nodded.

"A war?"

He shook his head.

"Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?"

"No."

"Or germ warfare?"

"None of those at all," he said, stirring his coffee slowly. "But just, let's say, the closing of a book."

"I don't think I understand."

"No, nor do I, really; it's just a feeling. Sometimes it frightens me, sometimes I'm not frightened at all but at peace." He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the lamplight. "I didn't say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago."

"What?"

"A dream I had. I dreamed that it was all going to be over, and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn't think too much about it the next day, but then I went to the office and caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon, and I said, A penny for your thoughts, Stan, and he said, I had a dream last night, and before he even told me the dream I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him."

"It was the same dream?"

"The same. I told Stan I had dreamed it too. He didn't seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through the office, for the hell of it. It wasn't planned. We didn't say, Let's walk around. We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out windows. I talked to a few. So did Stan."

"And they all had dreamed?"

"All of them. The same dream, with no difference."

"Do you believe in it?"

"Yes. I've never been more certain."

"And when will it stop? The world, I mean."

"Sometime during the night for us, and then as the night goes on around the world, that'll go too. It'll take twenty-four hours for it all to go."

They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.

"Do we deserve this?" she said.

"It's not a matter of deserving; it's just that things didn't work out. I notice you didn't even argue about this. Why not?"

"I guess I've a reason," she said.

"The same one everyone at the office had?"

She nodded slowly. "I didn't want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block talked about it, among themselves, today. They dreamed. I thought it was only a coincidence." She picked up the evening paper.

"There's nothing in the paper about it."

They moved through the house and turned out the lights and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing and pushing back the covers. "The sheets are so clean and nice."

"I'm tired."

"We're all tired."

They got into bed and lay back.

"Just a moment," she said.

He heard her get out of bed and go into the kitchen. A moment later, she returned. "I left the water running in the kitchen sink," she said.

Something about this was so very funny that he had to laugh.

She laughed with him, knowing that it was what she had done that was funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.

"Good night," he said, after a moment.

"Good night," she said.

Answer 8

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. End of the world by Ice Nine - It doesnt get any better. Pax - C.

Answer 9

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman.

Answer 10

Earth Abides
The Last Ship
Dies the Fire
Lucifer's Hammer
Alas, Babylon

I loved all of those, hope you do too.