The world is ending—again.
And yet, for as often as it does (end) in literature, the apocalyptic genre doesn’t seem to be in any danger of dying out any time soon.
As a lifelong lover of a good doomsday story, I’ve always considered the tenacity and resourcefulness of the human spirit to be the category’s major appeal—along with the it-could-really-happen scary plausibility and ingenious “prepping” specifics, of course. But it wasn’t until I started writing my apocalyptic thriller, The Line Between, that the real charm of the genre became apparent to me.
I’d recently married a single father and become an insta-mom to four. Life was busy and crowded with details. But as I began to plot my literary cataclysm, the chaos of daily life—work, bills, school schedules, errands, house stuff, holidays, political noise, grocery lists, social media, bucket lists, and those ever-elusive last ten pounds—fell away in the face of a story with a single goal: survival. Suddenly, that looming list of to-dos doesn’t seem so insurmountable—or even important—compared to savoring time with those we love while we’re all here on earth together.
In a recent interview after I stated that we read fiction for one primary reason—to escape—the interviewer asked, “But how can it be escapism when it’s filled with such realistic detail and impending doom?” My answer is this: life is very simple when it’s a quest for survival. Or even more important, saving the ones we love.
And so here it is: a genre that will stress us out while putting the noise of this crazy modern life in perspective. With books like Earth Abides, Station Eleven, The Road, Children of Men, I Am Legend, World War Z, and The Stand at the forefront of the genre, I offer you seven less-mentioned but no less decorated apocalyptic reads to add to your bunker or bug-out bag.
The Last Policeman
In this 2013 Edgar Award Winning first installment in The Last Policeman trilogy by Ben H. Winters, the earth is just six months away from impact with asteroid 2011GV1. With no hope of survival, the world braces for extinction. Except for detective Hank Palace, who refuses to give up the investigation of a murder in the face of his own pending doom.
One Second After
William R. Forstchen’s 2011 first installment in the John Matherson trilogy finds a family man in North Carolina struggling to save his family after an Electro Magnetic Pulse strikes the U.S. and sends it reeling into a new dark age. A book Congress claimed every American should read, with a foreword by Newt Gingrich. Fans of the trilogy might also enjoy Forstchen’s Pillar to the Sky and 48 Hours.
The Last One
Alexandra Olivia blurs the lines of reality in this 2017 debut novel in which TV show contestant “Zoo” (so named for her real-life vocation) is in the middle of navigating a solo survival challenge when a real threat strikes the human race. Cut off from the outside world, she has no way of knowing if the devastation she encounters is real… or one more hurdle on her way to winning the game.
CyberStorm
In this 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards winner by Matthew Mather, a winter storm wipes out Internet and power to New York, cutting it off from the rest of the world. Unsure who orchestrated the attack—and what might happen next—family man Mike Mitchell fights to protect his family as chaos reigns. Fans of CyberStorm should might also enjoy Mather’s The New Earth Series.
Winter World
A.G. Riddle goes beyond climate change with an earth that spirals into a new and deadly ice age in this 2019 first installment of The Long Winter Trilogy. As nations threaten war over the planet’s remaining habitable regions and scientists scramble for solutions, a mysterious object drifting toward the sun seems to contain the answer. Fans of Winter World might also enjoy Riddle’s The Extinction Files series.
After the Flood
Fellow Nebraskan Kassandra Montag’s 2019 debut story takes place over a century in the future after the world has been transformed into a vast scape of open water, an archipelago of mountaintops the only land above sea level. Myra and her young daughter, Pearl, embark on a dangerous journey to find the older daughter Myra believed to be dead but learns may still be alive. A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year.
Severance
In her multi-award winning 2018 debut, Ling Ma reflects on the end of the world through the eyes of a Chinese-American millennial living in New York City. Focused less on the how of survival versus the why, Severance is an examination of the past and habits that create—or kill—us and who we really are when all that we thought defined us is gone.
