I never can find it in B&M stores. With books, I am so used to just walking in stores and picking up something as there is always an internal list of 4 or 5 that should be there. I am going to have to break down and actually order it online!!!
It looks like there was a new edition in 2004, but it’s out of print now. I may have to track down a copy as well. I always enjoy Zelazny’s stuff.
No Blade of Grass was published years ago as part of a series of (IIRC) 27 novels, called Rediscovery SF. All of them well worth reading if you can find them these days.
And I love James Morrow’s work. Highly recommended. Towing Jehovah is a hoot.
On a final note, Zelazny’s “Damnation Alley” is worth reading as a short story, but do NOT, on pain of death, watch the movie. It is god-awful.
Is that the one with the Elephant aliens? God, that book was hilarious. Absolutely hilarious, balls-to-the-wall action.
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What are you talking about?! It had George Peppard in it. George Peppard!
:-)
I love it when a plan comes together.
Earth Abides is definitely worth reading. It stands on its own not just as a great work of sf but as a great novel in any genre.
It’s not action packed but it goes into a great level of detail, describing the emergence of a new culture in the wake of the apocalypse.
I read King’s preferred version of The Stand and the first two books were absolutely awesome but the third book becomes a little bit torturous.
Yes, a must read, and in fact the guy has written quite a lot of “end of the world” books. This is probably his best though.
Ah, but that just proves my point. It has the great Peppard in it, and it is STILL god-awful. The ending of that movie rivals The Black Hole as the worst in film history.
Wastelands - Collection of short stories, got some great ones and some not so great ones.
Beyond Armageddon - Another collection, wastelands is better.
I am legend - You all know it, but its still great even though its a vampire post apoc short story.
I’d also recommend the Postman, but without so many caveats. I liked it quite a lot. Of the ones you named, I’d list it, Alas Babylon (mostly interesting to see how the idea of full-scale nuclear holocaust wasn’t considered quite as apocalyptic in 1959), and A Canticle for Leibowitz as the must reads. The Stand is pretty cool, and I must be one of the few people who prefer the enormo-version since there are some pretty obvious holes in the original that become more glaring once you know what’s missing. For example, there’s one character completely excised from the original shorter version, but the part where some of the main characters discover his body (in fairly unusual circumstances) is left in, with no explanation.
As far as stuff that hasn’t been mentioned yet, I haven’t read it since I was a kid, but I remember Z for Zachariah being very good. It’s written by the author of the Rats of NIMH series.
If you like your apocalypse zombiefied there is of course World War Z (which I didn’t care for), the excellent comic series The Walking Dead.
Theres the two anthologies edited by Craig Spector and John Skipp called Book of the Dead and Still Dead: Book of the Dead II which bot contains some excellent after the zombie apocalypse stories.
Non zombie end of the world (or at least end of London) missing is James Herberts The Fog (great fun, The Stand on speed).
King also tried to recreate the magic of The Stand in Cell, but that is just a horrible pseudo-zombie end of the world story.
I read a book as a child called The Seventh Seal. It was awful, avoid like the plague.
Brian Keene’s zombie apocalypse books - The Rising, City of the Dead (the sequel to The Rising), and Dead Sea (a completely different version of the zombie apocalypse - disease rather than extradimensional entities) are all worth investigating.
Oh shit, I forgot Blood Music by Greg Bear. Definitely an inventive end-of-the-world scenario.
Greg Bear seems to like writing in the genre, I ordered one from him, I hope it was the better of the two?
I ordered the first set of books, mostly used, and included a couple I borrowed from a friend:
Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank
Swan Song - Robert McCammon
Wolf & Iron - Gordon R. Dickson
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Lucifer’s Hammer - Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
Blindness - Jose Saramago
A Canticle For Leibowitz - Walter Miller
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
The Postman - David Brin
The Pesthouse - Jim Crace
Earth Abides - George R. Stewart
Forge of God - Greg Bear
Dies the Fire - S. M. Stirling
Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America - Brian Francis Slattery
Those should last me 2-3 months, if they are all decent reads. Next set will probably include more recommendations. Perhaps I can do an exchange with someone here if anyone has interest in reading this genre?
It is a good read. I feel like the movie Independence Day ripped it off a bit. (at least the overall setting) That being said, the book is about 1000 times better than the movie. The aliens actually have some substance to them, and are not mindless killers.
Pournelle and Niven are a pretty good combination. They have the super hard sci-fi techy stuff, along with some great action and writing.