SFFF CAT MARCH: Apocalyptic, Post-apocalyptic, & Dystopic fiction

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

~ from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

The 3 subgenres of science fiction/speculative fiction we are reading this month are closely related and often overlap. Apocalyptic fiction deals with the end of civilization as we know it, usually by natural disaster, epidemic, war, alien invasion, or divine retribution. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in this devastated world and may focus on survival in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, or explore the new civilizations that arise (often with limited or no access to technology). Dystopic or Dystopian fiction describes a society where the masses face deprivation, oppression, and/or terror. Dystopian societies often exist in a post-apocalyptic world, but can also come about through political changes or advancements in technology. These novels may serve as a warning of where society is headed if certain social or political trends are taken to the extreme. But dystopias are not confined to our planet or the future - they could have existed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .

Examples:

Apocalyptic: The Stand by Stephen King
An accident at a secret military lab unleashes a virus that decimates the population and the surviving 1% are called to join other survivors in the ultimate stand of good against evil.

Post-apocalyptic: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A father and his young son walk across a post-apocalyptic landscape on a journey to the coast.

Dystopic : 1984 by George Orwell
The totalitarian government of this "future" society tells us that "Big Brother is Watching You."

---

Some Popular Authors:

Margaret Atwood
Stephen King
H. G. Wells
Paolo Bacigalupi

A Few Popular Titles:

Farenheit 451
Brave New World
I Am Legend
World War Z
The Last Policeman
Never Let Me Go
Cloud Atlas
Blindness
Ready Player One
The Giver
The Hunger Games
Divergent
Maze Runner
Red Rising

As always, please remember to update the wiki with your selections. Looking forward to seeing what others are reading.

Enjoy!

I will be finally reading MaddAddam this month, thanks to this challenge :)

Once again, I have plenty that will fit this. Some options for me include:
- The Maze Runner
- Allegiant
- UnWholly
- The Compound
- The Unit
- *Y. The Last Man. Vol. 10: Whys and Wherefores
- *On the Beach
- *The Bees

*The ones I'm most likely to aim for.

Thanks for the list! I was all set to give Neuromancer another try, but now that I see Blindness is an option I'll probably read that instead as I've really been wanting to get to that one soon.

Loved Ready Player One!

Station Eleven for me for certain - well, assuming I get it from the library in time. I'll probably come up with a few others; we'll see!

>4 LittleTaiko: I agree - Ready Player One is terrific! If I hadn't reread it last Fall, I'd read it in March.

I've been saving Station Eleven specially for this month!

Planning on City & the City.

I also have a few in mind for this Cat.

Sunrise by Mike Mullin
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

There are so many books that I want to read for this month! Here's my list of possibilities, in order of how likely I am to read them:

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Battle Royale by Koushun
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi

I'm actively planning to read the first three, and any others will just be a bonus.

I'm thinking of Blind Faith by Ben Elton.

I'm planning to read City of Illusions.

Thanks, BookLizard, for setting the thread up despite being entirely buried in snow!

This is a month where I'm spoiled for choice. I'm considering Authority by Jeff VanderMeer, the second book in his Southern Reach trilogy, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, or The Twelve, the second book in Justin Cronin's trilogy. Or I might reread The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, or get around to reading the final book in her dystopian trilogy, Madaddam. What is it with trilogies and the end of the world?

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is brilliant. I highly recommend it.

This is one if my favorite subgenres! I have a couple of anthologies to read: Brave New Worlds and The End Is Nigh. I don't know if I'll get through both of them but I'll try.

I too am thinking of reading Station Eleven if I can get it from the library.

One of my favorite genres! I can likely find something to join in with on my TBR pile, LOL.

>5 Dejah_Thoris: Ready Player One is so much fun! Well worth it if you do audio books, too. Read by Wil Wheaton, and he's perfect for it, I think!

>10 Roro8: Blind Faith is really good.

>5 Dejah_Thoris: Seconding >16 LibraryCin:'s recommendation to listen to Ready Player One in audio! I won't spoil it, but there's a reason Wil Wheaton is perfect as the narrator! ;-)

>13 sturlington:, >15 VictoriaPL: Me too! I am so excited about March! This is probably one of my favorite genres period.

I will add on to the recommendations for Ready Player One, also Never Let Me Go, The Handmaid's Tale and The Stand (the book I have re-read the most).

And here are a few more:
Apocalypse Z
A Wrinkle in the Sun
Down to a Sunless Sea
The Rift
Year Zero
Dies the Fire
Swan Song
Earth Abides
The Gate to Women's Country
Things We Didn't See Coming
Metro 2033
Hello America
The Pesthouse

Looking at my TBRs, I'm considering Disposable People, Extinction Point, Eternity Road, The Windup Girl and Wool. Also, I'm almost positive I've read 1984, but the memory is a bit blurry, so I might squeeze that in somewhere.

On second thought, I may give this month a miss. Every title I look up sounds depressing. I had to read The Road for book club a while back, before the movie was made, and I absolutely hated it but read it because I had to. If anybody can think of a more upbeat book for this theme please let me know and I will check it out, I realise I may be asking the impossible.

Ready Player One is most definitely not depressing.

But I do understand. I am tired of books that look to the future as something to fear. Which is why I'm reading more space opera.

>19 Roro8: I understand where you're coming from - and I agree with majkia, Ready Player One would be a good book to read. You might try The Gate to Women's Country; also Dies the Fire is a different twist on the genre, and there's a lot of hopefulness in it - it is the start of of a series, so it depends if you're into that.

>19 Roro8: I'm frequently not a big fan of post-apocalyptic / dystopian fiction because I don't much like depressing books either. That said, I have to agree that Ready Player One is very optimistic and fun - until it was brought up by others on this thread I wasn't even thinking of it fitting this category, although it certainly does, just because I like it so much!

Year Zero is another fun, non-depressing book. Loved all the music references!

>19 Roro8: How about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Not usually thought of as post apocalyptic, but it is. Or Good Omens, about the biblical apocalypse. If you like satirical humor, how about Cat's Cradle?

You could also try a Utopian novel, which is on the same spectrum. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a couple of good ones: The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home.

>19 Roro8: I second the recommendation of The Gate to Women's Country. Another Sheri S. Tepper book that fits both the category and your requirements is The Family Tree.

I'll be joining the group reading Station Eleven--I got it for Christmas, and can't wait to read it!

Thanks for all the suggestions everybody. I will look them all up and see what I think.

I have a lot to choose from. Thinking of Station Eleven, On The Beach, Ella Minnow Pea, Blindness, Starship Trooper.

I think The Gate to Women's Country looks like a good choice for me. Thanks everyone.

I have read Blindness. I am wondering if the sequel, Seeing would count here. I have that one on my TBR shelves.

I am planning on The City & the City for March.

#31 by @cbl_tn> Me too, since it fits the BAC.

I love this month's subject! So many books to choose from. I'm not sure what I'll end up reading but it will be something from the list below:

Allegiant
Maze Runner
The Wind Up Girl
Never Let Me Go
Freakangels: Volume 1
Station Eleven
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Re-read)
A Canticle for Liebowitz
Ready Player One (Re-read on Audio this time)

I think I am set on The Last Ship

>32 majkia: That was my thinking! I've already downloaded the audio version from the public library and I'll start it as soon as I finish listening to Brideshead Revisited. It's read by John Lee, who isn't one of my favorite narrators. I hope that doesn't become a problem for me.

I went ahead and finished The End Is Nigh even though it's still February. It's an interesting concept: a trilogy of anthologies, one with the stories set just before the apocalypse, the next during the apocalypse and then the last is post-apocalypse. Also, each author's stories connect from book to book. A good selection of authors, the stories in general were pretty good but felt a little unfinished because of the connection idea. I kind of wish I had gotten all three books so I could read the connecting stories all together.

Y: The Last Man. Vol. 10: Whys and Wherefores / Brian K. Vaughan
4 stars

This is the final volume in the series, where after a plague, Yorick and his monkey Ampersand were the last two males on the planet. Yorick has been searching for his girlfriend for 5 years now, and at the same time he has had to hide from those who are trying to find him to figure out why he survived.

I really liked this one. I thought it did a really good job of wrapping up the series. This, in my opinion, was one of the better books in the series.

I just finished In the After by Demitria Lunetta. This was a pretty good, fast paced, YA, post-apocalyptic story.

I just finished my first book for this month's SFFFCat. Sunrise by Mike Mullin is the third volume in his Ya trilogy, Ashfall. This trilogy opens with the volcanes under Yellowstone Park erupting and changing North America forever.

Finished City of Illusions. Maybe I never read this before.

I've finished The City & The City. I must say, China Mieville is the very best writer I've ever read who can consistently come up with the weirdest, most fascinating, alien landscapes to set his works in.

I finished The Book of Strange New Things. I didn't choose the book for this category, but it definitely fits. It is mostly set on another planet and involves a Christian missionary setting up a church for the alien creatures there. But back on home, society is in collapse, and the tone is very dystopian. I recommend it.

I just finished a YA book that I'd describe as fauxpocalypse / post-dystopia: After the End by Amy Plum. Juneau grew up in an isolated village in Alaska - part of the first generation born after a nuclear war destroyed most of the world in 1984. One day, when she is out hunting, she hears a flying machine and races home to discover her village destroyed and her clan (of about 40 or so people) gone. Kidnapped. She heads out past the boundaries of her clan's territory in search of her father and her people, only to discover that World War 3 never occurred and the world is very much intact. That's the fauxpocalypse part. The post-dystopia part is when she discovers what the elders in her community, including her father, had done. There's also some utopian aspects to the story, so I decided all these parts added up enough to fit this month's theme.

I read Make room! Make room for this. Not a very happy experience, it is so incredibly dated. Nice illustration of the dangers of extrapolating from the present, though.

I just added The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan to the wiki. I had mixed feelings about this one as I found the plot a little disjointed and the characters seemed a little off. On the other hand, it has an interesting premise and there were zombies! :)

45>My problem when I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth years ago was that they were the worst vampires ever. Don't know where I heard that they were vampires, but that was the only reason I picked up the book in the first place. The next two books are better - they deal with the next generation.

Finished MaddAddam today and loved it. One of these days I'll reread the whole trilogy.

>46 BookLizard: LOL! They must be the world's worst vampires cause I thought they were zombies! They weren't very good at that either!

48> They WERE zombies. I was expecting vampires, so I was reading it thinking they weren't very sexy vampires, and they were kind of slow, and not very bright . . . . I was more than halfway through the book before I figured out they were ZOMBIES. The rest of the story made more sense after that. LOL. The next 2 books are still better.

I just got an email that Station Eleven is ready for me to pick up at the library. YEA! It will fit both this and the Random Cat.

Enjoy!!!

I finished Station Eleven this morning. I started off with a wrong impression of this book. I was expecting more of the post-apocalypse and less of the pre-. When I finally got what was going on I really got into it.

>48 DeltaQueen50: No kidding! I thought it would make an interesting drinking game to have a shot every time the phrase "shuffle and moan" was used.

>53 mamzel: LOL, "Shuffle and moan" seems like the perfect hashtag for zombie works in general :-D #shuffleandmoan

Should have done a reread of On the Beach, instead I did The Last Policeman as it would also fit the Random Cat for me. I barely managed to give it 3 stars - mostly because I really dislike books I give 2.5 stars to - and this I didn't dislike, just found it boring and a struggle to finish.

53 & 54> "Shuffle and moan" - sounds like a lot of people first thing in the morning. I think they need to use coffee for their drinking games.

I should finish Station Eleven tonight.

I've just finished Ready Player One on audiobook and it's just as good as the print version. I have the audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton and he's a great match for the book. Not sure if this would be everyone's cup of tea if you're not someone who grew up in the 80s with the same influences as Cline fills the book with, but if (like me) you did, then this is a great fun read.

57> I really enjoyed the book. Will have to reread it on audiobook eventually.

I finished Station Eleven this morning. Does anyone else wish we could read "the other" Station Eleven? Spin-off! LOL.

>58 BookLizard: Absolutely, I was thinking that a lot as I read it.

My net two planned reads are Mockingjay and Parable of the talents. I'm looking forward to both!

>57 klarusu: Loved the audio! I have heard from others were weren't 80s "children" who still enjoyed it, as well!

I've finished two more for this month, 1984 by George Orwell and The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. I enjoyed both of them.

I finished Ella Minnow Pea a quick, rather different type of dystopia book. It also is epistolary and language so will fill a spot on my bingo dog.

Well, I was trying to listen to the audiobook of Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, but I keep missing things and having to rewind and listen again. When I had to rewind the same spot 2-3 times today, I decided that was it and I'm calling it quits.

Not sure if I'll get to read any more this month, which is strange since I usually read a lot of dystopian novels. Looks like the only possibility would be Golden Son, but I have other library books that are overdue, so I have to finish those first.

I've finished Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (will review soon). Although not all of it fits here, there are a couple of the linked stories contained within that do and as I'm not sure what else I'm going to read this month then I'll Include it here.

Finished Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman which is about the apocalypse and one of the funniest books I've read in quite some time. Loved it!

I've just started Zone One by Colson Whitehead.

I've finished Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel.

>65 AHS-Wolfy:: I loved Cloud Atlas and I would definitely include it here. I've got Disposable People and 1984 queued up.

I just finished Disposable People and I think it fits in this category although it's not as strong a fit as I thought it would be after I read the back cover. It's sort of a near-apocalypse and certainly there are dystopian aspects of how the country is affected. The premise is a terrible disease that starts in New Mexico and spreads out of control across the US and into Canada and Mexico. The virus kills 20% of the people it infects and the race is on to try to find a cure before the worst can happen - the collapse of the US as we know it, or being bombed by the rest of the world (our allies even) because they believe they can contain it if they just bomb us all into oblivion. A vaccine is discovered, but it kills 10% of the people and nobody wants to get vaccinated. They need to study the effects of the vaccine to try to make it safer, but with no one wanting to get vaccinated, some interesting questions arise.

70> I'd say close enough.

I've just finished The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I was loving this book until the end when everything was abruptly left hanging. I think the author could have resolved some of the immediate issues and still have had plenty of material for the next book.

Ditto to >58 BookLizard: and >59 sturlington: --I just finished Station Eleven, and desperately wished I had access to that book within the book! I imagine someone will create it after the fact one of these days, if the author and publisher will allow it... Until then, I think I'm going to look up some of her earlier works sooner than later! I did love the book, despite not having that inner one!

>73 whitewavedarling: - Glad to see you enjoyed Station Eleven - I am currently listening to it - but I thought I would mention that Station Eleven is a bit of a departure from St. John Mandel's previous books.

I finished the audio of The City & the City yesterday. I liked it! It probably helps that I enjoy police procedurals. I think the audio helped, too. The narrator read it like it made perfect sense to him, and that made it seem plausible to me.

I finished an anthology of dystopian stories called Brave New Worlds. It was a pretty good collection. Had a lot of classics in it, most of which I hadn't read before.

>74 lkernagh:, thanks :) I'll have to look into them more and see how I feel, then!

I just fininished Eternity Road which was a good post-apocalyptic novel, without being very dystopian. Some kind of plague practically wiped out the human race around 2079; this novel is set at least 200 years later. There are pockets of civilization, some that have been able to harness some of humankind's technology. But mostly the debris of human civilization lies around mis-understood. There is a rumor that in a place called Haven, surviviors of the plague stored as much as knowledge as they could. This book is about the second expedition to find Haven and what is stored there.

And I've just started 1984, which I thought that I must have read before, but now that I'm into it, I don't think so. I'm very much reminded of the movie Brazil. I wasn't aware previously that the movie was based on 1984, but it certainly seems to have inspired that movie.

>74 lkernagh: - what other books of hers would you recommend?

It's been a good month for me. I've finished:

Ready Player One on audio (great!)
Freakangels: Vol 1 and Freakangels: Vol 2 graphic novels.

I'm 3/4 of the way through The Windup Girl - not sure if I'll manage to finish it before the last day of the month but so glad I chose it because it's so good. I think I've found a new author to add to my 'favourites' list.

>79 LittleTaiko: - I have read both Last Night in Montreal and The Singer's Gun and found both to be fantastic reads. As for Station Eleven, I am now far enough into the story to stop getting confused but what is going on and can just settle in. It still hasn't grabbed me like her previous books did (I am just past the half way mark in Station Eleven). The further I get into Station Eleven, I am noticing more similarities to the writing style and plot development of her other works.

>80 klarusu: And I love saying his name - Bacigalupi.

On the Beach / Nevil Shute
3.5 stars

tt is the 1960s (the book was written in 1957) in Australia. The “short war” was just over a month long. The result of that war: radiation all over the northern hemisphere that has killed everyone. That radiation is making its way south to envelope the planet.

It was good. Most of the book, I'd actually rate “ok”, but the end really picked up, I thought, as the characters knew the end was coming. What would you do with the last months, weeks, and days of your life? I didn't like two of the main characters: Dwight and Moira. Well, I didn't mind Dwight as much, but I really didn't like Moira, so I wasn't nearly as interested in them. I liked Peter, Mary and Jennifer much more. But, there seemed to be more focus on Dwight and Moira, unfortunately for me. The ending upped my rating just a touch, though.

>82 mamzel: I know! I repeat it in my head often and with pleasure ;-)

I finished 1984 last night for a dystopian entry for March.

I managed to finish two more for March: Wool: Omnibus by Hugh Howey, which I really enjoyed and Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi which didn't really do anything for me. I'm surprised I was able to get in five books for this month's challenge plus there are so many more that I still want to read.

>184 When my students borrow Ship Breaker I suggest they Google the name in images to see actual ship breaking operations. It's a scary and sad (to a former mariner) operation.

>80 klarusu: That does sound like a great month! I love Paolo Bacigalupi.

And I've been meaning to read Ready Player One for ages.

I didn't quite finish The City of Bones by Martha Wells on time, but do want to say I thought it was very good post-apocalyptic fiction. Interesting characters and quite a complex world.

(annoying problem with the touchstone, btw)

City of Bones by Martha Wells

No the, and then it is near the top.

I'm a bit late with my update but I did manage to finish two books for this challenge. The first was a reread of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which I liked very much, as I do all her books. I think I need to reread the sequels soon. When I'd read Maddaddam last year, I'd forgotten many details of the first book.

The second was Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi. I'd definitely recommend it to those of you who liked The Windup Girl. One of my favourites from the collection, "The Yellow Card Man", is set in the same world.