Survival Fiction

I like reading fiction books about survival. For example: Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, My Side of the Mountain, Island of the Blue Dolphins, etc...

Been tag-surfing and have found a few books but not many (maybe I'm looking at the wrong sort of tags?). Ive found quite a few YA titles, nothing wrong with that but I'm interested in Adult fiction as well. Sort of goes along with the Post-Apocalyptic kick Ive been on lately... ^_^

Any recommendations?

The Cay is young adult, but well worth the read.

A favorite book as a teen was Tunnel In The Sky by Robert Heinlein. It takes place in the future and involves a final exam in a survival course: any planet, any climate, and any terrain. It can be enjoyed as an adult - at least by those of us who suffer from arrested development.

Not sure if this is exactly the kind of thing you're looking for, but The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a survival thriller (for adults) about a girl alone in the woods. Very suspenseful. Hatchet is for YA, but a similar theme.

Did you try a tagmash of "survival" and "fiction"?

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins are both about survival. In both kids are pitted against each other in a government endorsed battle to the death.

The Stand by Stephen King is a post-apocalyptic survival novel, as is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

City of Thieves by David Benioff is about 2 Russians trying to survive an interesting mission in WWII.

If you are into Sci-Fi you might try :

One second after by William R. Forstchen
Fairly standard story about the collapse of the U.S. after an attack by an E.M.P. (electrical magnetic pulse weapon.

Lucifers Hammer by larry Niven
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival--a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known.

Greybeard by Brain Aldiss
This is about a world where women can no longer have children. What would the world be like in 30 or 40 years.

If you prefer somthing historical;

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
This is the account of the Whale Ship Essex. This ship was actually sunk by a whale and was the inspiration for Melvilles "Moby Dick". It tells of the ships 20 survivors epic voyage in open whaleboats to Chile. Of which only 8 survived the 93 day voyage.

Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew
by Alex Kershaw
This is the story of the USS Tang who in her five war patrols sank more enemy ships and rescued more airmen than any other allied ship at that time.
During her final 2 night battle (on her 5th patrol) with two convoys, sank 5 more ships before she was struck and sunk by a defective torpedo. Of the crew of ninety only 9 survived. 4 that were blow off the bridge, and 5 who made the not only historic but heroic accent from a depth of 180 ft.

The story of the battle and the escape read like a Hollywood movie script. But all true. The second part of the book deals with their capture and torture in the Japanese interrogation camp know as the "torture Farm"

The last few chapters deal with their return and not always a happy ending.

Alex Kershaw has wrote an excellent and readable history of a little known and regretfully almost forgotten part of the war in the Pacific.

The tagmash "fiction, shipwrecks" throws up quite a lot of good stuff. See: http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction,shipwrecks

One of the most chilling survival stories I've read in recent years is Patrick O'Brian's second novel, The Unknown Shore, which was based on the wreck of the Wager during Anson's voyage round the world.

Thanks all.. I was just doing a tagmash of Survival, Fiction.

I didn't think to use shipwreck or other disaster types along with fiction to get what I was looking for.

I found quite a few books that Ive wishlisted!

You might enjoy Rite of Passage.

World War Z is about survival. It's the oral accounts of different people about their experiences of the Zombie Apocalypse. In the same note, The Zombie Survival Guide is a fictional guide on how to protect yourself from zombies.

Survival fiction was one of my favorite genres growing up! I've not read any in quite some time, so it's nice to see recommendations here. I'd give some of my own, but most have already been mentioned.

Nobody's mentioned Into the Wild?

There's also Men Against the Sea the second book in Nordhoff and Hall's Bounty Trilogy which tells the story of Captain Bligh and his men after Fletcher Christian set them adrift.

I'd also like to second Robert Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky.

Looking up Into the Wild, LT's Recommendations led me to One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey about a guy who built a cabin in the wilds of Alaska. I haven't read it myself, but may be worth looking into anyway.

I wrote Surviving the Fog from inspiration about surviving the kind of situations in the books that you have named. I see that someone has mentioned Tunnel in the Sky. It is one of my all time favorite books. Another book that you might like is Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. It is somewhat like Swiss Family Robinson. It has a surprise at the end that is unexpected.

Alive by Piers Paul Read is not technically fiction, but I would definitely recommend it anyway.

>#12: Into The Wild? Isn't that an anti-survival book?

#16 - Into The Wild? Isn't that an anti-survival book?

Ha! I guess you have a point.

2 YA books come to mind. And that's because I own them. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (but I see someone has already sugested that). And North by Donna Jo Napoli. I've read Hunger Games and it's great. But I haven't read North. It is about a boy that gets stranded in the northern wilderness.

Also a YA book, but a great read
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

I also liked her My Side of the Mountain

Similar in theme to The Hunger Games is Surviving Antarctica :Reality TV 2083. I've recommended it before on other threads. My non-reader husband, a reality TV junkie, liked it.

I'm trying to think of another title...it is a sci-fi book, in which aliens abduct humans and other aliens and dump them all on another planet, where they have to learn to get along and survive. I think it was a series, and maybe "Freedom" was in the title??

#19 Anne McCaffrey's Catteni Sequence starts with Freedom's Landing.

#20That's it! thanks...it's been bugging me for a while that I couldn't remember the title.

I enjoyed Last of the breed. Very different from his usual westerns. It is not focusing on the survival, but it plays a big part in the story.

My brother loved survival books. His favorite was the Iceberg Hermit by Arthur Roth. Based on the true story of Allen Gordon who was the sole survivor of a whaling ship in the 1700s, and stranded for several years on an iceberg. A great book!

I love this stuff!

try these -
The Postman by David Brin
Survivors by Terry Nation
Z for Zachariah by Robert O'Brien
Rivers by Michael Farris Smith
Wolf of Shadows by Whitley Strieber
Deathwatch by Robb White

The Martian by Andy Weir -- it's really well done. Yes, it's on Mars, but it is all about fighting to survive.

Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat. Two boys get lost and have to trek to safety. Or something like that. Been a long time since I read it, but in my early teens I loved it and I've been told it holds up well.

Anyone else like The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey?

also -
Blood Red Road by Moira Young and
Alas, Babylon Pat Frank

Into the Wild is terrific, but it's not fiction. It is as exciting a book as most fiction, and good for anyone interested in stories of wilderness adventure.

A Drink Called Paradise by Terese Svoboda
Place Last Seen by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman

How about Stuck by Pablo Guarneros?

Would Tarzan of the Apes count? Call of the Wild by Jack London. London also wrote short stories about survival, or non-survival.

Station Eleven EmilySt. John Mandel and The Road Cormac McCarthy are both dystopian survival novels. Both highly recommended.

Friday, or The Other Island by Tournier is a take on Robinson Crusoe. Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel is a more accessible novel about someone who fights and probably survives a kidnapping. Really though for me the most gripping books about survival are non-fiction ones.

I can't believe I have not already mentioned Rogue Male. Hitchcock said it was the best suspense ever written. It is from 1939 and Hitchcock said that in the early 60s but I doubt anything has dethroned it. The plot is, basically, an injured man running from assassins tasked with killing him.

Airplane crashes in remote wilderness . . . passengers struggle to survive . . .

Night Without End by Alistair MacLean (the Arctic)
Island in the Sky by Ernest K. Gann (Labrador)
High Citadel by Desmond Bagley (the Andes)
Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor (the Sahara)

Visit my library if you like. See Tag WTSHTF (When the Shit Hits the Fan). Got 56 titles there. Most are more hard-hitting than the titles you mentioned...but, there you have it.

Cold River by William Judson
Voyage of the Frog Gary Paulsen
Toughboy and Sister Kirkpatrick Hill
The Prince of Central Park Evan Rhodes
Girl Named Disaster Nancy Farmer