PAW (post apocalyptic world) fiction and film

AnnieA

AnnieA

Well-known Member
Location
Down South
Have been reading a lot of PAW fiction this year. It's empowering to me to read how characters cope with disaster.

Do you like the PAW genre? If so, what books, movies or TV?

Some of my favorites (mostly books) are The Stand by Stephen King, Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Alas Babylon by Pat Frank. Also really like BBC's Survivors remake though they cancelled it at the point of a very interesting cliff hanger.

A contemporary author whose writing I absolutely love is Ginger Booth. She's a Connecticut techie in real life who writes PAW from the POV of strong women. They partner with strong men but stand alone on their own worth. I love reading about her East Coast suburban and urban settings since so much PAW seems to be set in rural locations. Her PAW series starts with End Game.
 

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I enjoyed Lucifer's Hammer and Alas Babylon although I read them both years ago.

My favorite post PAW world film is A Boy And His Dog, but it's not for everyone.

I'm trying to wrack my brain to think of other PAW books and films but nothing is coming to mind quickly.
 
I have watched 'The Road' which starred Viggo Mortensen. It was pretty good and it was also a book but I haven't read it. I could only watch or read so much as (for me) it does get depressing.
 

IrisSenior said:
I have watched 'The Road' which starred Viggo Mortensen. It was pretty good and it was also a book but I haven't read it. I could only watch or read so much as (for me) it does get depressing.
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I saw that as well and didn't like it so haven't made an effort to read the book. The characters just plodded along; there was no PAW world building/rebuilding which is what is captivating about the genre to me. It sounds minor, but it irritated me that throughout the film that the protagonist built massive campfires at night. I realize it's a lighting issue for the cameras, but it ruins the authenticity of the story.
 
Just thought of a few:

Moonseed - Stephen Baxter (more about the apocalypse itself than the post)
Mother Of Storms - John Barnes (more about the apocalypse itself than the post)
Earth - David Brin (more about the apocalypse itself than the post)
Flood & Ark - Stephen Baxter (two novel series more about the apocalypse itself than the post)
Evolution - Stephen Baxter (more like a history of apocalypses and how they shape life on Earth)
 
Coincidentally I just started a PAW novel that is also a bit of an alternative history. It's really captured my attention and it's the novel that's available for free from Tor.com right now. It's The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal and evidently it won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2019, I'm finding it very riveting, it's well written, the characters are interesting and the themes are keeping me interested as well.
 
I'm reading "After America" by John Birmingham right now. Everyone in America disappears except for those in the Northwest Washington (luckily Seattle is spared). It's sort of like the "left behind" concept but without the religious aspects.

Pirates and mercenaries are moving in from all over the world to raid what's left. Texas is being "resettled" and isn't behaving itself.

And then there is the trilogy by William R. Forstchen about an EMP attack, "One Second After", "One Year After", and "The Final Day".
 
There was an oddly fascinating television series on the History Channel called "Life After People" which realistically depicted how man-made creations and structures would slowly deteriorate without human maintenance over the years, decades, and centuries following the removal of human existence from Earth...
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The post-apocalyptic world depicted in John Krasinski's powerhouse horror/science fiction film A Quiet Place is not fully fleshed out in the first film, but trailers for the upcoming second film suggest that more will be revealed there in terms of how events transpired. Reminiscent of Alien set in the fallen world of The Walking Dead, the film depicts powerful predatory aliens who hunt by sound, and a climatic last stand by a family staged on American farmland...
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AnnieA said:
Bumping due to Putin's threats reminding me of PAW fiction.

p.s. @asp3 ...know you chose to leave :( ...do miss you!
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It's funny sometimes how when someone leaves the forum, another person comes along who is often in many ways like the person we lost ...for example after we lost Ike.. @Gary O' ..joined and he was a younger doppelgänger of Ike... ..and I feel that in a similar way about asp3.. and @dseag2 .. I know the latter don't look alike as the former did .. but in many ways they are similar to me in other ways, nice ways....
 
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