Post-apocalyptic bargains on Kindle

Saw two deals today for $1.99 in the Kindle store: Alas, Babylon and Earth Abides. Both are post-apocalyptic classics and a bargain at the price.

ETA touchstones.

I found Earth Abides to be boring. I know it's respected.

>2 timspalding: Understandable. But it's where post-apocalyptic really began, unless you go back to the out-of-print and unread. I think the first half stands up well; the second less so. But if you love the sub-genre, it's nice to read this. You may not think "Rock Around the Clock" is the greatest rock song ever, but it's worth at least a listen if you enjoy classic rock.

That's a good topic—how did post-apocalyptic being?

Do you mean "begin"?

As far as I can tell, there are few rarely read works from before the 1949 date of Earth Abides. And MANY after. I'm no scholar on this, but wouldn't be surprised if the apocalyptic nuclear detonations of 1945 provided an impetus.

There are those who would point to Mary Shelley and HG Wells' War of the Worlds. I think the latter is more apocalyptic than post-. But in any case, EA appears to be the first post apocalyptic book that is widely read.

I did read The Torch by jack Bechdolt from 1920. Out of print, recently made into an ebook by Savethescifi.com which is converting out of print SF into ebooks. It does depict a world 100 years after a nuclear holocaust. But it is hard to gauge its impact. Maybe Stewart read it? But it is EA that survives whatever apocalypse struck any earlier works ;)

>5 stellarexplorer:

I did. But "being" is nice and mysterious ;)

#6

Oh one can go back much further than that. The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel is from 1901, After London by Richard Jefferies pushes things back to 1885, but I guess Mary Shelley's The Last Man of 1826 has them all beat.

>7 timspalding: I thought it was ;)

>8 andyl: Right. But what's debatable is influence. My main point is not which works preceded it, but that EA has been so widely read since its publication that it has been an important part of the call-and-response of SF/postapocalyptic novels ever since.

>8 andyl: And to the Shelley title add Edgar Poe's "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839).

Mary Shelley's novel was preceded by Jean-Baptiste Francois Xavier Cousin de Grainville’s 1805 French novel "The Last Man." It is available in English translation.