For her turn at the “Staff Picks” display, Circulation Librarian Janice Saaranen chose to consider the many ways authors have envisioned end-of-the-world scenarios. She called her recent display “We’re Doomed!” . It featured the following possibilities, titles, and authors.
Vampire Plague–I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Robert Neville has witnessed the end of the world. The world’s population has been obliterated by a vampire virus, and only Neville has somehow survived. He alone appears to be immune to this disease, but the grim irony is that now he is the outsider. He is the legendary monster who must be destroyed because he is different from everyone else.
Employing a stark, almost documentary style, Richard Matheson was one of the first writers to convince us that the undead can lurk in a local supermarket freezer as well as a remote Gothic castle.
The Change–Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling
The Change happens when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produces a blinding white flash, causing all electronic devices and firearms to stop working. The world is plunged into a darkness humanity is ill prepared to face. American society disintegrates and most of the population dies off from plague, famine, brigandage, cannibalism, and stupidity.
Reduced to using medieval technology, albeit with the novelty of swordsman on bicycles and hang gliders in chain mail, the survivors are those who adapt most quickly to the Change, such as organic gardeners and Renaissance Fair enthusiasts. And then there is the Portland History Professor who decides he will be King…
Rogue Planet–When Worlds Collide by Phillip Wylie and Edwin Balmer
Written before WWII , 1933-34, When Worlds Collide features the destruction of the Earth in the most complete manner possible, and focuses on the efforts of a few people to find a way to escape that destruction. The manner in which they do so is brilliantly thought out and detailed, the progressive deterioration of both society and of the Earth itself is heartwrenchingly chronicled, and the final flight from the doomed planet is a classic.
Yes, we have super-science, purple prose, and sometimes overly-simplistic characters, and outdated concepts, but this is an example of the Golden Age that can still stand on its own. It defined the disaster novel, and set the bar so high that few who came after even dared attempt the grand scale that Balmer and Wylie achieved.
Doomwar–The Postman by David Brin
Gordon Krantz survived the Doomwar only to spend years crossing a post-apocalypse United States looking for something or someone he could believe in again. Ironically, when he’s assumes the made-up role of a “Restored United States” postal inspector, he becomes the very thing he’s been seeking: a symbol of hope and rebirth for a desperate nation.
Gordon goes through the motions of establishing a new postal route in the Pacific Northwest, uniting secluded towns and enclaves that are starved for communication with the rest of the world. And even though inside he feels like a fraud, eventually he will have to stand up for the new society he’s helping to build or see it destroyed by fanatic survivalists.
Civilization Fades Away–Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
This powerfully imagined first novel will make readers thankful for cell phones and CD players while it underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology. The tale is set in the near future: electricity has failed, mail delivery has stopped and looting and violence have destroyed civil order.
In Northern California, 32 miles from the closest town, two orphaned teenage sisters ration a dwindling supply of tea bags and infested cornmeal. They remember their mother’s warnings about the nearby forest, but as the crisis deepens, bears and wild pigs start to seem less dangerous than humans. From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest voice of the 17-year-old narrator pull the reader in, and the fight for survival adds an urgent edge to her coming-of-age story.
Weather Gone Wild–Mother of Storms, by John Barnes
When a tactical nuclear strike releases massive amounts of methane from the North Pacific’s ocean beds, global weather patterns transform the entire ocean surface into a massive spawning ground for hurricanes. As perpetual storms threaten to decimate Earth’s population, politicians, scientists, and visionaries grope for solutions while ordinary people struggle to stay alive. In the best tradition of disaster novels, Barnes juggles multiple plot lines as he builds to the grand finale.
Oil Eating Microbes–Ill Wind, by Kevin J. Anderson
Ill Wind is the story of the chaos that results when an engineered microorganism destroys all of the world’s petrochemical products.
An oil tanker collides with one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and spills tons of crude into the San Francisco Bay. When a panicky oil company tries to clean up the spill by dropping genetically engineered oil-eating microbes on it, the little organisms go berserk and start devouring most of the world’s long-chain polycarbons, i.e.gasoline, plastics, etc.
This leads to the breakdown of communications and information-processing systems and civilization as we know it. Disasters ensue.
Water, Water Everywhere–Flood by Stephen Baxter
Sea levels begin to rise. The change is far more rapid than any climate change predictions; metres a year. Within two years London, only 15 metres above the sea, is drowned. New York follows, the Pope gives his last address from the Vatican, Mecca disappears beneath the waves. Where is all the water coming from? The world is drowning.
Mankind is on the run, heading for high ground. Nuclear submarines prowl through clouds of corpses rising from drowned cities, populations are decimated and finally the dreadful truth is known. Before 50 years have passed there will be nowhere left to run.
The stories of a small group of people caught up in the struggle to survive are woven into a tale of unimaginable global disaster. And the hope offered for a unlucky few by a second great ark …
Oil All Gone and the Aftermath–World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler
Lack of oil, nuclear explosions, and the Mexican Flu all contributed to the collapse. The amenities are gone: no gasoline, no bicycles (no rubber tires), no antibiotics, no anaesthesia, roads and bridges crumbling into complete disrepair. Paper money is disappearing, bartering is returning, work is done by hand. Horses are great assets that most just dream of owning.
American life goes on–circa 1700. This is the story of Robert Earle, software engineer turned carpenter, and his friends and neighbors in the small town of Union Grove, New York as one summer unfolds.
Currently, the Staff Picks display features titles chosen by Library Aide Linda Haile. Stop by the library soon to see what she’s chosen.
McBook 
You must be logged in to post a comment.