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Thursday, June 6, 2019

Best Post Apocalyptic Book (Or Series) Nominations Needed

What is the best Post Apocalyptic book (or series)?  

We've got two times slots each on fantasy and sci-fi (and I will put our most recent results up on the permanent results page tomorrow), but I figured we'd take a break and bring in some titles with a more specific bent. I know Post Apocalyptic has some overlap with good ol' fashioned Sci Fi, but often they are thematically more likely to be very different.

Remember that we're rerunning some of our most popular polls of the past few years, but this time we're doing it with lots more voters (and we'll be keeping the results on display.) It's all part of our new Sticky Polls--the 2019 roll out for polls here at Writing About Writing.

The Rules

(I know this is the third round of polls we've done under the new rules, but now that we've done a couple, you can see what I mean by some of this):


  1. There is a new category of nomination. It is NOT a nomination for the poll. It is an UNDERSUNG HERO nomination. Basically it is for books you think are great, tragically overlooked, but maybe not necessarily the besty bestest best. I will be listing these books along with the poll results. However, if you nominate a book for our poll it will not be considered for the undersung hero list and if you shout out something for an undersung hero, it will not be counted as a nomination for the poll. (Someone else can nominate it.) Think about if you want to give a book few seem to know about a shout out or if you're tossing your fave into The Hunger Games.
  2. As always, I leave the niggling over the definition of genres to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you want to nominate The Stand, I'm not going to argue that it's probably better classed as apocalyptic (not POST apocalyptic) but YOU have to convince others if you're going to get on the poll--nevermind win.
  3. You get to mention two (2) books (or series). That's it. Two. You can do ONE nomination for the poll and ONE UNDERSUNG HERO.  Or you can do TWO nominations. Or you can do TWO undersung heroes. But two is the total. If you nominate three or more I will NOT take any nominations beyond the second that you suggest. I'm sorry that I'm a stickler on this, but I compile these polls myself and it's a pain when people drop a megalodon list every decent book they can remember of in the genre. It is up to you how to divy your TWO choices. TWO.
  4. Did I mention two?
  5. You may (and absolutely should) second AS MANY nominations of others as you wish. THEY WILL NOT GET ONTO THE POLL WITHOUT SECONDS. You can agree with or cheer on the undersung heroes, but they won't "transform" into nominations unless someone else nominates that same book as "best" (and then they get a second). Also stop back in and see if anyone has put up something you want to see go onto the poll. 
  6. Put your nominations HERE. I will take nominations only as comments and only on this post. (No comments on FB posts will be considered nominations.) If you can't comment for some reason because of Blogger, send me an email (chris.brecheen@gmail.com) stating exactly that and what your nomination is, and I will personally put your comment up. I am not likely to see a comment on social media even if it says you were unable to leave a comment here. 
  7. You are nominating WRITTEN genre fiction, not their movie portrayals. If you thought the The Hunger Games movies were the shiznit, but thought the books were not written very well and slow, nominate something else.
  8. This is probably well known by vets of this blog by now, but there will be no more endless elimination rounds. I will take somewhere between 8-20 best performing titles and at MOST run a single semifinal round. By "performing" I mean the seconds. So second the titles you want even if they already have one. (Yes, I guess that would make them "thirds," "fourths," etc...) The competition on this poll might be fierce. You may have to get your friends involved. Buy them a pizza. Make it real. 
  9. TWO!
Note, a couple of you sent in nominations for the misprint. If you don't renominate, I will make sure that the ones for actual Post Apocalypse fiction get on the list. Sorry about the miscommunication. We'll do utopia/dystopia soon.

81 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Absolutely seconded! Brilliant, brilliant book which nobody seems to know about any more. It captured my imagination at age 7 and I’ve been re-reading it ever since.

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  2. Series: Road to Nowhere (The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, The Book of Etta, The Book of Flora) by Meg Elison

    Single book & Undersung Hero: Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

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  3. Station Eleven. The Girl with all the Gifts.

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  4. Emergence by David R. Palmer

    Undersung Hero - Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

    Second - The Postman

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  6. MC Carey, The Girl With All The Gifts
    Walter Miller Jr, A Canticle For Leibowitz

    Undersung hero: John Wyndham, The Chrysalids

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  7. Ellison - A Boy and His Dog. (If you'll count a novella)

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  8. Unsung Hero: The Marrow Theives by Cherie Dimaline.

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  9. Always Coming Home by Ursula le Guin

    Under-sung: The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler

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  10. Seconding Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban AND seconding Station Eleven.

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  11. S.M. Stirling - The Change Series (Emberverse I)

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    Replies
    1. this is my husband's favorite!
      I've been trying to remember the zombie book about a man & his cat traveling, but I can't remember the name, so I guess whatever

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  12. The Earth Abides by George R Stewart

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  13. Book of the Unknown Midwife (Road to Nowhere series) Meg Elison
    Parable of the Sower Octavia Butler

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  15. Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey

    Under sung hero: Star Man's Son Andre Norton

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  16. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
    How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

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    Replies
    1. I second Who fears Death! Such an awesome book!!!

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  17. The Holdfast Chronicles by Suzy McKee Charnas

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  18. Apart from The Chrysalids (see above) I have to also mention the Incubation trilogy by Laura Disilverio. Thoroughly believable plot and well-characterised to boot. Engaged both my mind and my heart.

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  19. Newsflesh series by Mira Grant

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  20. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

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  21. Nominating for Unsung Hero:
    The Dog Stars: Peter Heller

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  22. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

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  23. Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody

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  24. The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

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    Replies
    1. Second Broken Earth trilogy!

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    2. Any reason this didn’t make it into the voting when books with fewer seconds did?

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    3. No, not at all other than human error (mine). I added it to the final round though, and given the number of nominations, it's probably fine that it got seeded.

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  25. Wool/Shift/Dust series by Hugh Howey

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  26. I seem to have a bird theme going on here. Two nominations:
    All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (technically most of this book is pre-apocalyptic, but I think it still counts)
    Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (1977 Hugo winner)

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  27. The Xenogenesis trilogy (AKA Lilith's Brood trilogy) by Octavia Butler

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  28. The Chrysalids but I read an earlier edition called Rebirth. It has an extra section that Chrysalids doesn’t.

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  29. The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews (high-key recommend for sci-fi/fantasy fans who want well-written characters, esp. female ones, w/o grosssssssss tropes)

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  30. The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld

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  31. The Alliance by Gerald Lund for Unsung Hero. Personally I think it is the best but I think it is unknown and would rather it be listed and better known than fail to get votes.

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  32. Book of the New Urth (The Torturer quadrilogy) - Gene Wolfe
    US H: Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams

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  33. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

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  34. The Postman - David Brin
    The day of the triffids - John Wyndham

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  35. Loved the weird post-post-(post?)-apocalyptic "Mara and Dann" by Doris Lessing, but I don't think it's on many people's radar, so I'm suggesting it as an Undersung Hero

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  36. Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

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  37. The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker

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  38. Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

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  39. The Purge of Babylon (series) by Sam Sisavath

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