Great SHTF book

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"Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank.



Someone mentioned it here a few months back and it is a fantastic read about people living in the aftermath of a nationwide nuclear assualt.

It's a fantastic book, but also provides much food for thought as to what would be useful (and even more, what would become utterly useless) in a significant situation of stool hitting the overhead fans.
 
I'll also add "The Postman" by David Brin I believe. While it doesn't focus to heavily on the actual realities of day to day life in a post holocuast kind of world it has lots of little bits here and there. Talking about people's teeth rotting out from the lack of toothpaste and floridated water, etc. The main plot is a bit hackeneyed (even wacky then the movie version), but the overall writing and feel is pretty decent.

-Jenrick
 
"Pulling Through", by Dean Ing.

Little-known classic novel of post-nuclear survival. The last quarter of the book is actually how the heros survived, including the construction of a radiation meter from ordinary household items. (The "KFM" really works!)
 
Another vote for "Lucifer's Hammer". It plucks all my latent survivalist strings. Another little known one is "Triple Ought", and a thin rewrite called "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse" (might be wrong on the title) but the auther is John Wesley Rawls, who like to punctuate his name. It's really nowhere near the entertainment value of the first book, but really more like a survivalist's how-to guide, wrapped in a very thin story.
 
I like "Alas Babylon", and another good book on the subject is "Lucifer's Hammer" by David Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Click to expand...

That's Larry Niven. :)

I read and like both of those books, especially Lucifer's Hammer. It's like a survival manual disguised as a novel. AAMOF, Pournelle was friends with the late survival guru, Mel Tappan, and even wrote the intro to one of Tappan's books.
 
I remember reading "Alas Babylon" way back in the 70's. Another good read along the same lines is "Malevil" by Robert Merle.

Reading both back in the good old days of the cold war caused my Dad to start buying bricks and bricks of 22LR. We would shoot it every now and then to survey it out and for something to shoot. Later when I got him a Mak-90 one year he started stockpiling 7.62*39.

When Dad died in 2003, there were still several thousand rounds of Winchester Expediter vacuum packed in seal-a-meal bags. The final count of 7.62*39 was around 9K rounds.

I guess his stockpiling and hoarding tendencies had a lot to do about growing up during the dirty 30's.

Semper Fi
 
Good information

All of the books mentioned are good reads. Two series that seem to provide lots of useful information are the following series:

Foxfire 1 thru 6?

The Way things work. 1 thru 3?

Are there other books that provide useful information to make things once the supply of parts and new machines dry up? For me these seems like the best of the SHTF literature to have on hand.
 
Jenrick

Talking about people's teeth rotting out from the lack of toothpaste and floridated water, etc.

You solve that by rinsing you're mouth with urine. The Ammonia kills the bacteria. Gross, but it works. :barf: Same thing applies if you have a wound, but no medical supplies. Again, it sterilizes the wound.
 
"Dude, I know you just got hit in the head, but look, we have no sterile rinse left. I know, I know, hold on, ZZZZIIIPPPPP, AHHHHHHHHHH" There Lenny, you feel better?"

:D :p
 
"Wolf and Iron" is another great collapse-of-civilization book, by Gordon R. Dickson.

That, and Lucifer's Hammer, are my 2 favorites.

The bit in LH about only accepting refugees with valuable skills was interesting, and made me feel pretty good about my resume :)
 
I especially liked Alas, Babylon!

I will have to read Lucifer's Hammer.

BTW, I found 3 copies of Alas, Babylon at my local used book store-email me if interested in one.
 
I liked the Postman as well. It reminds you that sometimes you have to think beyond the first 2 months or 2 years of a SHTF scenario. You can't be a hermit in the woods forever.
 
I think the Rawles book would be better without all the wacky religimus fanatic stuff... I mean, I kept expecting to read "Suddenly a group of huns rode over the hill. My wife and knelt and prayed for guidance, and a bolt from the heavens smote the leader's horse."
 
+1 on Lucifer's Hammer, read that years ago; I just finished "the Endless Frontier", a collection of short sci-fi stories edited by Pournelle, with several of them written by him and Larry Niven. I read "Malevil" about twenty years ago, another good one. :)
 
A good non-fiction, little-known book I recently re-read Nuclear War: Whats in it for You? brings back memories of the Cold War. I bought it on Amazon.com for $.01 but paid about $3.00 shipping. Has alot of irrelevant info for today, but if you read it in the context of 1982 its fantastic.
 
Based on this thread I went out got both of these books. Just finished reading them both.

Both are excellent and have really made me take stock of what life would be like after a severe SHTF scenario.

As someone who puts more thought and action into prepardness than probably 99.9% of the general population (no one on this forum falls into that 99.9%) both books have me questioning my ability to survive in the aftermath of a catostrophic event.

One thing stands out very clearly in both books. Alone your probably not going to make it...Your easy pickings for any group. Only well armed groups have a chance.
 
I just installed ceiling fans, so this book about the risks of throwing feces at them should make for an excellent read.

Pournelle and Niven are both excellent authors, so I highly recommend Lucifer's hammer (at least within this genre).

Ringworld provides an interesting take on the permanent collapse of civilization (civilization has advanced so far that advancing beyond stone age technology is no longer possible once it collapses).

Stephen King's Stand does an OK job of portraying humanity after the fall, but the last half of the book is weak.
 
1632 by eric flint: west virgina town gets sent back to warring Germany
Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling: Guns and all other advanced tech stops working
Island in the sea of time by S.M. Stirling: Nantucket gets sent back to the bronze age.


By far, 1632 is the best of those three novels, and they all have sequels.

Lucifers Hammer was nice, but I thought that it was overly harsh... I'll have to re-read it to be sure.
 
Crosshair said:
Jenrick

Talking about people's teeth rotting out from the lack of toothpaste and floridated water, etc.

You solve that by rinsing you're mouth with urine. The Ammonia kills the bacteria. Gross, but it works. :barf: Same thing applies if you have a wound, but no medical supplies. Again, it sterilizes the wound.
Click to expand...

Which reminds me of the old joke about the guy who gets snakebit while urinating and the doctor tells his friend he'll have to suck the poison out.

"Dude, you're gonna die!"

Thank you folks. Try the veal!
zastros
 
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