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Bleak/Post-Apocalyptic Books?

Stephen Baxter's "Evolution" isn't really a post-Apocalyptic novel but his description of the post-human era is mind-boggling.
 
Cell by Stephen King sucked pretty badly. It was as bad as The Stand was good.
When Worlds Collide (and After Worlds Collide). Much better than the melodromatic movie.
 
"I am Legend" the book, not the movie. It's a bit dated but the ending is cool.

ETA: I second (third? forth?) "Earth Abides".
 
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Brainache said:
Day of The Triffids
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fromdownunder said:
The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham

norm
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Just about anything by John Wyndham is good post-apocalyptic stuff.

The Midwich Cuckoos is the book that the movie Village of the Damned was based on.

Consider Her Ways is, to me, the creepiest of his stories. Except maybe Web (which is creepy in a more literal way.)

I have to reread Triffids periodically.

Then if you would like an anti-apocalyptic book (is there such a genre?) there's always Good Omens, one of my favorites.
 
The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's one of his Orange County series about a small community in California after the USA has been bombed back into a pre-industrial state. Not massively apocalyptic, but I found it very credible.
 
How about "The Postman"? The movie is... well, let´s not talk about it; the novel is really good, though.
 
Early J.G. Ballard, especially The Drowned World, The Drought, and, covering an apocalypse on a much smaller scale, High Rise. A lot of his early short stories also have apocalyptic themes.
 
nobody listed the first one

H G wells time machine

farnham's freehold while not his best work is by the master robert heinlein

starman's son 2250ad by a norton
 
nota said:
nobody listed the first one

H G wells time machine

farnham's freehold while not his best work is by the master robert heinlein

starman's son 2250ad by a norton
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(Grumpy off-topic comment) Learn about capitalization and punctuation!
 
bruto said:
For post-post apocalyptic, don't miss Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker.
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I know that's not what OP meant, but if you go far enough post-apocalyptic, the story does not have to be dystopian at all. When I saw Bruto's post, "Canticle for Leibowitz" instantly came to mind -- it is far enough post-apocalypse that civilization has been rebuilt (although is very different from modern).

And the second book which came to mind is "House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds -- it is set six million years from now, where not only the entire galaxy has been colonized, but almost every inhabited planet has had five or six apocalypses. What protagonists call "microwars" (i.e. wars that engulf only a handful of inhabited systems) and subsequent re-colonizations come with such regularity, the general term for it is "turnover". And nearly every inhabitant of the galaxy has some relics of some bygone civilization to look at -- usually several.

But life in "House of Suns" is hardly dystopian -- in fact, quite luxurious even for the least technologically advanced cultures.
 
I read "The Killing Moon" by Rod Glenn and "One" by Conrad Williams. Both fantastic. In particular, "One"'s first section was exactly what I wanted to read. Grisly, post-apoc desperation.
 
Perhaps not quite in the same vein.... I just finished reading The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is the first "post warming" novel I've encountered, and it was quite good but bleak as well.
The action takes place in Thailand, where a high-tech society of sorts hangs on as a result of genetic engineering, "kink-spring" technology, and heroic efforts to stop the threat of genetically-modified disease and blights.
The already-risen seas are a constant threat.
The US still exists as a technological power, but much diminished both in size and influence.
And of course, it's a story about human frailty; amid all this there are still the problems of power, corruption, and greed.
A worthwhile read, but don't expect any laughs.
 
Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen is a good read (and, naturally these days, first of a trilogy)

In the fortieth century, librarians rule the world. Through a byzantine system of political favor, mathematical expertise, civil service testing, and dueling, the librarians strive for power in the "mayoralty" of Rochester, the most powerful of several Australian fiefdoms that emerged long ago from a nuclear winter. The Highliber is the scheming yet honorable Zarvora. She has ruthlessly assembled scores of mathematicians, who make the Calculor, a bizarre flesh-and-machine supercomputer that Zarvora needs to unify this quasi-medieval world and save it from the impending doom implicit in the Call. For when the Call sounds, all but a few will be entranced and, if they are not tethered, begin walking toward the sea, where they will plunge into the jaws of fish as large as mythic sea monsters.
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