History AfterTheEnd / Literature

* David Mitchell's ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' delivers this in two stages. In "An Orison of Sonmi-451" The skirmishes, apparently a series of limited nuclear exchanges have tuned much of Earth's surface to "deadlands". Most of what's left is a corportate dystopia run by {{Megacorps}}. By the time of "Sloosha's Crossin' an Ev'rythin' After" some other disaster, presumably another nuclear war, has finished even that off and only a few places, like the Hawaiian Islands remain inhabitable.

* In ''JohnCarterOfMars'', Martian civilization peaked millennia before the events of the novels - the Barsoom that Carter finds himself on is a ScavengerWorld.
* James Herbert has played with this one a time or two. In '48, most of the population has been decimated by the Blood Death, a virus borne by [[spoiler: rockets sent out by Hitler towards the end of the war]].

* Robert Wingrove's ''ChungKuo'' presents a world-spanning empire built after a devastating war ended the world as we know it
* ''Literature/TheGiver'' / ''GatheringBlue'' / ''The Messenger'': All three books are set after an event known as The Ruin. Not much detail is given about it, but it is said to been an combination of both man-made and natural disasters.

* ''{{Hothouse}}'' by Brian Aldiss. The Sun is going nova, half of Earth is covered by a single Banyan Tree, and the few remaining scattered tribes of humans are dying out.

* ''Literature/TheTripods'' series by JohnChristopher deals with a post-alien invasion future where the only humans not turned into zombie-like slaves are young children.
* ''ThePassage'' by Justin Cronin has this in spades, due to a DepopulationBomb resulting in [[spoiler: rampant vampires wiping out most of the American Continent]].
* Neil Cross' ''{{Christendom}}'' takes place some time after a massive series of global conflicts during which, among other things, [[DividedStatesOfAmerica America fragmented]], the entire population of Japan was wiped out by a Chinese bioweapon, and crashing nuclear satellites bathed large chunks of the planet in radiation.

* ''Zoology of the Future'' series by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougal_Dixon Dougal Dixon]].
* In the {{fantasy}} genre, Stephen R. Donaldson's [[spoiler:''Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever'' take place in The Land after it's been changed in many apocalyptic ways]].

* DavidGemmell's ''Jon Shannow'' trilogy is a postapocalyptic series, with elements of ''TheWildWest''.

* AndreNorton examples:

* In HBeamPiper's short story "The Answer", the protagonists - an American and a Russian - managed to survive the destruction of their respective nations, and are now working in South America. The titular answer is to the question, why was Auburn, New York, the first casualty of WorldWarIII - particularly since the Soviets then threw away the advantage of a first strike and didn't follow it up? [[spoiler:The town wasn't destroyed by the Soviets, but by a ColonyDrop - specifically, of an antimatter meteor - and nobody recognized it for what it was until after one of the protagonists, who witnessed the destruction of Auburn and investigated it, witnessed the results of a similar, artificial antimatter experiment in South America.]]
* Philip Reeves' ''MortalEngines'' takes place after not only the Sixty Minute War, a conflict so devastating it caused centuries of geological instability and fundamentally changed the geography of the Earth (the North American continent is glassed, and severed from South America through the ''complete obliteration'' of Central America. ''Entire seas'' have evaporated and changed places, and there is a ''[[ArtisticLicenseGeology mountain so high its top is in space, generated by volcanic activity]]''. Half of China is underwater, and everything north of New York is an icy wasteland with five-hundred-mile-an-hour winds), but [[HumansAreWarriors at least]] [[EarthIsABattlefield two]] [[ForeverWar other]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters wars]]. ''And'', [[SerialEscalation there is a third nearly-apocalyptic war going on in the last two books.]] The human race is forced into gigantic mobile cities... which then consume all surface resources and have to eat each other.
* M.P. Shiel's 1901 novel ''The Purple Cloud'' finds a man returning from a Polar expedition to discover that seemingly all other humans and animals on the planet have been killed by the purple cloud of the title.

* In JohnCalvinBatchelor's novel ''The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica'', a convincingly-portrayed international social breakdown is summed up by one character as "There's been no war. Just a bloody shuffle." It is implied that by the narrator's "present", new global social patterns have developed, without detailing them.

* SMStirling's ''[[Literature/{{Emberverse}} Dies the Fire]]'' series begins with a mysterious "Change" in the laws of physics that abruptly makes all powered machinery (even steam engines) inoperable and explosives inert. (Eventually it's revealed that this was caused by [[spoiler: what might be called the Universal Mind attempting to stave off an even worse fate for humanity.]]) Before long most of humanity dies of starvation and the survivors have to rebuild society on a low-tech basis. "Ethnogenesis", the emergence of new cultures, ensues. One state, founded by [[SocietyForCreativeAnachronism SCAdians]], is modeled on Medieval Normandy; another, founded by Wiccans or neopagans, consciously imitates a Medieval Scottish clan; etc. Large areas are inhabited only by {{cannibal}}s who have forgotten about civilized culture entirely. The new states are often at war with each other, using armor, swords and bows.
* In ''ThePeshawarLancers'', also by SMStirling, the End came in the Victorian era in the form of a [[ColonyDrop Big Rock From The Sky]] and so much effort went into survival the technology and culture has more or less frozen at the time period (at least in the dominant culture).
* HarryTurtledove's ''Valley-Westside War'' is set in a fairly typical post-nuclear world. The twist is that it's set in an AlternateHistory (this is a Turtledove story after all) where the war happened in 1967 and the protagonists are scientists from a future history where travel across alternates has been discovered who are studying the world to see how and why things went wrong.

* EdgarPangborn's novels ''Davy'' and ''The Company of Glory'', together with related short stories in ''Still I Persist in Wondering'' and others uncollected, take place in the decades and centuries following the 30 Minute War and the Red Plague, a devastating "limited" nuclear and biological war. As civilization slowly and painfully rebuilds itself in what used to be NewEngland the stories focus on individual struggles, triumphs and tragedies. The rigid, mutant-fearing feudal societies depicted therein seem to owe something to ''The Chrysalids''.

** ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' and its companion novel ''The Year of the Flood'' both take place after ThePlague wipes out all but a tiny handful of humans. Via flashbacks, they both also tell of the events in the years before TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt from various characters' perspectives.

* In the KateDaniels universe, [[MagicVersusScience the world is plagued by magic waves]]. Most of the human population was destroyed during the first magic flare, when monsters flooded back into the world and magic reduced skyscrapers to rubble. The rest of the humans survive by keeping one hand on their weapons or banding together in tightly knit neighborhoods.

* Terry Brooks' ''{{Shannara}}'' series is set after the Great Wars have dramatically altered the landscape and reduced civilization to medieval levels. Gnomes, dwarves, and trolls are mutant humans. Elves are real elves, having come out of hiding after the war.

* In Jeanne [=DuPrau=]'s series ''[[Literature/TheBooksOfEmber The City Of Ember]]'', [[spoiler:human society was destroyed by the Disaster, a combination of "the Four Wars and the Three Plagues". However, the titular city was built underground as a safehold for human culture and survives for 200-odd years after the war ended... [[OhCrap and then the lights start going out]]]].

* The ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'' trilogy, set 20 years after the ZombieApocalypse. Humanity's survival is credited to GeorgeRomero (for making lots of people GenreSavvy) and bloggers (who immediately reported the apocalypse at face value, while traditional media initially wrote it off as an elaborate prank or something).

* In John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' [[AlternateHistory in 2003, just before the Iraq War]] a mysterious energy field called "the Wave" wipes out all higher primates (and about half of an apparently random selection of any species with a spine) in the greater part of North America (about half of Canada, 95% of the Lower 48 states, and about 80% of Mexico as well as about 75% of Cuba). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when [[spoiler: feeling threatened by jihad Isreal nukes all its neighbors]]. Four years later (and three after the Wave disappears) the reformed US government, based in Seattle, is attempting to recolonize its former territory and is threatened by a [[DividedStatesOfAmerica breakaway Republic of Texas and an increasingly organized coalition of pirates and jihadis trying to take over the East Coast to create an Islamic homeland for refugees displaced by the aforementioned ]][[spoiler:nuking by Isreal]], the French Intifada, and the United Kingdom deporting most of its Muslims.

* It turns out the future the kids of ''InTheKeepOfTime'' visit is this scenario, albeit one which takes place after [[GreenAesop global warming and the energy crisis]] instead of [[ApocalypseHow nuclear war]].

* This is the primary setting of ''{{Men}}''. The world population is reduced to ONE, then back up to eleven, before the main plot takes place. Unfortunately for the human race, all eleven of those people are men. Fortunately for the human race, they don't age and are MadeOfIron.

* ''The Girl Who Owned A City'' takes place in a [[TeenageWasteland Pre-Teen Wasteland]] after a disease kills everyone over the age of puberty.
* Creator/AynRand's ''Anthem'' takes place after collectivisation has destroyed civilization and reduced the city that is the books setting to a medieval level. Some of Rand's critics posit that even though it was written before ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' that it's a sequel and that the abandoned house the hero finds is all that remains of Galt's Gulch.
* Most of ''ThePassage'' is set after a [[ZombieApocalypse Vampire Apocalypse]].

* This is one of the few details revealed about the third ErinHunter series, Literature/{{Survivors}}.

* ''TheZombieAutopsies'' is set after an intentionally released zombie virus.
* ''{{Aftertime}}'' and its two sequels are set after a worldwide disaster.

* ''TheLastShip'' is last because of a nuclear war that left most of earth uninhabitable.
* ''SummerOfTheApocalypse'', a YA novel set after a deadly flu pandemic.

* A localized version in the Russian SharedUniverse ''DeathZone'' is a semi-sequel to the ''VideoGame/{{Stalker}}'' series. In ''Death Zone'', a mysterious explosion occurs in Chernobyl and four other areas in Europe and Asia, including major cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg. After the explosions, the areas are covered by bubble-like gravity Barriers that create mini-{{Scavenger World}}s in each one. Anomalies can be found all over the Five Zones, usually of the deadly kind. Most machines have been turned into strange bio-mechanical hybrids called mechanoids whose behavior mimics that of ordinary animals. Nanobots can be found everywhere with the risk of being "infected" by them and becoming a zombie-like biomechanical creature called a staltech (or techzombie, according to some authors). Most of the populations of the Zones is either dead, turned into staltechs, or evacuated during the initial post-explosion days. Life outside the Barriers continues just as before (even though two major cities are now in ruins), but life in the Zones is very different. At the center of each Zone is an extradimensional tornado that acts as a gateway between them. The only people who can survive in the Zones are called stalkers.
* MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Gilmore's novel ''Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise'' has the titular character describe several human colonies that ended up destroying themselves or suffered some sort of natural calamity. Some of these planets remain empty of human life, while one (which suffered a nuclear holocaust) is noted to have been re-colonized by another colony (who then renamed it in honor of their hard work). The novel itself starts on planet Murphy, which has suffered a comet strike half-a-century before, and the population is now firmly in the hands of a theocracy that preaches that the comet was God's Hammer punishing humans for their sins. Prior to the theocracy taking over, the population of Murphy suffered a brief period of cannibalism and overall chaos.
** ''ArrivalsFromTheDark'' and ''Tevelyan's Mission'', Akhmanov's book series taking place in the same 'verse reveals that two of the setting's key HumanAlien races' current culture is the direct result of major catastrophes that wiped out former civilizations. The Bino Faata experienced ''two'' such catastrophes, before the survivors decided that there would ''not'' be a third one and embarked on a campaign of endless conquest meant to prevent it. The Kni'lina also suffered two within a relatively short time frame. A rogue planetoid was captured by their homeworld and turned into a second moon, resulting in massive tides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. To top it off, they were hit by a devastating plague that wiped out much of the population on the mainland. The semblance of civilization only remained on isolated islands, which used genetic engineering to make themselves immune to the disease, resulting in many clans, which are, in fact subspecies. Humans had a mild version of this, when AntiMatter-filled Faata ships blew up in major cities all over the world, resulting in millions dead and much destruction. However, it could have been much worse, and humans emerged a galactic superpower.

* ''Literature/AngelNotes'', set in the {{Nasuverse}}, starts years after Gaia (Earth) has died, but both actual Humans and two modified human races lives in the theoretically uninhabitable hell caused by Gaia's dead (normal Humans have to use special suits, though). The survivors have to deal with the [[EldritchAbomination Aristoteles]], sent by the other worlds to kill the survivors as asked by Gaia in her last breaths.

* ClarkAshtonSmith's ''Zothique'' is set 8 million years in the future, when the Sun is dying, civilization has long since collapsed, science has been forgotten, magic has returned, and humans are going extinct.

* ''TheNightLand'' is set 20 million years in the future, where the Sun has guttered out and died, leaving Earth in utter darkness. The few remaining humans live in a vast pyramid, while the outside is uninhabitable and overrun by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
* Taken UpToEleven in ''As The Curtain Falls'', where humanity has developed advanced technology, built a spacefaring empire, and been knocked back to the Stone Age ''three times''. The book is set when the third of those empires is just a legend, the Sun has swollen into a Red Giant, and the remnants of humanity live huddled on the dried up seabeds.
* David Mitchell's ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' delivers this in two stages. In "An Orison of Sonmi-451" The skirmishes, apparently a series of limited nuclear exchanges have tuned much of Earth's surface to "deadlands". Most of what's left is a corportate dystopia run by {{Megacorps}}. By the time of "Sloosha's Crossin' An Ev'rythin' After" some other disaster, presumably another nuclear war, has finished even that off and only a few places, like the Hawaiian Islands remain inhabitable.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', which is set sometime several hundred years after a gigantic, presumably nuclear, apocalypse that leaves North America as mostly ash. The nation of Panem is set up after this, and a few hundred years later District 13 is wiped out in ANOTHER nuclear apocalypse. After this event the Capitol sets up the Hunger Games, and the book picks up 74 years later. [[spoiler: District 13 is revealed at the end of book 2 to have survived the ass-kicking it received by the Capitol, and the reason it hasn't been destroyed since is because its dedicated industry is nuclear materials. Not something to provoke.]]

* The (chronologically) final segment in ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' takes place after "the flashbangin' and the Fall".

* Creator/JonathanLethem',s ''Amnesia Moon'' is set in a surreal post-apocalyptic world, after the US has been hit by nuclear bombs. The work is an {{homage}} to Creator/PhilipKDick, and reality itself seems to have become a bit unglued by the disaster.

* David Mitchell's ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' delivers this in two stages. In "An Orison of Sonmi-451" The skirmishes, apparently a series of limited nuclear exchanges have tuned much of Earth's surface to "deadlands". Most of what's left is a corportate dystopia run by {{Megacorps}}. By the time of "Sloosha's Crossin' An Ev'rythin' After" some other diasaster, presumably another nuclear war, has finishd even that off and only a few places, like the Hawaiian Islands remain inhabitable.

* ''{{Comet Dis'aster}}'' is set after a destructive comet hits the Earth.

* In John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' [[AlternateHistory in 2003, just before the Iraq War]] a mysterious energy field called "the Wave" wipes out all higher primates (and about half of an apparently random selection of any species with a spine) in the greater part of North America (about half of Canada, 95% of the Lower 48 states, and about 80% of Mexico as well as about 75% of Cuba). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when [[spoiler: feeling threatened by jihad Isreal nukes all it's neighbors]]. Four years later (and three after the Wave disappears) the reformed US government, based in Seattle, is attempting to recolonize its former territory and is threatened by a [[DividedStatesOfAmerica breakaway Republic of Texas and an increasingly organized coalition of pirates and jihadis trying to take over the East Coast to create an Islamic homeland for refugees displaced by the aforementioned ]][[spoiler:nuking by Isreal]], the French Intifada, and the United Kingdom deporting most of its Muslims.

* ''Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep?'' by Philip K. Dick, earth was nuked, a lot, the few remaining survivors wear clothes made of lead when going outside.
* Patrick Tilley's ''Amtrack Wars'' takes place about a thousand years after a nuclear war and revolves around the conflict between the surface dwelling Mutes and the underground based Amtrack Federation.

* In JohnCalvinBatchelor's novel THE BIRTH OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF ANTARCTICA, a convincingly-portrayed international social breakdown is summed up by one character as "There's been no war. Just a bloody shuffle." It is implied that by the narrator's "present", new global social patterns have developed, without detailing them.

* Philip Reeves' ''MortalEngines'' takes place after not only the Sixty Minute War, a conflict so devastating it caused centuries of geological instability and fundamentally changed the geography of the Earth (the North American continent is glassed, and severed from South America through the ''complete obliteration'' of Central America. ''Entire seas'' have evaporated and changed places, and there is a ''[[ArtisticLicenseGeology mountain so high its top is in space, generated by volcanic activity]]''. Half of China is underwater, and everything north of New York is an icy wasteland with five-hundred-mile-an-hour winds), but [[[HumansAreWarriors at least]] [[EarthIsABattlefield two]] [[ForeverWar other]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters wars]]. ''And'', [[SerialEscalation there is a third nearly-apocalyptic war going on in the last two books.]] The human race is forced into gigantic mobile cities... which then consume all surface resources and have to eat each other.

** ''{{Cell}}'' opens right before a mysterious cell-phone-transmitted brainwipe brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* In John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' [[AlternateHistory in 2003, just before the Iraq War]] a mysterious energy field called "the Wave" wipes out all higher primates (and about half of an apparently random selection of any species with a spine) in the greater part of North America (about half of Canada, 95% of the Lower 48 states, and about 80% of Mexico as well as about 75% of Cuba). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when [[spoiler: feeling threatened by jihad Isreal nukes all it's neighbors]]. Four years later (and three after the Wave disappears) the reformed US government, based in Seattle, is attempting to recolonize its former territory and is threatened by a [[DividedStatesOfAmerica breakaway Republic of Texas and an increasingly organized coalition of pirates and jihadis trying to take over the East Coast to create an Islamic homeland for refugees displaced by the aforementioned ]][[spoiler:nuking by Isreal]], the French Intifada, and the United Kingdom deporting most of its Muslims]].

* Philip Reeves' ''MortalEngines'' takes place after not only the Sixty Minute War, a conflict so devastating it caused centuries of geological instability and fundamentally changed the geography of the Earth (the North American continent is glassed, and severed from South America through the ''complete obliteration'' of Central America. ''Entire seas'' have evaporated and changed places, and there is a ''[[ArtisticLicenseGeology mountain so high its top is in space, generated by volcanic activity]]''. Half of China is underwater, and everything north of New York is an icy wasteland with five-hundred-mile-an-hour winds), but [[[HumansAreWarriors at least]] [[Literature/BattlefieldEarth two]] [[ForeverWar other]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters wars]]. ''And'', [[SerialEscalation there is a third nearly-apocalyptic war going on in the last two books.]] The human race is forced into gigantic mobile cities... which then consume all surface resources and have to eat each other.

* ''{{Hothouse}}'' by Brian Aldiss.

* In John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' [[AlternateHistory in 2003, just before the Iraq War]] a mysterious energy field called "the Wave" wipes out all higher primates (and about half of an apparently random selection of any species with a spine) in the greater part of North America (about half of Canada, 95% of the Lower 48 states, and about 80% of Mexico as well as about 75% of Cuba). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when [[spoiler: feeling threatened by jihad Isreal nukes all it's neighbors]]. Four years later (and three after the Wave disappears) the reformed US government, based in Seattle, is attempting to recolonize its former territory and is threatened by a [[DividedStatesOfAmerica breakaway Republic of Texas and an increasingly organized coalition of pirates and jihadis trying to take over the East Coast to create an Islamic homeland for refugees displaced by the aforementioned [[spoiler:nuking by Isreal]]]], the French Intifada, and the United Kingdom deporting most of its Muslims]].

* In John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' [[AlternateHistory in 2003, just before the Iraq War]] a mysterious energy field called "the Wave" wipes out all higher primates (and about half of an apparently random selection of any species with a spine) in the greater part of North America (about half of Canada, 95% of the Lower 48 states, and about 80% of Mexico as well as about 75% of Cuba). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when [[spoiler: feeling threatened by jihad Isreal nukes all it's neighbors]]. Four years later (and three after the Wave disappears) the reformed US government, based in Seattle is attempting to recolonize its former territory and is threatened by a [[DividedStatesOfAmerica breakaway Republic of Texas and an increasingly organized coalition of pirates and jihadis trying to take over the East Coast to create an Islamic homeland for refugees displaced by the aforementioned nuking by Isreal the French Intifada and the United Kingdom deporting most of its Muslims]].

* In Jeanne [=DuPrau=]'s series ''[[Literature/TheBooksOfEmber TheCityOfEmber]]'', [[spoiler:human society was destroyed by the Disaster, a combination of "the Four Wars and the Three Plagues". However, the titular city was built underground as a safehold for human culture and survives for 200-odd years after the war ended... [[OhCrap and then the lights start going out]]]].

* In Jeanne [=DuPrau=]'s series ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'', [[spoiler:human society was destroyed by the Disaster, a combination of "the Four Wars and the Three Plagues". However, the titular city was built underground as a safehold for human culture and survives for 200-odd years after the war ended... [[OhCrap and then the lights start going out]]]].

* In Jeanne [=DuPrau=]'s series ''Series/TheCityOfEmber'', human society was destroyed by a combination of war, radiation, and disease. However, the titular city was built underground as a safehold for human culture and survives for 200-odd years after the war ended... [[OhCrap and then the lights start going out]].

* EdgarPangborn's novels ''Davy'' and ''The Company of Glory'', together with related short stories in ''Still I Persist in Wondering'' and others uncollected, take place in the decades and centuries following a devastating "limited" nuclear and biological war. As civilization slowly and painfully rebuilds itself in what used to be NewEngland the stories focus on individual struggles, triumphs and tragedies. The rigid, mutant-fearing feudal societies depicted therein seem to owe something to ''The Chrysalids''.

* In Olaf Stapleton's ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'', 99% of humanity is wiped out in a huge geological upheaval, with humanity thrown back to the StoneAge and forced to crawl back to dominance over several million years, and evolving into the 2nd, 3rd, etc Men. Eventually Earth must be abandoned when the [[ColonyDrop Moon comes crashing down]], and later Venus, Man's new home, is threatened and must be abandoned for a final home on Neptune. The book ends with the 17th (Last) Men awaiting the end as the Sun threatens to go nova.

* creator/AndreNorton examples:

* Reeves' ''MortalEngines'' takes place after not only the Sixty Minute War, a conflict so devastating it caused centuries of geological instability and fundamentally changed the geography of the Earth (the North American continent is glassed, and severed from South America through the ''complete obliteration'' of Central America. ''Entire seas'' have evaporated and changed places, and there is a ''[[ArtisticLicenseGeology mountain so high its top is in space, generated by volcanic activity]]''. Half of China is underwater, and everything north of New York is an icy wasteland with five-hundred-mile-an-hour winds), but [[[HumansAreWarriors at least]] [[Literature/BattlefieldEarth two]] [[ForeverWar other]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters wars]]. ''And'', [[SerialEscalation there is a third nearly-apocalyptic war going on in the last two books.]] The human race is forced into gigantic mobile cities... which then consume all surface resources and have to eat each other.

* In ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Army of Terror'', most of the galaxy is chugging along just fine, but the heroes [[ClosedCircle crash land]] on Kiva, which used to support a thriving ecology and a native population, but has basically become like ''TheRoad'' -- ''everything'' is dead, there isn't so much as a blade of grass anywhere, and the natives [[spoiler: have become furious wraiths]] thanks to some kind of horrific experiment.

* MargaretAtwood:

* Sterling Lanier's ''Hiero's Journey'' and ''The Unforsaken Hiero'' are set mainly in what used to be [[CanadaEh Canada]], prior to WorldWarIII (now long past). [[BadassPreacher The protagonist's]] mission in the first book is to rediscover computer technology, because his people are running into information management problems and have enough historical knowledge to realize that computer information retrieval could solve them.

* Sterling Lanier's ''Hiero's Journey'' and ''The Unforsaken Hiero'' are set mainly in what used to be [[CanadaEh Canada]], prior to WorldWarIII (now long past). The protagonist's mission in the first book is to rediscover computer technology, because his people are running into information management problems and have enough historical knowledge to realize that computer information retrieval could solve them.