History AfterTheEnd / Literature

** ''Literature/TheCyberDragonsTrilogy'' takes place a couple of decades after a volcano destroyed Wyoming and covered the United States in a year long Winter. It has rebuilt itself into a cyberpunk dystopia using AI-created technology and millions of bots.

* Creator/CTPhipps' ''Literature/CthulhuArmageddon'' is a story about the Great Old Ones having destroyed the Earth with their rising and reducing humanity to a WeirdWest future of scattered towns as well as tribal peoples. The human race is slowly going extinct but also ''changing.''

* ''Literature/TrailOfTheSeahawks'' involves North American culture devolving into feudalism and the use of giant dogs (albeit quite inexplicably called "riding dogs" in this case) as mounts. The only mutants present, however, are the [[PsychicPowers psionic]] [[IntelligentGerbil sapient]] monkeys; and they're mostly NeutralGood and on friendly terms with everyone else.

** ''Always Coming Home'' takes place on Earth after our civilization has collapsed. Poisoned lands, styrofoam on the beaches, genetic diseases...

* The Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin ''Literature/{{Hainish}}'' short story "Solitude" takes place on the planet Eleven-Soro, well after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, the cause of which is never exactly spelled out but which is implied to have been due largely to massive overpopulation.

* Creator/KathrynLasky's ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'' series is indicated to take place in a future world where humans (called "Others" by the sentient owls) have [[ApocalypseHow/Class3A gone]] [[ApocalypseHow/Class3B extinct]], leaving behind ruins and artefacts.

* Creator/PaoloBacigalupi works tend to be set almost exclusively in universes that either just get through their collapse or collapsed centuries ago, with characters having to deal with the aftermath. The selling point tends to be hefty helping of BioPunk, along with making each separate setting varied enough from the others to never hit the same mark twice, unless spinning a series out of it.
* Mark S. Geston's first two novels are set in decaying future worlds, some thousands of years after an unspecified catastrophe. In ''Lords of the Starship'' a scheme is devised to revitalize the economy of a dying country by using its resources to build a seven-mile long spaceship. [[spoiler:Once the ship is built a huge battle is fought over it, then the ship turns on its engines and fries the armies who are fighting over it - and then destroys itself. It has all been a hoax by a Mordor-like country, aimed at depopulating and demilitarizing the rest of the world.]] ''Out of the Mouth of the Dragon'' takes places some centuries later when the world's ecology is in its death throes. A young man sets off to prove himself as a soldier, only to realize that there are no noble causes left to fight for. [[spoiler:By the end of the book he seems to be the last man alive, sustained by prosthetic body parts, and as the world slowly dies and the sun goes out he realizes that his prosthetics may keep him alive forever in a dead world.]]

** ''Literature/TheStand'' opens right before a viral bioweapon brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. ''Night Surf'' from the short story collection ''Literature/NightShift'', written ten years earlier, features the same scenario, and is set after the virus has wiped out most of humanity.
** ''Home Delivery'' from ''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes'', which is set during a global ZombieApocalypse. This collection also features ''The End of the Whole Mess'', where the world is already on the brink of a JustBeforeTheEnd situation (among other things, a nuclear terrorist attack has destroyed London), when an attempt at curbing humanity's violent and hateful tendencies with a special enzyme inserted into the water cycle instead dooms it due to an unknown side effect -- extremely early onset Alzheimers.

* Creator/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''.

** In ''Literature/{{Elantris}}'', [[TheMagicGoesAway the magic has gone away]], leaving the eponymous city a crumbling ruin inhabited by zombies when it had been a borderline-utopia run by super powered, nearly immortal mages before. The kingdom it was originally capital of is rapidly crumbling as a result, although the issue is entirely localized with the rest of the world being more or less fine ("being slowly conquered by a theocratic empire" isn't exactly "fine", but it is non-apocalyptic).

** ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' the backstory reveals that the world is subjected to "desolations" on a regular basis, where the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Voidbringers]] come to destroy humanity and it is the duty of the mythical [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Heralds]] to help humanity prepare for each desolation and help them survive. However the Prologue reveals that it has been four thousand years since the last Desolation, giving the world time to recover, rebuild, and develop. Of course [[spoiler: by the time of the books another desolation is just around the corner.]]
** ''Literature/TheReckonersTrilogy'' takes place in a world where people started getting superpowers and [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity inevitably becoming evil]]. With no way to stop them, they began claiming chunks of the country, ruling individual cities. By the time the series starts, the city of Newcago is one of the the nicer places left in the "Fractured States" because it has electricity and running water.

* ''Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture'' is set millions of years after the extinction of humanity and of most modern animals, leaving the descendants of rodents, rabbits and other small, hardy animals to inherit the world and diversify into complex ecosystems.

* Patrick Tilley's ''The Amtrak 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 Amtrak Federation.
* Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/{{Anathem}}'' has its calendar set the year 0 as the "Terrible Events", a near-extinction level nuclear/nanotechnological war. A rough translation to Earth years puts this in the later half of the 21st century. The main events of the novel are set more than 3500 years from this event. During this time, the planet has gone through at least three other civilization-reducing periods. The main characters' society has even categorized the kinds of post-apocalyptic civilizations that pop up afterwards. During the story's events, civilization has returned to a level similar to the 21st century again, save some holdouts.
* In ''Literature/{{Angelfall}}'' the apocalypse, caused by angels, happened six weeks ago. Humans already have adapted so far as to use old computer to build a latrine wall.
* ''Literature/AngelNotes'', set in the Franchise/{{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 death (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.

* ''Literature/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.
* ''As the Curtain Falls'': {{Exaggerated|trope}}; 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.

* "Literature/{{Autofac}}" is set after a five-year nuclear war destroyed human civilization, leaving cities as fields of ruins, the environment devastated, the landscape an alternating field of badlands, overgrown tangles of vegetation and craters filled with irradiated water, and the remaining human settlements either entirely dependent on automated factories or reduced to a Stone Age existence.
* ''Literature/{{Bearheart}}'': Government and society collapse in the U.S. when people run out of gas.
* In Rebecca Ore's ''Being Alien'' trilogy, Gwyngs are a sapient bat species, but they are the second generation of intelligent life on their planet. They are aware of the "Old Ones" who "died / killed themselves". They don't know which.

* Parts of ''The Book of Dave'' by Will Self take place in a flooded out England five hundred years after the titular book is discovered and a religion is founded on it.

* ''Literature/ByTheWatersOfBabylon'': The story is revealed to take place in the future close to the former New York City, after the city was ruined during a war long ago, with the survivors of the region tribal foragers once again. Due to loss of knowledge, they view the long ago humans as gods, and New York City has been forbidden to enter (apparently initially out of fear because poison was leftover there from the war, before it grew into a superstition).

* Creator/MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Gilmore's novel ''Literature/CaptainFrenchOrTheQuestForParadise'' 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.

* Neil Cross's ''Literature/{{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.

* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfThePneumaticZeppelin'': Alien devices that sabotage electronics have turned people back to a SteamPunk world.

* 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 turned much of Earth's surface to "deadlands". Most of what's left is a corportate dystopia run by {{Megacorp}}s. 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/ConcienciaYVoluntad'' takes action in year 2057, after the collapse of western civilization from a long, non-nuclear war, economic crisis, and climatic change. But it could be worse.

* ''Literature/DaystarAndShadow'' takes place about a thousand years after a devastating event called the Holocaust. Now much of America is uninhabitable wasteland.

* The Gold Eagle adventure series ''Literature/DeathLands'' takes place in a post-WW3 United States plagued by crazed mutants and power-hungry barons.
* A localized version in the Russian SharedUniverse ''Literature/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.
* ''Literature/DinnerAtDeviantsPalace'' is set after a calamity left a number of radioactive holes in southern California (and presumably other places further afield, whence news no longer comes since civilization collapsed). Society has rebuilt in a number of walled cities which use distilled alcohol (a fuel, a disinfectant, ''and'' a drink) as PracticalCurrency.

* ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'' is implied to be after a major war. [[spoiler:Subverted with ''Allegiant'' where its revealed that while there was a war, society is still somewhat intact with the US Government still existing but as a shadow of its former self. Though half the US population is dead, many of the Metro areas are filled with crime and fantastic racism. It's also revealed that Chicago is a closed off experiment, one of a few in the Midwest. It’s also implied that the west coast is either uninhabited or possibly isolated. (It’s not clear as the fringe groups don't go there because the terrain is too rough to traverse)]].

* The story in ''Literature/DreamDelusionAndReality'' is set in post-apocalyptic world during 23rd century after mysterious race of invading creatures ruined the Earth.

* Creator/SMStirling's ''Literature/{{Emberverse}}'' 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 [[UsefulNotes/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 [[ImAHumanitarian cannibals]] who have forgotten about civilized culture entirely. The new states are often at war with each other, using armor, swords and bows.

* Francesca Haig's ''Literature/TheFireSermon'' takes place four hundred years after a global nuclear war. The ruins of the Before are considered taboo, and off limits to everyone, and society now shuns the technology used in [[TheBeforetimes the Before]] in favour of medieval tech. And the best part? Seers like the protagonist get to relive the Blast in their dreams.

* In ''Literature/TheGiverQuartet'', while the first book ''Literature/TheGiver'' implies that the world "evolved" for lack of a better term, into Sameness, the second book ''Literature/GatheringBlue'' shows that the world takes place after a major upheaval known as the The Ruin. Not much detail is given about it, but it is said to been an combination of both man-made and natural disasters.

* ''Literature/HeartOfDread'' is set after some wars and climatic catastrophe know as the Big Freeze, so the whole world is covered in ice and only a few countries are left standing.
* Sterling Lanier's ''Hiero Desteen'' books (''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 [[LostTechnology 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.

* ''Literature/HollowKingdom2019'': The bulk of the story takes place in the months after a ZombieApocalypse sweeps Seattle [[spoiler:and the rest of the world]], leaving various animals to try surviving in the ruins of the Emerald City.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', which is set sometime several hundred years after a gigantic, unexplained apocalypse that leaves North America as mostly ash. Hundreds of years later, the nation of Panem is set up after this, but is thrown into a civil war with its Districts, which ends with the destruction of the 13th District. 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, and its own nuclear arsenal allowed them to strike a deal with the Capitol to be left alone.]]

* In the Creator/BrianEvenson novel ''Immobility'', protagonist Josef Horkai is a HumanPopsicle who wakes up paralyzed from the waste down to a BadFuture where some unspecified disaster has destroyed almost all life on earth.
* ''Literature/TheImmortalJourney'' is set two years after an unspecified incident called "The Ecuador Explosion", which turned almost all of humanity into zombies. By the time the story starts, killing the undead has already become a routine for the few surviving humans, including the protagonist Emily. The situation is so fucked up, in fact, that even ''[[TheGrimReaper Death himself]]'' is out of a job − the zombies are not technically dead, not can they truly die, meaning that Death can't reap their lives. This threatens what he calls the "balance", hence why finding a cure to zombieness is so crucial to him too.

* ''Literature/KateDaniels'': [[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.

* ''Literature/TheLastGirlScout'' iset in Appalachia 200 years after a combo zombie apocalypse and nuclear war.
* ''Literature/TheLastShip'' is last because of a nuclear war that left most of earth uninhabitable.
* ''Literature/LastSurvivors'': There are very few humans, the moon out of whack, there are early winters and seething hot summers, and people move around in packs like animals and steal from their former neighbours just to live another day.
* ''Literature/{{Limes}}'' is set two centuries later the Fall of the Western Empire (when incidentally the events of ''Literature/TheLastLegion'' took place). Italy has been invaded and sacked multiple times and now is almost entirely ruled by the Lombards (save for Rome, where the Pope resides, and Ravenna along with most of Southern Italy, who have stayed in the the Eastern Empire). The DecoyProtagonist is one of the few Roman patricians that have survived the Lombard invasion are less and less relevant, when not treated as second-class citizens. The patrician's son-in-law remarks that him being able to keep his lands and his fortune almost untouched is more the exception than the rule, if not a miracle.

* ''Literature/MaddigansFantasia'', by Creator/MargaretMahy, is set some time 'after the Great Chaos changed the shape of the world'. The Chaos itself is never described or hinted at, but the entire series is spent trying to ensure that the existing state of things doesn't get any worse -- which, according to time-travellers Timon and Eden, it's about to.
* ''Literature/{{Maddrax}}'' takes place after a comet hits the Earth, moving the axis of rotation, and causing all sorts of mutations and retardations. Intelligent rats, vampires, primitive people, world conspiracies and more arise out of the ashes.

* Manuel de Pedrolo's ''Mecanoscrito del segundo origen'' (Second origin typescript) deals with two young survivors of an alien attack on earth trying to repopulate it and preserve human culture, with the few other survivors they come across no longer being quite as sound of mind as they may once have been.

* ''Literature/{{Mindscape}}'', by Andrea Hairston, has a living barrier suddenly appear and cut off parts of the world from each other. Humans divide into three refugee camps: New Ougadougou in Burkina Faso, Lost Santos in the western U.S., and Paradigma in Europe. A virus appears and threatens populations in all areas. Only the phase-shifting Vermittlers are able to penetrate the barrier and distribute the cure.

* ''Literature/ThePeripheral'': The slow cataclysm named the Jackpot wasn't a single event, but rather, a slow decay and worsening of everything, until all of a sudden the richest and most powerful {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s took a look around and realized that somehow, civilization had mostly collapsed without anyone noticing. It's a world in recovery, with abundant nanotech and extensive changes made at every level to make everything more eco-friendly and to restore Earth... but that doesn't change the fact countless people died entirely needlessly and Earth's recovery is only possible because of how utterly reduced humanity has been. Small wonder that when the time travel technology's discovered, Lowbeer dedicates herself to monitoring the timelines and making an effort to save as many people as she can.
* ''Literature/ThePeshawarLancers'': 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).
* ''Literature/ThePower'': The FramingDevice is set in a future matriarchal society that's millenia after our civilization was destroyed by nuclear warfare.

* ''Literature/{{Pure}}'' is set after a nuclear event that leaves many people fused to whatever they were near before the blast, be it objects, animals or other people. The titular "pures", who are unharmed, live inside domed cities, while the others struggle to survive outside.

* ''Literature/RiddleyWalker'' is an example of this, as it takes place roughly 3,000 years after an apocalyptic event which left England in an Iron Age existence. Civilization as it is has been reduced to a mere shadow of what it once was: common religion is based on Punch-and-Judy shows, what metal supplies remain have to be salvaged from ancient ruins, years marked AD are said to stand for "All Done", and the English language is, if the narrator is to be relied upon, now written phonetically (making the book incredibly difficult to read without speaking it out loud).

* ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'' takes place two thousand years after the First Apocalypse. Large parts of the continent are still wasteland.
* ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'': The series is implied to take place long after the end of our world. ''Syren'' has characters discuss old stories about men flying to the moon in white tubes. Later, a relatively modern submarine is encountered, and a tower holds what seems to be a modern elevator, with a light that shows a down-pointing arrow when you, well, go down. The books also talk about Roman temples, and make constant references to real world places, like Peru, China, and Persia.

* ''Literature/TheShatteredSea'' is set in a Norse flavored StandardFantasySetting which has been built on the ruins of a precursor "Elf" civilization which destroyed itself in a cataclysmic war and split continents (hence the series title). It's made increasingly clear throughout the series that the story's setting is EarthAllAlong and the cataclysm in question was a nuclear war. It's also suggested that the books are actually set in the relatively close future/civilization fell only recently, given that [[RagnarokProofing technology still works]] and some areas of the world are still irradiated.
* ''The Shattered World'' and ''The Burning Realm'' are fantasy novels set a thousand years AfterTheEnd of a world that got broken into fragments. Desperate damage-control by the resident mages has preserved the fragments in a vast envelope of air, and equipped all the pieces big enough for settlements with Runestones that provide gravity and a regular orbit. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, the Runestones' magic is almost exhausted, making these both AfterTheEnd novels ''and'' JustBeforeTheEnd novels.]]

* ''Literature/TheSurvivalist'' is a 1980s series of adventure novels by Jerry Ahern about a CrazyPrepared ex-CIA man searching for his family in a post-WorldWarIII United States occupied by the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet military]]. Unfortunately the series [[JumpTheShark jumps the shark]] somewhat after the hero and his family are [[ColdSleepColdFuture frozen for 500 years and wake up in a future world to battle neo-Nazis, and neo-Communists led by his old enemy]].

* ''Literature/TowersTrilogy'': The series takes place after an event called the Fall, which wiped out modern civilization and caused a {{Magitek}}-based society to rise in its wake. The wealthy live in giant MageTower skycrapers which float above the devastation, while the poor are forced to scrape out a living among the ruins on the ground.

* ''Literature/TrailOfTheSeahawks'' involves North American culture devolving into feudalism and the use of giant dogs (albeit quite explicably called "riding dogs" in this case) as mounts. The only mutants present, however, are the [[PsychicPowers psionic]] [[IntelligentGerbil sapient]] monkeys; and they're mostly NeutralGood and on friendly terms with everyone else.

* ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'', by Scott Westerfield, features a world where nothing using gas works and apparently humanity's population is reduced and controlled, and segregated into a number of strict social castes.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': Rand gets to see the history of the Aiel during the Breaking of the World, when humanity went from CrystalSpiresAndTogas to near-extinction.
* ''Literature/WhoFearsDeath'' is implied to be set after this. There is technology, but it's mostly decayed and in disrepair. According to the Great Book, the Okeke created a great technological society, but were crushed when Ani woke up to discover what her creations had done and created the Nuru to punish them.

* ''Literature/WorldMadeByHand'', by James Howard Kunstler, is set in a future where industrial civilization has collapsed simply from petroleum depletion and resultant stresses on socioeconomic systems .(Terrorists also destroyed Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles with nuclear bombs, but there was never any all-out nuclear war.) This is one of a fairly new genre of [[http://www.energybulletin.net/node/44031 post-oil novels]].

* ''As the Curtain Falls'': Taken UpToEleven; 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.

* ''Literature/AshesAshes'', one of Creator/ReneBarjavel's novels, takes place in a world where electricity has completely disappeared, causing the end of civilization. [[spoiler: Humanity gets better in ''Future Times Three'' though, thanks to telekinesis and eusociality.]]

* ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'' takes place after ''two'' ends. Originally, the world [[spoiler: our world, in fact]] had an advanced technological civilization that destroyed itself through what appears to have been a nuclear war. Shortly thereafter, the [[TheMagicComesBack return of magic]] and appearance of elves, dwarves, and two MageSpecies turned the world into a ''Literature/{{Shannara}}''-esque version of the StandardFantasySetting. ''Then'' the two WitchSpecies ([[WellIntentionedExtremist the Sartan]] and [[ProudWarriorRace the Patryns]]) went to war using the other races as proxies, culminating in the Sartan, fearing that the Patryns would win, completely destroying the world and rebuilding it as ''four'' worlds patterned after the four classical elements, plus a DeathWorld where they stuck the Patryns. Then [[NeglectfulPrecursors they vanished]]. The series picks up a millennium or so after this "Sundering".

* ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'' takes place after ''two'' ends. Originally, the world [[spoiler: our world, in fact]] had an advanced technological civilization that destroyed itself through what appears to have been a nuclear war. Shortly thereafter, the [[TheMagicComesBack return of magic]] and appearance of elves, dwarves, and two WitchSpecies turned the world into a ''Literature/{{Shannara}}''-esque version of the StandardFantasySetting. ''Then'' the two WitchSpecies ([[WellIntentionedExtremist the Sartan]] and [[ProudWarriorRace the Patryns]]) went to war using the other races as proxies, culminating in the Sartan, fearing that the Patryns would win, completely destroying the world and rebuilding it as ''four'' worlds patterned after the four classical elements, plus a DeathWorld where they stuck the Patryns. Then [[NeglectfulPrecursors they vanished]]. The series picks up a millennium or so after this "Sundering".

* ''Literature/TrailOfTheSeahawks'' involves North American culture devolving into feudalism and the use of giant dogs (albeit quite explicably called "riding dogs" in this case) as mounts. The only mutants present, however, are the [[PsychicPowers psionic]] [[IntelligentGerbil sapient]] [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys monkeys]]; and they're mostly NeutralGood and on friendly terms with everyone else.

* This is why things are the way they are in "Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream".

* ''By the Waters of Babylon'' by S. V. Benet. Remarkable because it depicts what feels like a world post-atomic-war, complete with ideas of what would and would not be safe to handle after the end--only it was written in the 1930s.

** ''Home Delivery'' from ''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes'', which is set during a global ZombieApocalypse. This collection also features ''The End of The Whole Mess'', where the world is already on the brink of a JustBeforeTheEnd situation (among other things, a nuclear terrorist attack has destroyed London), when an attempt at curbing humanity's violent and hateful tendencies with a special enzyme inserted into the water cycle instead dooms it due to an unknown side effect - extremely early onset Alzheimers.

** ''Sea Siege'' opens on a small Caribbean island that is having trouble with {{mutant|s}} sea creatures - just before WorldWarIII.
** ''Star Man's Son'' (a.k.a. ''Daybreak - 2250 A.D.'') opens generations after WorldWarIII. The protagonist is suffering from his culture's prejudice against {{mutants}}.

* ''Literature/{{City of Bones|1995}}'' by Creator/MarthaWells: The Ancients brought about some catastrophe that reduced most of the known world to a desert wasteland that's populated with isolated human city-states, bio-engineered "krisman" enclaves, and cannibalistic bandit bands. There is a thriving trade in Ancient cultural artifacts and in the few surviving scraps of {{Magitek}}. [[spoiler:Ultimately, the characters have to fend off the same threat that the Ancients did.]]

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

* Creator/CTPhipps' ''CthulhuArmageddon'' is a story about the Great Old Ones having destroyed the Earth with their rising and reducing humanity to a WeirdWest future of scattered towns as well as tribal peoples. The human race is slowly going extinct but also ''changing.''

** ''Literature/TheStand'' opens right before a viral bioweapon brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

%%* The ''Literature/{{Indigo}}'' series.
* It turns out the future the kids of ''Literature/InTheKeepOfTime'' visit is this scenario, albeit one which takes place after [[GreenAesop global warming and the energy crisis]] instead of [[ApocalypseHow nuclear war]].
* In ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'', Martian civilization peaked millennia before the events of the novels - the Barsoom that Carter finds himself on is a ScavengerWorld.
* Creator/DavidGemmell's ''Literature/JonShannow'' trilogy is a postapocalyptic series, with elements of TheWildWest.
* In the ''Literature/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.
* 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 Second Men, who are then destroyed in a war with aliens and leave behind the Third Men, who evolve into the Fourth Men, who create [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and are destroyed by]] the Fifth Men, who then abandon Earth after the Moon [[ColonyDrop comes crashing down]] and {{Terraform}} Venus. Eventually, Venus has to be abandoned when the Sun starts expanding into a Red Giant, and the Ninth Men flee to Neptune. Finally, the Eighteenth (and Last) Men die when the Sun unexpectedly goes Nova.

* ''Literature/Thelastgirlscout'' Set in Appalachia 200 years after a combo zombie apocalypse & nuclear war.

* The ''Last Survivors'' series, very few humans, moon out of whack, early winters, seething hot summers, people moving around in packs like animals and stealing from their former neighbours just to live another day.
* The historical short story ''Literature/{{Limes}}'' is set two centuries later the Fall of the Western Empire (when incidentally the events of ''Literature/TheLastLegion'' took place). Italy has been invaded and sacked multiple times and now is almost entirely ruled by the Lombards (save for Rome, where the Pope resides, and Ravenna along with most of Southern Italy, who have stayed in the the Eastern Empire). The DecoyProtagonist is one of the few Roman patricians that have survived the Lombard invasion are less and less relevant, when not treated as second-class citizens. The patrician's son-in-law remarks that him being able to keep his lands and his fortune almost untouched is more the exception than the rule, if not a miracle.
* Much of ''Literature/LucifersHammer'' takes place after a massive comet destroys most of civilization, with only a few enclaves left.
* ''Maddigan's Fantasia'', by Creator/MargaretMahy, is set some time 'after the Great Chaos changed the shape of the world'. The Chaos itself is never described or hinted at, but the entire series is spent trying to ensure that the existing state of things doesn't get any worse -- which, according to time-travellers Timon and Eden, it's about to.
* The German pulp series ''Maddrax'' takes place after a comet hits the Earth, moving the axis of rotation, and causing all sorts of mutations and retardations. Intelligent rats, vampires, primitive people, world conspiracies and more arise out of the ashes.
* The ''Literature/MadgieWhatDidYouDo'' series tends to feature this trope, when Bunny and Madgie return to find a BadFuture and much of the stories involve them trying to reverse it. This tends to be more prominent in the stories that feature [[WorldWarIII nuclear wars]], where the world is plunged into a [[EndlessWinter nuclear winter]], two examples being ''Nuclear Snow'' and ''"It looked like falling snow...."''.
* The French SciFi novel ''{{Literature/Malevil}}'' takes place after a nuclear war on Easter Sunday, 1977. The characters are struggling to survive after the apocalypse but they have a key advantage: the titular Malevil is a stone castle and returns to its original purpose as a fortified stronghold.
%%* ''[[Literature/TheMazeRunner The Maze Runner Trilogy]]''.

* ''Literature/{{Metro 2033}}'' and the [[VideoGame/{{Metro2033}} eponymous game]] take place 20 years after a nuclear holocaust. The only survivors (that we know of) inhabit what used to be the Moscow Metro with various stations being city-states on their own. Factions have sprung up, and death is around every corner. Going to the surface is a death sentence.
* In ''Literature/{{Mindscape}}'', by Andrea Hairston, a living barrier suddenly appears and cuts off parts of the world from each other. Humans divide into three refugee camps: New Ougadougou in Burkina Faso, Lost Santos in the western U.S., and Paradigma in Europe. A virus appears and threatens populations in all areas. Only the phase-shifting Vermittlers are able to penetrate the barrier and distribute the cure.

* The ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'' trilogy, set 20 years after the ZombieApocalypse. Humanity's survival is credited to Creator/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).
* ''Literature/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.

* Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/NuclearDream'' novel takes place in what used to be the US after a nuclear holocaust. Most survivors remain in bunkers, fearing the harsh life on the surface, where only people who call themselves "dragons" (by rejecting all that makes them human and looking out only for number one) can survive. The protagonist's goal is to try to prevent a delayed launch of a nuclear missile at an unspecified enemy.
* Nevil Shute's ''Literature/OnTheBeach'' follows the [[spoiler: short]] lives of people living in southern Victoria, Australia, after the rest of the world has blown each other to bits with nuclear bombs. [[spoiler: Everybody dies, All of them. Yes even the baby. And the dog. They all die. Incredibly depressing, but still a brilliant book.]]
* ''The One'' is a depressing and physiological story about a 13-year-old girl who is the only one left in her town after a deadly flesh-eating parasite kills the entire population and is forced to find a cure for it. [[spoiler: She wasn't the only one left in her town, her friends had the parasite as well, but since she was one of the last ones affected, they didn't trust her any longer and left town.]]

* The ''Pelbar'' heptalogy by Paul O. Williams is set in North America 1,000 years after a nuclear war, describing how the communities along the Heart River (formerly the Mississippi) are trying to reforge anything resembling a nation.
* In the ''[[Literature/ThePendragonAdventure Pendragon]]'' novel ''The Pilgrims of Rayne'', Bobby discovers that [[spoiler: the tropical island paradise of Ibara is actually part of Veelox, after three hundred years have passed since Aja Killian's time. The rest of Veelox is a crumbling wasteland and the people not living in Ibara aren't much better than animals.]] In ''Raven Rise'', [[spoiler: Third Earth]] could probably also fit this trope well.
* In Creator/WilliamGibson's ''Literature/ThePeripheral'', the slow cataclysm named the Jackpot wasn't a single event, but rather, a slow decay and worsening of everything, until all of a sudden the richest and most powerful {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s took a look around and realized that somehow, civilization had mostly collapsed without anyone noticing. It's a world in recovery, with abundant nanotech and extensive changes made at every level to make everything more eco-friendly and to restore Earth... but that doesn't change the fact countless people died entirely needlessly and Earth's recovery is only possible because of how utterly reduced humanity has been. Small wonder that when the time travel technology's discovered, Lowbeer dedicates herself to monitoring the timelines and making an effort to save as many people as she can.
* In ''Literature/ThePeshawarLancers'' by Creator/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).
* In ''Literature/ThePracticeEffect'', when Dennis finds himself on a parallel world called Tatir, he initially assumes the local HumanAliens are the survivors of some kind of global war or cataclysm, since all the old stuff is high-tech, while all the new stuff is crappy, assuming it to be a ScavengerWorld. The locals have no idea what he's talking about. The real reason? The titular practice effect. Instead of being worn out with time and use, inanimate objects get only better with use, which is why all new stuff looks like it was made in the Stone Age, while old stuff is beyond Earth's current science (e.g. anti-gravity, perfect lubricant). It's common for lords and other rich folks to hire the poor to "practice" their items for them, so by the time they get it, it's all nice and cool. On the flipside, objects left to their own devices atrophy and revert to their primitive origins.
* Julianna Baggott's ''Pure'' is set after a nuclear event that leaves many people fused to whatever they were near before the blast, be it objects, animals or other people. The titular 'pures', who are unharmed, live inside domed cities, while the others struggle to survive outside.

* 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.
* Russel Hoban's ''Literature/RiddleyWalker'' is an example of this, as it takes place roughly 3,000 years after an apocalyptic event which left England in an Iron Age existence. Civilization as it is has been reduced to a mere shadow of what it once was: common religion is based on Punch-and-Judy shows, what metal supplies remain have to be salvaged from ancient ruins, years marked AD are said to stand for "All Done", and the English language is, if the narrator is to be relied upon, now written phonetically (making the book incredibly difficult to read without speaking it out loud).
* Cormac [=McCarthy=]'s ''Literature/TheRoad'' takes place after an unspecified event that not only leaves humanity nearly extinct but has destroyed the atmosphere such that nothing will grow.
* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'' series, the planet Safehold is humanity's last desparate attempt to evade genocide at the hands of the Gbaba. It's a foregone conclusion that every human world except for Safehold itself has been wiped out.

* R. Scott Bakker's ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'' takes place two thousand years after the First Apocalypse. Large parts of the continent are still wasteland.
* The setting of ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' is implied to take place long after the end of our world.
** Syren has characters discuss old stories about men flying to the moon in white tubes. Later, a relatively modern submarine is encountered, and a tower holds what seems to be a modern elevator, with a light that shows a down-pointing arrow when you, well, go down. The books also talk about Roman temples, and make constant references to real world places, like Peru, China, and Persia.
** Fyre adds more fuel to the, er, fire of this theory. Septimus writes the date on the snow outside [[spoiler:the House of Foryx.]] It's... quite surprising, to say the least.
* Creator/JasperFforde's ''Literature/ShadesOfGrey'' takes place five hundred years after "The Something That Happened", which wiped out the Previous civilization and evidently filled the world with its variety of high-tech ruins and peculiar animals. What that Something actually was is a mystery.
* Terry Brooks'a ''Literature/{{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.

* ''Skylark'' by Meagan Spooner is supposedly after a nuclear war which wiped out most animal species and most of human civilization.
* Perri Rhoades' ''Literature/SpectralShadows'' has Serial 11, which takes place "At the End of Time" on the planet Cygnus, where the {{Funny Animal}} People that live there now were the result of apocalyptic genetic warfare by the humans.

* John Maddox Roberts's ''Stormlands'' series. The ancients left a few new craters on the moon, and ferrous metals are a rare commodity. Also, there are [[CoolHorse four-horned horses]], [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe blue-skinned mutant babes]], and at least one [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Historical Domain]] CaptainErsatz.
* ''Literature/SummerOfTheApocalypse'', a YA novel set after a deadly flu pandemic.

* ''The Survivalist'' is a 1980s series of adventure novels by Jerry Ahern about a CrazyPrepared ex-CIA man searching for his family in a post-WorldWarIII United States occupied by the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet military]]. Unfortunately the series [[JumpTheShark jumps the shark]] somewhat after the hero and his family are [[ColdSleepColdFuture frozen for 500 years and wake up in a future world to battle neo-Nazis, and neo-Communists led by his old enemy]].
* This is one of the few details revealed about the third Creator/ErinHunter series, ''Literature/SurvivorDogs''.
* Robert [=McCammon=]'s ''Literature/SwanSong'' is a post-apocalyptic novel with fantasy/horror underpinnings.

* Creator/AlfredBester's seriocomic novella "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To" features the last man and woman on earth -- at least, they think they might be -- trying to carry on with their daily lives in a decimated midtown Manhattan.
* The ''To The Stars'' Trilogy by Harry Harrison is set a few centuries after a peak oil crash and subsequent world chaos.
* The ''Literature/TowersTrilogy'' takes place after an event called the Fall, which wiped out modern civilization and caused a {{Magitek}}-based society to rise in its wake. The wealthy live in giant MageTower skycrapers which float above the devastation, while the poor are forced to scrape out a living among the ruins on the ground.
* Rather like the [=McQuay=] duology mentioned above, Ardath Mayhar and Ron Fortier's ''Trail of the Seahawks'' involves North American culture devolving into feudalism and the use of giant dogs (albeit quite explicably called "riding dogs" in this case) as mounts. The only mutants present, however, are the [[PsychicPowers psionic]] [[IntelligentGerbil sapient]] [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys monkeys]]; and they're mostly NeutralGood and on friendly terms with everyone else.

* The ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'' Series, by Scott Westerfield, features a world where nothing using gas works and apparently humanity's population is reduced and controlled, and segregated into the eponymous Uglies, and Pretties ([[spoiler: And Specials.]])
* Creator/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.

* ''Wasteworld'' by James Barton is another post-nuclear action pulp series from the 80s.
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', Rand gets to see the history of the Aiel during the Breaking of the World, when humanity went from CrystalSpiresAndTogas to near-extinction.
* The setting of ''Literature/WhoFearsDeath'' is implied to be this. There is technology, but it's mostly decayed and in disrepair. According to the Great Book, the Okeke created a great technological society, but were crushed when Ani woke up to discover what her creations had done and created the Nuru to punish them.

* 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, Israel 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.

%%* ''Zoology of the Future'' series by Creator/DougalDixon.
* Creator/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.

* ''Thelastgirlscout'' Set in Appalachia 200 years after a combo zombie apocalypse & nuclear war.

* ''Literature/Thelastgirlscout'' Set in Appalachia 200 years after a combo zombie apocalypse & nuclear war.

* "Literature/Thelastgirlscout" Set in Appalachia 200 years after a combo zombie apocalypse & nuclear war.