History AfterTheEnd / Literature

* 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/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 MageSpecies ([[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".

** The ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' novels, in which the world has been devastated so many times in so many different eras that reality itself is starting to break down.

* ''Literature/PosterGirl'' takes place in a sector of a post collapse USA. In this case a MegaCity build in the Northwest between Seattle and Portland. The overall setting might be the same as ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'' by the same author.

* ''Literature/PosterGirl'' takes place in a sector of a post collapse USA. In this case a MegaCity build in the Northwest between Seattle and Portland. The overall setting might be the same as the ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'' by the same author.

* 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 place 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.]]
* Creator/JamesHerbert 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]].

* The short story "Fields" by Desmond Warzel takes place in UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} after the world has been taken over by mutant wheat and most of humanity has vanished.

* ''Literature/ValleyWestsideWar'' 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.

* ''Literature/LordOfTheWorld'' by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson is a dystopian novel centered on the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world.

* ''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/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.

* Due to being an antology, ''Literature/HardaHorda'' comes with three different variants:

* ''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 that its dedicated industry is nuclear materials, and its own nuclear arsenal allowed them to strike a deal with the Capitol to be left alone.]]

* The Gold Eagle adventure series ''Literature/DeathLands'' takes place in the post-WW3 United States plagued by crazed mutants and power-hungry barons.

* ''Literature/Technomancer'' by MK Gibson: The Biblical Apocalypse has occurred but God didn't show up and the world has fallen under the sway of demons. It has also become a Cyberpunk dystopia within the remaining cities, the rest of the world degenerating into lawless wastelands.

** ''[[Literature/AgentG Agent G: Infiltrator]]'' and ''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.