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!!In General
* There is a subgenre of SpeculativeFiction referred to as ''Dying Earth'', named after the Creator/JackVance series, ''Literature/DyingEarth''. Often, these works have a sword and sorcery feel, but with clear hints that this is the future. To clarify, ''The Dying Earth'' is set millions, if not billions, of years in the future, where the Sun is dying and civilization has risen and fallen countless times, and now science has been forgotten and magic has re-emerged.
!!By Author
* 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 artifacts.
* Creator/MargaretAtwood:
** ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic country heavily implied to be the US in the near future, in which the majority of people have been rendered infertile. [[spoiler:However, because of the religious fundamentalist styled patriarchy instated by the regime, it is women who are blamed, the concept that men might be equally infertile tantamount to treason.]] The handful of remaining fertile women are rounded up and forced to act as broodmares for high-status men, and executed or exiled if they fail to conceive.
** ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' and its companion novels ''Literature/TheYearOfTheFlood'' and ''Literature/{{Maddaddam}}'' take place after ThePlague wipes out all but a tiny handful of humans. Via flashbacks, they also tell of the events in the years before TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt from various characters' perspectives.
* 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 a 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.
* Most of Creator/EndMaster's ''Literature/GroundZero'' and parts of ''Literature/SuzysStrangeSaga'' take place after nuclear war destroys much of the country. ''Ground Zero'' in particular focuses on life in the aftermath of the apocalypse, as the main character encounters raiders, mutants, and short-tempered compound leaders.
* Mark S. Geston's first two novels are set in decaying future worlds, some thousands of years after an unspecified catastrophe. In ''Literature/LordsOfTheStarship'' 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.]] ''Literature/OutOfTheMouthOfTheDragon'' 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 ''Literature/FortyEight'', 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]].
* Creator/StephenKing has played with this trope several times.
** ''Literature/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/{{Cell}}'' opens right before a mysterious cell-phone-transmitted brainwipe brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
** ''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/TJKlune has two works that take place after the end of the world, both of which include solitary survivors with [[RobotBuddy humorous robot pals]] and the main characters falling in love with dangerous killers.
** The ''Literature/ImmemorialYear'' duology is set one hundred years after a nuclear war that wiped out most of humanity. What's left is a ScavengerWorld where a psychopath has amassed an army of cannibalistic raiders and is attempting to bring back the powerful "Before" technology.
** ''Literature/InTheLivesOfPuppets'' takes place centuries after all of humanity has been wiped out in a RobotWar except for a single young man who is raised by his robot father.
* Creator/JohnLangan has a couple short stories set after various apocalypses:
** "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers" takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious plague that has turned its victims corpses into collections of purple flowers, as the two protagonists attempt to fight off a pack of unnaturally aggressive and persistent canine-like animals.
** "The Shallows" features an old man going about his day-to-day survival after Lovecraft's Great Old Ones have arisen and turned the laws of nature upside down.
* Creator/AndreNorton examples:
** ''Breed to Come'' is set in a post-human world in which the disease that wiped out the humans led to the rise of several other [[IntelligentGerbil intelligent species]], among them [[CatFolk the protagonist's]]. His eldest surviving relative has spent his life studying the remains of human civilization and acquiring any technological advances that might benefit his people.
** The short story "The Gifts of Asti" opens just as Memphir, the protagonist's homeland, is falling to a barbarian invasion. She - the last priestess of a mostly-forsaken religion - follows a standing order about what to do AfterTheEnd (which was mentioned in prophecy), and takes a prepared escape route. She ends up on the far side of a mountain range to find a vast plain that was glassed in a now-forgotten war.
** ''No Night Without Stars'' opens several generations after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, which appears to have been due to a ColonyDrop.
** ''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}}.
* 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''.
* From 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/AgentG Agent G: Assassin]]'' 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.
* Creator/MatthewReilly:
** ''Literature/TheSecretRunnersOfNewYork'': The characters travel to a post-apocalyptic New York over two decades in their future.
** ''Literature/TrollMountain'': Strongly hinted to be the setting, as what is on the surface a standard medieval fantasy world also has a few relics from previous societies, plus scurvy exists in it exactly the same as in ours.
* From Creator/BrandonSanderson:
** 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).
** In ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'', ''something'' happened a thousand years ago that turned the world into a barren, ash-choked wasteland ruled by an EvilOverlord. Much of the trilogy involves piecing together what exactly happened [[spoiler: and in the end, fixing it]].
** ''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 nicer places left in the "Fractured States" because it has electricity and running water.
* Creator/RogerZelazny:
** His first full-length novel, ''This Immortal'' (which was originally serialized as ''...And Call Me Conrad'') deals with an immortal man who lives long enough to experience this.
** ''Literature/DamnationAlley'' deals with a journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland (just about the only detail it has in common with the cheesy [[Film/DamnationAlley movie]] that is supposedly based on it).
!!By Work
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyThreeDoomsday'' takes place after a nuclear war caused by [[PointOfDivergence a Soviet Air Defense Forces officer being reassigned to a different bunker]] and his replacement mistaking a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#1983_incident false alarm ]] for an American nuclear attack. The timeline continues to be updated in real time via the [[KentBrockmanNews WCRB NewsHour]].
* There is a subgenre of SpeculativeFiction referred to as ''Dying Earth'', named after the Creator/JackVance series, ''Literature/DyingEarth''. Often, these works have a sword and sorcery feel, but with clear hints that this is the future. To clarify, ''The Dying Earth'' is set millions, if not billions, of years in the future, where the Sun is dying and civilization has risen and fallen countless times, and now science has been forgotten and magic has re-emerged.
!!By Author
* 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 artifacts.
* Creator/MargaretAtwood:
** ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic country heavily implied to be the US in the near future, in which the majority of people have been rendered infertile. [[spoiler:However, because of the religious fundamentalist styled patriarchy instated by the regime, it is women who are blamed, the concept that men might be equally infertile tantamount to treason.]] The handful of remaining fertile women are rounded up and forced to act as broodmares for high-status men, and executed or exiled if they fail to conceive.
** ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' and its companion novels ''Literature/TheYearOfTheFlood'' and ''Literature/{{Maddaddam}}'' take place after ThePlague wipes out all but a tiny handful of humans. Via flashbacks, they also tell of the events in the years before TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt from various characters' perspectives.
* 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 a 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.
* Most of Creator/EndMaster's ''Literature/GroundZero'' and parts of ''Literature/SuzysStrangeSaga'' take place after nuclear war destroys much of the country. ''Ground Zero'' in particular focuses on life in the aftermath of the apocalypse, as the main character encounters raiders, mutants, and short-tempered compound leaders.
* Mark S. Geston's first two novels are set in decaying future worlds, some thousands of years after an unspecified catastrophe. In ''Literature/LordsOfTheStarship'' 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.]] ''Literature/OutOfTheMouthOfTheDragon'' 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 ''Literature/FortyEight'', 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]].
* Creator/StephenKing has played with this trope several times.
** ''Literature/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/{{Cell}}'' opens right before a mysterious cell-phone-transmitted brainwipe brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
** ''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/TJKlune has two works that take place after the end of the world, both of which include solitary survivors with [[RobotBuddy humorous robot pals]] and the main characters falling in love with dangerous killers.
** The ''Literature/ImmemorialYear'' duology is set one hundred years after a nuclear war that wiped out most of humanity. What's left is a ScavengerWorld where a psychopath has amassed an army of cannibalistic raiders and is attempting to bring back the powerful "Before" technology.
** ''Literature/InTheLivesOfPuppets'' takes place centuries after all of humanity has been wiped out in a RobotWar except for a single young man who is raised by his robot father.
* Creator/JohnLangan has a couple short stories set after various apocalypses:
** "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers" takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious plague that has turned its victims corpses into collections of purple flowers, as the two protagonists attempt to fight off a pack of unnaturally aggressive and persistent canine-like animals.
** "The Shallows" features an old man going about his day-to-day survival after Lovecraft's Great Old Ones have arisen and turned the laws of nature upside down.
* Creator/AndreNorton examples:
** ''Breed to Come'' is set in a post-human world in which the disease that wiped out the humans led to the rise of several other [[IntelligentGerbil intelligent species]], among them [[CatFolk the protagonist's]]. His eldest surviving relative has spent his life studying the remains of human civilization and acquiring any technological advances that might benefit his people.
** The short story "The Gifts of Asti" opens just as Memphir, the protagonist's homeland, is falling to a barbarian invasion. She - the last priestess of a mostly-forsaken religion - follows a standing order about what to do AfterTheEnd (which was mentioned in prophecy), and takes a prepared escape route. She ends up on the far side of a mountain range to find a vast plain that was glassed in a now-forgotten war.
** ''No Night Without Stars'' opens several generations after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, which appears to have been due to a ColonyDrop.
** ''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}}.
* 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''.
* From 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/AgentG Agent G: Assassin]]'' 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.
* Creator/MatthewReilly:
** ''Literature/TheSecretRunnersOfNewYork'': The characters travel to a post-apocalyptic New York over two decades in their future.
** ''Literature/TrollMountain'': Strongly hinted to be the setting, as what is on the surface a standard medieval fantasy world also has a few relics from previous societies, plus scurvy exists in it exactly the same as in ours.
* From Creator/BrandonSanderson:
** 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).
** In ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'', ''something'' happened a thousand years ago that turned the world into a barren, ash-choked wasteland ruled by an EvilOverlord. Much of the trilogy involves piecing together what exactly happened [[spoiler: and in the end, fixing it]].
** ''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 nicer places left in the "Fractured States" because it has electricity and running water.
* Creator/RogerZelazny:
** His first full-length novel, ''This Immortal'' (which was originally serialized as ''...And Call Me Conrad'') deals with an immortal man who lives long enough to experience this.
** ''Literature/DamnationAlley'' deals with a journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland (just about the only detail it has in common with the cheesy [[Film/DamnationAlley movie]] that is supposedly based on it).
!!By Work
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyThreeDoomsday'' takes place after a nuclear war caused by [[PointOfDivergence a Soviet Air Defense Forces officer being reassigned to a different bunker]] and his replacement mistaking a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#1983_incident false alarm ]] for an American nuclear attack. The timeline continues to be updated in real time via the [[KentBrockmanNews WCRB NewsHour]].
* ''[[Literature/AgentG Agent G: Assassin]]'' 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.
%% * 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 a 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.
* ''Breed to Come'' is set in a post-human world in which the disease that wiped out the humans led to the rise of several other [[IntelligentGerbil intelligent species]], among them [[CatFolk the protagonist's]]. His eldest surviving relative has spent his life studying the remains of human civilization and acquiring any technological advances that might benefit his people.
* ''Literature/{{Cell}}'' opens right before a mysterious cell-phone-transmitted brainwipe brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
Changed line(s) 87,89 (click to see context) from:
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'':
** In the First Chronicles, the Land is recovering from the effects of Kevin's Desecration which apparently wiped out all life at the time.
** The ''Second Chronicles'' take place in The Land after it's been changed in many apocalyptic ways.
** In the First Chronicles, the Land is recovering from the effects of Kevin's Desecration which apparently wiped out all life at the time.
** The ''Second Chronicles'' take place in The Land after it's been changed in many apocalyptic ways.
to:
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'':
**''Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant'': In the First Chronicles, the Land is recovering from the effects of Kevin's Desecration which apparently wiped out all life at the time.
%% ** The ''Second Chronicles'' take place in The Land after it's been changed in many apocalyptic ways.
**
%% ** The ''Second Chronicles'' take place in The Land after it's been changed in many apocalyptic ways.
Changed line(s) 95 (click to see context) from:
* ''Comet Dis'aster'' is set after a destructive comet hits the Earth.
to:
* ''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.''
%%* ''Comet Dis'aster'' is set after a destructive comet hits the Earth.
%%* ''Comet Dis'aster'' is set after a destructive comet hits the Earth.
* ''Literature/DamnationAlley'' deals with a journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland (just about the only detail it has in common with the cheesy [[Film/DamnationAlley movie]] that is supposedly based on it).
* ''Literature/DarkLife'' take place in a future where [[FloodedFutureWorld the ocean has risen due to Gobal Warming and the North American east coast has somehow fallen into the sea]]. The people who live on land are [[OverpopulationCrisis crammed in tiny apartment in gigantic building and see space as a status symbol]], There are people who are [[SettlingTheFrontier actively colonizing the ocean floor]], as well as people living in repurpose oil rigs along the coast, house boats and [[MobileCity mobile]] [[CityOnTheWater floating cities]] and the Government [[GovernmentExploitedCrisis keep using this situation as an excuse to stay in (and even abuse its) power.]]
* ''Literature/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/DarkLife'' take place in a future where [[FloodedFutureWorld the ocean has risen due to Gobal Warming and the North American east coast has somehow fallen into the sea]]. The people who live on land are [[OverpopulationCrisis crammed in tiny apartment in gigantic building and see space as a status symbol]], There are people who are [[SettlingTheFrontier actively colonizing the ocean floor]], as well as people living in repurpose oil rigs along the coast, house boats and [[MobileCity mobile]] [[CityOnTheWater floating cities]] and the Government [[GovernmentExploitedCrisis keep using this situation as an excuse to stay in (and even abuse its) power.]]
* ''Literature/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.
Deleted line(s) 100 (click to see context) :
* ''Literature/DarkLife'' take place in a future where [[FloodedFutureWorld the ocean has risen due to Gobal Warming and the North American east coast has somehow fallen into the sea]]. The people who live on land are [[OverpopulationCrisis crammed in tiny apartment in gigantic building and see space as a status symbol]], There are people who are [[SettlingTheFrontier actively colonizing the ocean floor]], as well as people living in repurpose oil rigs along the coast, house boats and [[MobileCity mobile]] [[CityOnTheWater floating cities]] and the Government [[GovernmentExploitedCrisis keep using this situation as an excuse to stay in (and even abuse its) power.]]
* ''Literature/DyingEarth'' is set millions, if not billions, of years in the future, where the Sun is dying and civilization has risen and fallen countless times, and now science has been forgotten and magic has re-emerged.
* 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).
* Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' and its sequel series ''Literature/TheBookOfSwords'' and ''The Books of Lost Swords'' are set on earth thousands of years after civilization was ''not'' destroyed in a nuclear war. Instead, the United States activated a device that actually changed the laws of nature to prevent the destruction of humanity by making nuclear fission so much less likely that the nuclear bombs wouldn't work. The good news is that it worked. The bad news is that changing the laws of nature also caused advanced technology to stop functioning, and caused magic to start working. As a result, civilization collapsed anyway, but it did eventually rebuild, albeit along rather different lines.
Changed line(s) 117 (click to see context) from:
* Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' and its sequel series ''Literature/TheBookOfSwords'' and ''The Books of Lost Swords'' are set on earth thousands of years after civilization was ''not'' destroyed in a nuclear war. Instead, the United States activated a device that actually changed the laws of nature to prevent the destruction of humanity by making nuclear fission so much less likely that the nuclear bombs wouldn't work. The good news is that it worked. The bad news is that changing the laws of nature also caused advanced technology to stop functioning, and caused magic to start working. As a result, civilization collapsed anyway, but it did eventually rebuild, albeit along rather different lines.
to:
* Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' and its sequel series ''Literature/TheBookOfSwords'' and ''The Books of Lost Swords'' are set on earth thousands of years after civilization was ''not'' destroyed in a nuclear war. Instead, "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the United States activated Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers" takes place in the aftermath of a device mysterious plague that actually changed has turned its victims corpses into collections of purple flowers, as the laws two protagonists attempt to fight off a pack of nature to prevent the destruction of humanity by making nuclear fission so much less likely that the nuclear bombs wouldn't work. The good news is that it worked. The bad news is that changing the laws of nature also caused advanced technology to stop functioning, unnaturally aggressive and caused magic to start working. As a result, civilization collapsed anyway, but it did eventually rebuild, albeit along rather different lines.persistent canine-like animals.
Changed line(s) 123,125 (click to see context) from:
* ''Literature/FineStructure'''s [[spoiler:{{dystopia}}n]] "[[http://qntm.org/?crushed Crushed Underground]]" chapter takes place after a nonspecific [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt apocalypse]] called the "Hot Wars". The surface is uninhabitable and humanity is reduced to a small population.
** MAJOR SPOILERS** [[spoiler:Actually, we learn in later chapters (after Earth is sealed off from the rest of the universe by a Black Hole, much like a piece of a twisted balloon animal,) that humanity suffers a Crash EVERY FEW CENTURIES. Just when humanity is on the verge of discovering subatomic theory, everyone on the face of the planet has his or her memories and technological knowledge wiped in an instant. Surrounded by working vehicles, factories, and skyscrapers, civilization recovers pretty quickly. It turns out this is the plan of two protagonists to keep humanity from rendering Earth uninhabitable via nuclear war.]]
*** [[spoiler: Again.]]
** MAJOR SPOILERS** [[spoiler:Actually, we learn in later chapters (after Earth is sealed off from the rest of the universe by a Black Hole, much like a piece of a twisted balloon animal,) that humanity suffers a Crash EVERY FEW CENTURIES. Just when humanity is on the verge of discovering subatomic theory, everyone on the face of the planet has his or her memories and technological knowledge wiped in an instant. Surrounded by working vehicles, factories, and skyscrapers, civilization recovers pretty quickly. It turns out this is the plan of two protagonists to keep humanity from rendering Earth uninhabitable via nuclear war.]]
*** [[spoiler: Again.]]
to:
* ''Literature/FineStructure'''s [[spoiler:{{dystopia}}n]] "[[http://qntm.org/?crushed Crushed Underground]]" chapter takes place after a nonspecific [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt apocalypse]] called the "Hot Wars". The surface is uninhabitable and humanity is reduced to a small population.
** MAJOR SPOILERS**population. [[spoiler:Actually, we learn in later chapters (after Earth is sealed off from the rest of the universe by a Black Hole, much like a piece of a twisted balloon animal,) that humanity suffers a Crash EVERY FEW CENTURIES. Just when humanity is on the verge of discovering subatomic theory, everyone on the face of the planet has his or her memories and technological knowledge wiped in an instant. Surrounded by working vehicles, factories, and skyscrapers, civilization recovers pretty quickly. It turns out this is the plan of two protagonists to keep humanity from rendering Earth uninhabitable via nuclear war.]]
*** [[spoiler: Again.]]
** MAJOR SPOILERS**
*** [[spoiler:
* In ''Literature/FortyEight'', 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 "The Gifts of Asti" opens just as Memphir, the protagonist's homeland, is falling to a barbarian invasion. She - the last priestess of a mostly-forsaken religion - follows a standing order about what to do AfterTheEnd (which was mentioned in prophecy), and takes a prepared escape route. She ends up on the far side of a mountain range to find a vast plain that was glassed in a now-forgotten war.
* The short story "The Gifts of Asti" opens just as Memphir, the protagonist's homeland, is falling to a barbarian invasion. She - the last priestess of a mostly-forsaken religion - follows a standing order about what to do AfterTheEnd (which was mentioned in prophecy), and takes a prepared escape route. She ends up on the far side of a mountain range to find a vast plain that was glassed in a now-forgotten war.
* Most of Creator/EndMaster's ''Literature/GroundZero'' and parts of ''Literature/SuzysStrangeSaga'' take place after nuclear war destroys much of the country. ''Ground Zero'' in particular focuses on life in the aftermath of the apocalypse, as the main character encounters raiders, mutants, and short-tempered compound leaders.
* ''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 artifacts.
* ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic country heavily implied to be the US in the near future, in which the majority of people have been rendered infertile. [[spoiler:However, because of the religious fundamentalist styled patriarchy instated by the regime, it is women who are blamed, the concept that men might be equally infertile tantamount to treason.]] The handful of remaining fertile women are rounded up and forced to act as broodmares for high-status men, and executed or exiled if they fail to conceive.
* The ''Literature/ImmemorialYear'' duology is set one hundred years after a nuclear war that wiped out most of humanity. What's left is a ScavengerWorld where a psychopath has amassed an army of cannibalistic raiders and is attempting to bring back the powerful "Before" technology.
* ''Literature/InTheLivesOfPuppets'' takes place centuries after all of humanity has been wiped out in a RobotWar except for a single young man who is raised by his robot father.
%%* Creator/TJKlune has two works that take place after the end of the world, both of which include solitary survivors with [[RobotBuddy humorous robot pals]] and the main characters falling in love with dangerous killers.
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* ''Literature/LordOfTheWorld'' by Monsignor Creator/RobertHughBenson is a dystopian novel centered on the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world.
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* In ''Literature/LordsOfTheStarship'' 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.]]
%%* ''Literature/LordOfTheWorld'' by Monsignor Creator/RobertHughBenson is a dystopian novel centered on the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world.
%%* ''Literature/LordOfTheWorld'' by Monsignor Creator/RobertHughBenson is a dystopian novel centered on the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world.
* In ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'', ''something'' happened a thousand years ago that turned the world into a barren, ash-choked wasteland ruled by an EvilOverlord. Much of the trilogy involves piecing together what exactly happened [[spoiler: and in the end, fixing it]].
''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes'':
** ''Home Delivery'' is set during a global ZombieApocalypse.
** In "The End of the Whole Mess'', 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.
** ''Home Delivery'' is set during a global ZombieApocalypse.
** In "The End of the Whole Mess'', 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.
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyThreeDoomsday'' takes place after a nuclear war caused by [[PointOfDivergence a Soviet Air Defense Forces officer being reassigned to a different bunker]] and his replacement mistaking a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#1983_incident false alarm ]] for an American nuclear attack. The timeline continues to be updated in real time via the [[KentBrockmanNews WCRB NewsHour]].
* ''No Night Without Stars'' opens several generations after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, which appears to have been due to a ColonyDrop.
* ''No Night Without Stars'' opens several generations after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, which appears to have been due to a ColonyDrop.
* ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' and its companion novels ''Literature/TheYearOfTheFlood'' and ''Literature/{{Maddaddam}}'' take place after ThePlague wipes out all but a tiny handful of humans. Via flashbacks, they also tell of the events in the years before TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt from various characters' perspectives.
* ''Literature/OutOfTheMouthOfTheDragon'' 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/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/OutOfTheMouthOfTheDragon'' 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/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/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 nicer places left in the "Fractured States" because it has electricity and running water.
* ''Sea Siege'' opens on a small Caribbean island that is having trouble with {{mutant|s}} sea creatures -- just before WorldWarIII.
* ''Literature/TheSecretRunnersOfNewYork'': The characters travel to a post-apocalyptic New York over two decades in their future.
* "The Shallows" features an old man going about his day-to-day survival after Lovecraft's Great Old Ones have arisen and turned the laws of nature upside down.
* ''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.
* ''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}}.
* ''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}}.
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* ''Literature/{{Stormlands}}'': 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'' is set after a deadly flu pandemic.
* ''Literature/TheSundered'' is set in a flooded world ''where the water wants to eat you.''
* ''Literature/SummerOfTheApocalypse'' is set after a deadly flu pandemic.
* ''Literature/TheSundered'' is set in a flooded world ''where the water wants to eat you.''
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* ''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/SummerOfTheApocalypse'' is set after a deadly flu pandemic.
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* ''Literature/SwanSong'' is a post-apocalyptic novel with fantasy/horror underpinnings.
* "Literature/TheTamariskHunter": Lolo encounters a town that has been abandoned and is being buried by sands and overrun by tumbleweeds.
* "Literature/TheTamariskHunter": Lolo encounters a town that has been abandoned and is being buried by sands and overrun by tumbleweeds.
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%%* His first full-length novel, ''This Immortal'' (which was originally serialized as ''...And Call Me Conrad'') deals with an immortal man who lives long enough to experience this.
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* ''Literature/TwitterStoryEarth5AR'' is set five years after the AlienInvasion, the nameless protagonist having grown used to their captured state by then.
* ''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/{{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.
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%%* ''Literature/TwitterStoryEarth5AR'' is set five years after the AlienInvasion, the nameless protagonist having grown used to their captured state by then.
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* ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' follows a ZombieApocalypse from its start to its eventual conclusion and the restoration of civilization.
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* ''Literature/TheZombieAutopsies'' is set after an intentionally released zombie virus.
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* Creator/JohnLangan has a couple short stories set after various apocalypses:
** "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers" takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious plague that has turned its victims corpses into collections of purple flowers, as the two protagonists attempt to fight off a pack of unnaturally aggressive and persistent canine-like animals.
** "The Shallows" features an old man going about his day-to-day survival after Lovecraft's Great Old Ones have arisen and turned the laws of nature upside down.
** "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of Purple Flowers" takes place in the aftermath of a mysterious plague that has turned its victims corpses into collections of purple flowers, as the two protagonists attempt to fight off a pack of unnaturally aggressive and persistent canine-like animals.
** "The Shallows" features an old man going about his day-to-day survival after Lovecraft's Great Old Ones have arisen and turned the laws of nature upside down.
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* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' displays the whole cycle of the fall and rebirth of the United States, from the tottering superpower's last days through the chaos and anarchy of the collapse, the wars of the successor states over the spoils, and the beginning of the new era as one of them emerges out of the wastelands as the local hegemon and commences the painful restoration of the past greatness.
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* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' ''Literature/VictoriaANovelOf4thGenerationWar'' displays the whole cycle of the fall and rebirth of the United States, from the tottering superpower's last days through the chaos and anarchy of the collapse, the wars of the successor states over the spoils, and the beginning of the new era as one of them emerges out of the wastelands as the local hegemon and commences the painful restoration of the past greatness.
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* ''Literature/TheFlowerThatBloomedNowhere'' takes place after the old Universe was destroyed by a false vacuum decay. However, the [[{{Precursors}} Ironworkers]] managed to save humanity [[spoiler:by sheltering inside a black hole]], and then building a new plane of existence anchored to the Tower of Asphodel, an iron megastructure [[spoiler:which contains the bodies and [[OurSoulsAreDifferent Pneumas]] of the humans they could save.]]
