SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

So I just finished reading The Martian and I really enjoyed it. I particularly liked the survivalist aspects of the book. In general I think that survival thrillers work really well in a science fiction setting. Whether it's time travel, post-apocalyptic or foreign world, there is something engaging about the mechanics of trying to survive when the resources you take for granted are lost. So I was wondering what are some other books of this genre that people love.

I Am Legend is an obvious choice - it is not hard SF in the way that the Martian is but it is a very well told story about one man who may be the last man on earth surviving and battling against vampires. Its a SF classic with such broad appeal that I think most people will love it.

A classic of the genre but more about the ethics and politics of post-Collapse survival than the nuts and bolts. Also very, very un-PC.

I really enjoyed The Legacy of Heorot By Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. It takes place during first colonization of a new planet, and a few of the things that can go very wrong.

There's one coming out by Ben Bova and Les Johnson that sounds like it would be a good companion piece to the Martian.

Rescue Mode

I definitely enjoyed I Am Legend and think that is a good example. I have not read The Legacy of Heorot but I did start Lucifer's Hammer which I also think fits into this genre. For some reason I did not get drawn in and never finished the book but I have been debating giving it another shot.

Some other books which I enjoyed that I also think fit are The Postman and in a very differnt way 1632.

Well if you're going in the 1632 direction I might suggest

Island in the Sea of Time

Jaime wrote: "A classic of the genre but more about the ethics and politics of post-Collapse survival than the nuts and bolts. Also very, very un-PC."

One of my favorites. I particularly liked the twists in Heinlein's plot. Only he could dream up a story like that.

The Postman was one of my fav.
Dr Bloodmoney is also well worth a read too, that and I've just started The Stand which I'm enjoy (even for a King novel).

Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo.

A classic would be A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ.

By The Last Ship by William Brinkley is about to be a summer mini-series on TNT (Turner Network Television, for those who don't know). It is a long read, at least for Mr. Slow Reader (me). It is a post-apocalyptic (nuclear war) future set initially in a tropical ocean aboard a US Navy guided missile destroyer that has survived, at least to a degree. The crew is definitely faced with survival in various ways. The topics of dystopia and post-apocolyptic scenarios are a particular area of interest to me. I am working up a list of those books I have read surrounding these themes or topics if you will. Happy to discuss at any time.

Try the "Survivalist" series by Jerry Ahern.

Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler may be the kind of novels you are thinking of...

The Romulus Buckle books -- Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders and Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War by Richard Ellis Preston Jr. -- have a lot of interesting stuff because they are post-apocalyptic steampunk. And how they make shift when aliens have jammed up the way electricity works.

If it's bootstrapping you want:
The Clan of the Cave Bear
All the Weyrs of Pern
Brightness Reef

Three very different settings and authors. Great novels.

wool

Tunnel in the Sky

Way of the Wolf which is book 1 by E.E. Knight is a good series.

Alas Babylon, by Pat Frank
Earth Abides, by George Stewart

Craig wrote: "Tunnel in the Sky"

I loved Tunnel in the Sky! Must wander past it again some day :)

Escape Orbit by James White

Leonie wrote: "Craig wrote: "Tunnel in the Sky"

I loved Tunnel in the Sky! Must wander past it again some day :)"

Perhaps a bit dated by now, but still well worth reading.

Hull Zero Three
Hull Zero Three is one of Greg Bear's recent titles. He's one of my favorite authors, and he spins a wild tale written with the emotional effect of shaky first-person-camera footage of a man waking up on a ship that seems designed to kill him and the strange survivors he meets up with. Lots of philosophical/metaphysical questions are brought up against the backdrop of Bear's typical excellent brand of hard scifi.

Couple of books I can think of off hand
The Stand
Not sure if it can be classifed as SF but its pretty good.
There is also a series by John Barnes
Directive 51
Daybreak Zero
The Last President

One relatively difficult to find book about a unique way to wind up in a survivalist world is "The Day of the Triffids," by John Wyndham. It was a monthly read of the group several months ago. The premise is the close approach to Earth by a comet. The resulting light show in the sky is almost mesmerizing to humans, but those who witness the spectacle are rendered permanently blind. The few who can't see the show are still sighted, but they must try to survive a world full of the recently blind and a growing hoard of flesh-eating murderous (and mobile) plants, which appear to become more and more "sentient." For a 1950 publication date, it has a lot of merit in the field of dystopian literature.

The Legacy of Heorot. A pretty good book about colonists from Earth on an alien planet realizing belatedly the local fauna is a lot more dangerous than they had thought. It had a sequel but I wasn't too fond of that one.

Dean Ing wrote some literal survivalist sci-fi back in the late '70 and early '80s that I recall as pulpy fun. Perhaps a bit of a Marty Stu as I look back on them now, but as Ing himself is a survivalist (how disappointed he must be that the WWIII hasn't happened yet), they are full of details about surviving the end of the world.

The Quantrill series:
Systemic Shock
Single Combat
Wild Country

Also:
Pulling Through

Tunnel in the Sky by Heinlein is a good one, as I recall.

I finally found the one I was thinking of. It's a 1958 novel by Tom Godwin called Space Prison (aka The Survivors). It's a Robinsonade on another planet. I read it decades ago, so no guarantees. Warren Ellis loves it, though, if that counts for anything.

It's free on Project Gutneberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22549

Also there is The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Ride Burroughs. The two sequels are also there: The people That Time Forgot and Out of Time's Abyss.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/551

Along the vein of that novel is the recent Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson, which is about a WWI-era destroyer caught in a weird storm during WWII and finds itself on an alternate Earth where dinosaurs never went extinct. The first one is Into the Storm, and I think he's up to novel 7 or 8 now.

According to Amazon, the entire zombie genre is post apocalyptic science fiction, so if you're willing to check that out, I've got a ton of good suggestions.