Survivalism in Fiction - Novels

Novels

Edward Abbey's 1980 novel Good News is about small bands of people in the Phoenix, Arizona area trying to fend off the rise of a military dictatorship after the collapse of the economy and government.

The Survivalist is the title of a series of 29 paperback novels by Jerry Ahern first published between 1981 and 1993.

Steve Boyett's 1983 novel Ariel is notable for having all advanced technology ceasing to function, while magic becomes real. The protagonist struggles to travel across a world where no technology functions, filled with cannibals and other dangers.

The Postman by David Brin (1985) is set in a time after a massive plague and political fracture result in a complete collapse of society. It gives a very unflattering portrayal of survivalists as one of the causes behind the collapse. The quasi-survivalist "Holnist" characters are despised by the remaining population. The Holnists follow a totalitarian social theory idolizing the powerful who enforce their perceived right to oppress the weak. However, later Brin stated that when he was writing the book survivalist was the best term to describe the militia movement.

Ernest Callenbach's 1975 novel Ecotopia, about the secession of the Pacific Northwest from the United States to form a new country based on environmentalism, named the political party governing the new country the Survivalist Party. However, in his 1981 sequel to the book, Ecotopia Emerging, he qualified that choice of name by having the party leader state that the name Survivalist referred to the survival of the planet's ecosystems, rather than to people who prepare for an economic or political collapse.

Wolf and Iron by Gordon R. Dickson (1993) details the journey of a single man attempting to cross 2000 miles of hostile territory. He faces roving gangs and fortified towns after a worldwide financial collapse. This book is extremely detailed in its discussion of certain techniques and preparations needed in a post-apocalyptic world.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959) is a story dealing with life in Florida after a nuclear war with the USSR. Pat Frank also authored the non-fiction book How To Survive the H Bomb And Why. (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1962.)

Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel Metro 2033, about survivors in Moscow, Russia, living in the city's subway tunnels after a nuclear attack, has spawned many stories, books, and video games that take place in the same setting and fictional universe.

Robert A. Heinlein uses survivalism as a theme in much of his science fiction. Tunnel in the Sky (1955) explores issues of survivalism and social interactions in an unfamiliar environment. Farnham's Freehold (1964) begins as a story of survivalism in a nuclear war. Heinlein also wrote essays such as How to be a Survivor which provide advice on preparing for and surviving a nuclear war.

Stephen King's 1978 post-apocalyptic novel The Stand is set after a biological weapon pandemic. The surviving few slowly gather together only to realise that they are not alone.

World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler (2008) is a "cozy catastrophe" set in upstate New York. The time is the near future, and the novel depicts an America that has economically collapsed as a result of the combined impact of peak oil, global warming, influenza pandemic, and nuclear terrorism. The characters struggle to reclaim lost skills, maintain order, and redevelop a pre-industrial revolution lifestyle in an agrarian village. In part, the novel explores the question of what happens when modern technology, based on electricity, is no longer available.

Malevil by French writer Robert Merle (1972) describes refurbishing a medieval castle, and its use as a survivalist stronghold in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war. The novel was adapted into a 1981 film directed by Christian de Chalonge and starring Michel Serrault, Jacques Dutronc, Jacques Villeret and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Malevil at the Internet Movie Database.

Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (1977) is about a cataclysmic comet hitting the Earth, and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California. Their similarly themed "Footfall" (1985) is about aliens bombarding Earth using controlled meteorite strikes to exterminate life. Lucifer’s Hammer has contributed significantly to the survivalist movement, as we understand it today. One reviewer noted: "A comet’s impact with the Earth creates an extremely bad, worst-case “fast crash” scenario. ...In this novel, people begin feeding on one another, literally, within a month of the event."

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957) describes a group of highly creative people who withdraw from society into a hidden mountain valley while civilization totally collapses - whereupon they emerge to rebuild it. This book differs from others in the genre in that the protagonists' withdrawal directly causes the collapse, since it was they who sustained civilization.

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles (2009) is a novel about a full-scale socio-economic collapse and subsequent invasion of the US. The novel describes in detail how the survivalist main characters establish a self-sufficient survival retreat in north-central Idaho. The novel has had two sequels, both of which were New York Times bestsellers.

Olaf Stapledon's monumental cosmic history Last and First Men includes an episode when the whole world is devastated by a nuclear chain reaction and the whole of humanity is killed except for a few hundreds who happened to be near the North Pole. Their descendants eventually re-populate the world and create a new civilization, but this takes hundreds of thousands of years.

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart (1949), deals with one man who finds most of civilization has been destroyed by a plague. Slowly a small community forms around him as he struggles to start a new civilization and preserve knowledge and learning.

Dies the Fire, (2004) the first book in The Emberverse series of post-apocalyptic fiction by alternate history author S.M. Stirling. The story takes shape in a universe where electricity, guns, explosives, internal combustion engines, and steam power no longer work. More books follow in the series and flesh out the story-line in a survivalist post-Change world of agriculture, clan-based life and conflict.

H.G. Wells, who pioneered many sub-genres of modern Science Fiction, contributed to this one as well. The later parts of his 1908 novel The War in the Air depicts the collapse of modern civilization due to the massive use of weapons of mass destruction and the systematic destruction of cities, the grim struggle of the isolated few survivors, and the reversion of the world to semi-Medieval conditions - in all this anticipating recurring themes of later works.

Philip Wylie's novel Tomorrow (1954) is the story of two American cities weathering a nuclear attack. One was prepared with an extensive civil defense plan while the other was not.

John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids is the story of the survival of a small group of people in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by carnivorous plants.

The Tomorrow series is a series of seven novels (published 1993–99) by John Marsden, that tell of a high-intensity invasion and occupation of Australia by a foreign power where a small band of teenagers are waging a guerilla war on the enemy soldiers in the region around their fictional home town of Wirrawee. The name of the series is derived from the title of the first book, Tomorrow, When the War Began. In 2010 the first book was adapted into a movie.