Hello my smelly little vamps. I have a question that requires an answer.

So...I'm in the mood for a good post-apocalyptia novel. I've read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and loved it. I'm not necessarily looking for an in depth study of the human condition, more just a wicked ass cool story about the world after the end of human civilization.

I've narrowed my choices down to two books.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Liebowitz]A Canticle for Liebowitz[/url]

or

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand]The Stand[/url]

Have any of you read either? The Stand's always been on my list of wanna reads. Started it a few times, never got far.

I've not read The Stand, only seen the TV miniseries.

The story was really quite good, but with a terribly weak ending, which I am told is a general feature of Stephen King's work.

I'd probably advise the other. I've read other Stephen King stuff and I can't say I'm much impressed. He's way too far up his own arse.

I've read lots of Stephen King books and in general, yes, he generally concludes weakly. However his prose and writing style is enjoyable, casual, and immersive.

Never read the other guy, but the book is supposed to be great.

One problem with reading stories about the future or the apocolypse in general is that if the book is an older one, it can be very dated in feel. I recently read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick and it was horribly dated. It's not really the author's fault...after all, he couldn't have known we'd be able to replicate organisms and tissue. He thought were the world to end, people would simply build mechanical robot animals.

That's why the Road was good. There weren't future technologies, etc etc. It was just a dude. A dude and his kid. Pulling a shopping cart. A broken one.

Man that was a good book...

Counter to that, I've read some great stories about Gil Hamilton (and indeed in Larry Niven's "Known Space" books in general).

Now Gil 'The Arm' Hamilton is a late 21st century police officer whose primary responsibility is dealing with illegal traffic in human organs (organlegging) in a future where transplant technology is far in advance of the (already amazing) procedures we can already do.

And I find this remarkably pertinent. When he wrote this (first Gil Hamilton short story in 1968) people did not wake up in ice baths with kidneys missing such as sadly happens in this day and age.

Really, how science fiction stands up to the test of time varies very much based on the author. Some is visionary and has seen how things will progress even without the modern science to base it on.

Then again, some falls flat under the scrutiny of modern knowledge and loses its charm entirely.

Of course the best of all is that sci-fi which holds its own as a great story, even when modern science disproves the fictional premises upon which it is based.

Actually Frank'n'beans suggested a book that had kind of a cool concept. People essentially creating images of themselves. Personality, thoughts, memories, etc etc. Everything. So they were in effect eternal. Just uploaded themselves into new bodies.

Umm... though I haven't read it, what about "I am Legend"? I didn't like the movie at all but the book is bound to be better anyway. I can't really offer any other suggestions because it's not a genre that grabs me.

Just out of curiosity, what were the last three books you read?

Mine: Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth", Matthew Reilly's "The Ice Station" and Tom Robbin's "Jitterbug Perfume".

Phillip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms

I am Legend is a fantastically bleak, post apocalyptic book. Short though.

I loved The Stand right up to the end. Very bleak, but oddly uplifting.

Hmmmm The Road sounds good.....isn't there a movie adap coming out?

There is indeed! With Viggo Mortensenn or whatever his name is. Looks good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY

Here's a question that needs answering, just thought I'd hijack the thread: why is it that inner city ebonites don't really LIVE anywhere, they just STAY certain places? e.g. "Lokeesha, where you stay at?"

I asked a client that and he could not quite answer me. When i asked him where he lived he said, "With my ma, but I stay at....."

This guild is perhaps the greatest collection of minds known to man, somebody please address this for me.

Perhaps they are like businesses. It's quite common in business to have a formal registered address in one place, but the actual place of business to be in another place entirely.

I would wager that most of them are businessmen of sorts. Entreprenuers in the pharmaceutical line... in the loosest sense.

Well, the thing is, when the policeman turns up at mother's address, the subject of the policeman's interest is clearly, "not in". It works out better that way.

UPDATE!

300+ pages into The Stand and really enjoying it. It was a bit slow to start, but with a book that's 1000+ pages and intertwines the stories of 20 or so characters, I could see where it would take some time to get off the ground.

Each chapter basically followed one person's story, so the story sort of "started over" 20 or so times as you followed each person. But ultimately I found them all engrossing and enjoyable and am finally at the part of the story where post-apocolyptia is in clear view.

King also did a WONDERFUL job detailing the breakdown of society. As an (extremely) amateur writer I've struggled with that task in the past. "I want to write a story about society shifting, changing, falling, what have you...but how do you do that without writing a horrifically long summary of the crash OR without appearing to simply 'gloss over' the subject?" King dedicates really just one chapter to the entirity of the US dealing with the virus and the revolts that emerge, the military crackdown, and the eventual failure of that crackdown. He did so in a series of radio 'transcripts' from police radio bands, military correspondance, news anchors, newspapers, etc etc. It was really an impressive bit of writing to be honest.

Anyway, thus far I would highly recommend the book to anyone remotely interested in reading it. It's kept my interest.

Thanks for the recommendation. It's not normally the type of book I'd read but I'm all about reading outside of my normal sphere right now. I'll look for a copy at the book exchange. I love those second hand book stores - I can spend hours in there and come out with a bag of books for about $15

I've just finished reading Michael Crichton's Next. It was thought-provoking and fast-paced, and given it was just a book I picked up without reading the back cover, it meshed well with my current state of mind (ie: distrust of medical professionals re cost vs benefit, all life being precious vs profit, etc). It also made me aware of something very important - the need to stop patenting genes.

I'm now reading Matthew Reilly's Area 7. Again, I just picked it up without reading the back cover so I don't know what to expect but it's starting to get interesting.