Collapse fiction

November 17, 2006 10:27 AM

What are some good fiction or SF books that plunge the reader within a severe economic collapse or Malthusian catastrophe in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world?

I'm finding this to be an interesting genre, but the problems I've found are:

Problem #1: It's too centered on narrative with little background about the collapse; lots of stereotyped gangs and hordes. Example: Mad Max

Problem #2: It exists largely outside the collapse amongst the fortunate, elite, or influential. Example: Soylent Green... the cop is so much better off than the citizens.

Problem #3: It's set in what's essentially a fantasy world or universe. Example: Asimov's Nightfall -- it's another planet.

It seems there's a lot of fertile ground here... the struggle for survival, the adaptation of the criminal element, unforeseen actions by what little government is left, average Joes trying to pull things together, the new Dark Age or new Renaissance, etc. Surely someone must have written these stories.

Good examples:

- Perhaps the best sample I've read is shelved not in SF but in fiction: Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Poor economic policies cause the country to descend into anarchy, and the life of a girl in Manhattan gets progressively more difficult.

- Wolf and Iron. This overlaps survivalist fiction a bit, but the background fabric is economic collapse and it follows one man around in his escape from the Rust Belt.

- Lucifer's Hammer - This is a meteor story that is essentially pure disaster, with no real story of how people adapted or how society changed. But after the dust has settled it's actually passable for my criteria.

Bad examples:

- Earth Abides -- damn good book, but this deals with a huge absence of population. The struggle is of a far different kind. King's The Stand has a similar theme.

Anyhow I hope you can see where I'm coming from. The past several years I've been reading mostly historical nonfiction, so maybe I'm missing out on something in this genre.

posted by rolypolyman to media & arts (27 comments total)

Harry Harrison - Make Room, Make Room even though you don't like the movie.

John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:02 AM on November 17, 2006

I'd love to find the same thing, but will note that nonfiction about the current Third world (from Haiti to Darfur to former Soviet Republics) may give you what you want.
posted by orthogonality at 11:03 AM on November 17, 2006

More ideas here.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2006

I'm not sure if this is quite what you are looking for:

Alas, Babylon

It is about a small community surviving after the U.S. is bombed by Russia. I enjoyed it when I was younger.
posted by meta87 at 11:12 AM on November 17, 2006

I'm not sure, but I believe Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore may interest you. In this story, the rest of the world has decided the U.S. has become too big for its britches, and basically nukes all the major cities. U.S.ians are forced to live in small towns. They're not allowed to develop or use advanced technology, or to band together in large groups. It's all rather fascinating. Again, it may not be exactly what you're after (and my memory of the details may be off), but it sounds close.
posted by jdroth at 11:13 AM on November 17, 2006

After Lucifer's Hammer (noted above), I'd have to go with Deus Irae. And of course just looking that up reminded me of A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Of course, if you don't mind manga and anime, there's always Big O, where in addition to haves and have nots, you have giant robots and the entire "how the heck did we get here" problem.
posted by ilsa at 11:17 AM on November 17, 2006

I am currently fully immersed in S. M. Stirling's trilogy that begins with Dies The Fire.

An unexplained sudden event causes explosives to stop exploding. Gunpowder just burns, internal combustion engines don't work, and even steam engines don't behave well. People have to cope with The Change.

The first book was set in central and estern Oregon. The second book opened in England, but loks like it will also mostly take place in Oregon.

What has impressed me the most (beyond the stroyline) is how well Striling has avoided all three of your stated problems the genre usually has.
posted by ewagoner at 11:29 AM on November 17, 2006

Seconding The Sheep Look Up.

The Gold Coast would be better than The Wild Shore. There's not a collapse, but it's a crowded dystopia built off of Reaganism. Either way, then read Pacific Edge to feel better.

Brin's Earth fits, but it's not a fabulous book.

Brin's The Postman sort of fits. There are flashbacks to the collapse.

You could read Banks' Against A Dark Background as a tale of what happens to a society after 10,000 years of repeated buildups and crashes. But there's no crash in the book.

Greg Bear's Eternity? But you have to read Eon first.

Much of Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution books (The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, The Sky Road) take place during a long-term mix of collapse and singularity.

Baxter's Transcendent?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:30 AM on November 17, 2006

Perhaps a step back in time a bit, The Black Obelisk. It's a remarkable novel, set in the hyper-inflationary environment of Germany between the two world wars.
posted by cptnrandy at 11:33 AM on November 17, 2006

T. C. Boyle's Friend of the Earth is perhaps more about ecological collapse than economic, but the two go hand in hand.
posted by scratch at 11:40 AM on November 17, 2006

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. And another tick in the Brunner column from me.
posted by jessenoonan at 11:50 AM on November 17, 2006

Seconding A Canticle for Leibowitz.

And for an interesting post apocalyptic take, This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow. It comes across as something of a satire these days.

Morrow's stuff is always interesting...his Towing Jehovah (one of my favorites) was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
posted by JaredSeth at 12:13 PM on November 17, 2006

I'm surprised nobody has suggested John Updike's excellent and underrated Toward the End of Time, about a fellow growing older in the suburbs of Boston after a limited nuclear war with the Chinese - population in his area is still high, even in the city, and businesses are still operational, but infrastructure has partially collapsed and local law-enforcement ignores most crime as petty criminals (some of them children) fill the void with protection rackets.

The book also explores multiple-universe theories and the decay of our aging minds as corollaries to the collapse of civil society. An excellent read with all sorts of interesting little tangents.
posted by luriete at 12:22 PM on November 17, 2006

(note - a great detail of the Updike book is that after federal law enforcement collapses, FedEx, which has the infrastructure and reputation for swift speedy delivery, steps in as the drivers start packing heat.)
posted by luriete at 12:25 PM on November 17, 2006

Well I came in to to tell you about "A Canticle for Leibowitz" but see that I'm third at bat. I think it really captures exactly the sort of thing you're looking for... and is an excellent read to boot. And if you like it there's a sequel which the author wrote about 40 years later.
posted by RoseovSharon at 12:39 PM on November 17, 2006

If you don't mind excessive amounts of Mormonism, Orson Scott Card's The Folk of the Fringe (which is really a set of short stories with the same setting) has some interesting stuff about both the pretty recent aftermath of an exchange of nuclear and biological weapons resulting in pretty much a breakdown of law and order... and about folks living a while after that trying to scavenge and rebuild and make sense of things.

It's probably not the BEST example of the post-apocalypic genre, but it DEFINITELY deals with real, ordinary people.
posted by dagnyscott at 12:59 PM on November 17, 2006

It may be too light on the background scenario for you, but I liked In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster.
Seconding Parable of the Sower by the late, great Octavia Butler too.
posted by pullayup at 3:01 PM on November 17, 2006

John Wyndham's The Day Of The Triffids or The Kraken Wakes? Maybe even The Chrysalids or Trouble With Lichen?

(Yes, I'm on a bit of a Wyndham kick at the moment.)

They don't quite fit your criteria - but seeing as Lucifer's Hammer somehow fits I thought them worth throwing in, since they do deal with your 'fertile ground' ideas.
posted by Pinback at 4:12 PM on November 17, 2006

you'd probably like the rest of womack's work also, as well as some of richard morgan's work (the takeshi kovacs stuff). and seconding octavia butler...
posted by judith at 4:59 PM on November 17, 2006

William Gibson's Virtual Light might suit you, although the collapse suffered in this dystopian future isn't completely overwhelming - things still sorta function, mostly, if you're in the right neighborhood and have enough money.
posted by Quietgal at 7:42 PM on November 17, 2006

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
posted by jason's_planet at 9:24 PM on November 17, 2006

Seconding The Day of the Triffids. I think it fits your requirements. Lots of narrative, but since it's first person, there's lots of exposition of the causes of the collapse. No real hordes. And it's set in a "present day" England (well, present day for the author at the time).
posted by R343L at 10:20 PM on November 17, 2006

Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil fits some of the qualifications. The hero fits your problem #2, but some of the other main characters are part of the underclasses. IIRC, after the setup, a good part of the book is set in their world -- the hero visits their apartments and nightclubs, for example. The focus of the book is definitely not on the collapse. Still, whenever I reread it, I'm surprised how much background Heinlein manages to include (and it does deal a good bit with updated crimes, which is what finally made me decide to add this comment).

I Will Fear No Evil isn't exactly what you want, and it shouldn't be on your short list. But if you think the book's main topic is interesting, then it's an sf novel you'll probably enjoy if you see it around and wind up picking it up in your spare time.
posted by booksandlibretti at 6:57 PM on November 18, 2006

Note sure about your first, but here's two which meet your second and third criteria. Both involve collapsed worlds gone more pastoral because certain technologies were eliminated. The first is a short story, available online: The Waveries, by Fredric Brown. Second, out of print (so good luck finding it), The Year When Stardust Fell by Raymond F. Jones.
posted by Rash at 2:37 PM on November 19, 2006

A great novella by Rick Moody called "The Albertine Notes" might be exactly what you're looking for-- It revolves around a post dirty-bomb Manhattan, a drug that makes people remember, rather than forget, lots of speculation on the why and the how, etc... definitely a cool story. It's in one of the McSweeney's collections.
posted by mdbell79 at 5:46 PM on November 19, 2006

Oh, and The Road was great too-- Probably not what you're looking for, but one of my favorite novels this year.
posted by mdbell79 at 5:48 PM on November 19, 2006

This isn't sci-fi per se, but check out World War Z by Max Brooks.
posted by feloniousmonk at 11:15 AM on November 20, 2006