Comments on: "Last Man on Earth" Stories

Question: "Last Man on Earth" Stories

Ziggy Zaga — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:27:27 -0800

I'm looking for stories involving "last man on earth" type scenarios.

Recommendations of any media will do so long as it's not on Betamax or Laserdisc. Anything on paper is ideal.

The story doesn't have to be about one person or even a man; it can be about one person or a small band of survivors of the apocalypse or something. I'm interested in the stories of how one or more people cope with the solitude and the ramifications of repopulation (if even possible) when faced with the fact that you're the last of a decimated human population.

I know about the movie "The Last Man on Earth" and the "I am Legend" series (the latter of which has dubious relevance). If I recall correctly the end of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" focuses on the subject as well. Ellison's "I Have No Mouth..." would count too.

There were also a short series of comics called "The Survivor" in which humanity is wiped out and the world is dominated by robots, save for the female protagonist and a handful of others. Borders on smut, but it counts.

I am *NOT* looking for zombie movies. "28 Days Later" and the Will Smith "I am Legend" do not count. Aliens, maybe.

Thanks for any suggestions :)

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:30:39 -0800

Ahhh I can't remember the name. There was this book about a guy who was in the mountains and got a snake bite which made him immune to some world ravaging disease. Him and other survivors band together. He was paranoid about saving the books.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:31:54 -0800

"Post-apocalyptic" is the genre you're interested in. That might help in searching.

The Stand - Stephen King
Z for Zachariah

previous similar questions may help too.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:32:57 -0800

On the Beach

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:33:29 -0800

another

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:34:03 -0800

The name was in one of the posts LobsterMitten linked to.

Earth Abides

I remember liking it.

By: mysterpigg

mysterpigg — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:36:21 -0800

There's the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last, which was apparently adapted from a short story.

Mad Max also came to mind, though I'm not sure if that counts. LobsterMitten is right on, though - 'Post-apocalyptic' is the genre.

By: nerdcore

nerdcore — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:38:18 -0800

Books:

Nick Sagan's Idewild/Edenborn/Everfree trilogy.

Y The Last Man comic book series is about a lone guy in a world of women, not a small population, but still devastated.

Vonnegut's Galapagos

Jonathan Lethem's Amnesia Moon

See also: this wikipedia list of post-apocalyptic novels

TV Shows:

Battlestar Galactica

Jericho

By: Derive the Hamiltonian of...

Derive the Hamiltonian of... — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:38:28 -0800

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Unfortunately, Oprah picked it for her friggin book club. Don't let that deter you.

By: treesarefree

treesarefree — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:38:47 -0800

You should try The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's not necessarily a "last man on earth" scenario, but close, and very well written.

By: mumkin

mumkin — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:39:22 -0800

Y: The Last Man is a comic about, you guessed it, the last man on Earth. The ladies are still just fine, though, it's only the men who died off mysteriously one day. Except for Yorick and his monkey.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:39:49 -0800

Clifford Simak's City winds down from the end of a man to a time when all that remains are dogs. The middle section, in particular, deals with the last humans on earth.

The latter chapters of The Martian Chronicles have a number of sequences of isolated humans, left behind on Mars, and, in one instance, and automated house that simply continues its daily activities.

Wall•E, when it comes out, is about a robot left behind on earth when humanity abandoned it for the stars.

There is a Twilight Zone episode called Time Enough at Last, about a man who was in a bank vault when the bomb dropped, and realized he is the only surviving human.

By: whatzit

whatzit — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:41:20 -0800

I know this was mentioned above, but On The Beach, On The Beach, On The Beach.
Ah yes, and The Stand (Stephen King). TV mini-series is enjoyable, too, but no clue where you'd find it.

By: thebrokenmuse

thebrokenmuse — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:41:52 -0800

What about the book "I Am Legend." It is amazing, written in the 50's and nothing like the Will Smith movie. It is mostly about a man learning to be alone, accepting his fate and surviving.

By: treesarefree

treesarefree — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:48:02 -0800

I just thought of one other you may be interested in: After London by Richard Jefferies.

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:55:01 -0800

Seriously, check out this little New Zealand movie: The Quiet Earth. It's absolutely wonderful... kind of petters out toward the end, but still very cool.

By: ouke

ouke — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:06:26 -0800

Last man alive, by A.S. Neill. I read this story as a teen, back in the seventies. The story always stayed with me. About a class that survives "the green cloud".

By: Ziggy Zaga

Ziggy Zaga — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:07:03 -0800

"Post-apocalyptic" is the genre you're interested in. That might help in searching.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:31 PM on January 25 [mark as best answer] [1 favorite +] [!]

Thanks for the responses, and so quickly!

While I'm already a fan of the genre, "post-apocalyptic" is not exactly what I had in mind when I posed the question. I feared requesting "post-apocalyptic" stuff would get me suggestions such as "The Postman" or the "Fallout" games when they don't *quite* fit the bill. A sense of civilization still exists in both; there are plenty of people, just not as many as there were before the bombs. I'm looking for stories that really bring out the sense of isolation you get when there are less than a handful of people on the planet.

By all means, please keep up the deluge of suggestions though.

I am planning to nag my roommate to let me borrow his "Y: The Last Man" run. I've heard a lot of good things about it elsewhere.

Thanks!

By: O9scar

O9scar — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:08:13 -0800

A boy and his dog.

By: neuron

neuron — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:16:27 -0800

Seconding The Quiet Earth.

By: krautland

krautland — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:17:40 -0800

two movies: the war of the roses and solaris. the latter is based on a novel by stanislav lem with the same title.

By: Paragon

Paragon — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:21:16 -0800

The Quiet Earth is also a book; the author is a former lecturer of mine.

By: witchstone

witchstone — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:23:42 -0800

There's a really intense book called Wittgenstein's Mistress about a woman who thinks she's the last person on earth. It's in the first person and it kind of made me a little crazy to read it, but I think it would make anyone a little crazy to be the last person on earth. Also, I know next to nothing about Wittgenstein. But it's definitely one of my more memorable reading experiences.

By: travis08

travis08 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:26:47 -0800

How about The Girl Who Owned a City. I have not read it since grade school, but I remember really enjoying it then. All the worlds adults die off, and only kids under 12 are left alive.

By: travis08

travis08 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:29:43 -0800

How is The war of the roses relevant. I have not seen it in ages, but it can't remember anything about it that would pertain to this question.

By: valleys

valleys — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:35:45 -0800

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

By: changeling

changeling — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:36:16 -0800

I love this stuff. Try Children of the Dust, a story or two in Octavia Butler's Bloodchild (I think), Wolf of Shadows (I used to check this out over & over from the YA section as a kid). I also was traumatized by a book called The Last Bomb, but I can't find it. I remember waves of rats in an abandoned fairground.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:36:51 -0800

"The Last Ship" is a book about a nuclear powered battleship that was far out at sea during a doomsday nuclear scenario. It's over 1000 pages, but lots of interesting themes explored (as I remember from 20 years on anyways).

By: Mblue

Mblue — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:41:21 -0800

On the Beach isn't a "last man" but a "last stand" of humanity tale. In this vein, I recommend Steel Beach.

By: Tuwa

Tuwa — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:46:51 -0800

nthing The Quiet Earth and fond of the ending.

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:47:25 -0800

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard. I think there are still human societies elsewhere in the world, but the story is about a very small expedition exploring London after everyone else is gone. I remember that I was very moved by it and that the writing was envy-inducingly good.

I agree very much with AZ that the Martian Chronicles often has that spooky "last one to leave please turn out the lights" feeling, whether it's about the humans or what remains of the martians, and with thebrokenmuse that Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (made into lesser movies three times ffs!) is a somewhat-overlooked great, and not just by genre standards IMO.

Someone on the blue recently linked to Charles Stross' novelette A Colder War and it wasn't bad.

If you are up for post-apocalyptic stories containing more than just a very few people, and might enjoy/would be able to stand a very odd sort of picaresque with an invented dialect, Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is set among the remnants of civilization who have made it just about back to the Iron Age or so.

/Goes back to reading The Road

By: white light

white light — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:49:00 -0800

noahs ark?

By: ten pounds of inedita

ten pounds of inedita — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:49:04 -0800

There was a short-short in Omni some years back, and I can't remember the title. The last man on earth is a German boy whos aging has retarded. The last woman on earth is a Japanese girl with the same problem. They talk by radio, and the rest would be spoilers. Beautiful story. I think it was "Forever" by Damon Knight, but don't quote me.

By: dilettante

dilettante — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:04:14 -0800

Kalki, by Gore Vidal.

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:08:02 -0800

Oh, coming from a totally different angle, Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth sort of fits the bill without having any of the conventional Mad Maxiness of the genre. There is no apocalypse per se, but the sun is going to go out in not too long, the population is depleted, civilization's risen and fallen so many times that people are kind of over it and dissolute and weird, and, well, then there are the sorcerors and rogues and what-have-you. But, to his credit, the D&D stuff was based on Vance's writing, not the other way around.

But skip the two incredibly long stories about Cugel the Total Asshat (he might have been called something else in the books) because, no. Not good. The rest of it has its impressive and strange moments, though.

By: zanni

zanni — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:18:55 -0800

Marooned in Real Time by Vernor Vinge has a last woman on Earth scenario. It's post-singularity rather than post-apocalypse.

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:21:12 -0800

Oh, sorry, didn't see the OP's clarification that isolation is most important. Never mind!

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:25:25 -0800

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

The anthology The Last Man on Earth has numerous stories in this vein.

Emergence by David R. Palmer is an excellent novelette about a teenage girl who survives the apocalypse.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:28:21 -0800

Stephen King's The End of the Whole Mess is at least somewhat in this vein. The protagonist isn't the last person on Earth per se, but....

By: ninazer0

ninazer0 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:47:05 -0800

It might be hard to find but the movie The World, The Flesh and the Devil fits the bill. Harry Bellafonte is a miner who is trapped in a cave-in. When he digs himself out, everyone has vanished. He finds a woman, and then eventually another man. There's a whole race/sex undercurrent to the movie too.

In a less serious vein, Night of the Comet has a vaguely similar story but with, like, valley girls.

By: thomas j wise

thomas j wise — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:14:14 -0800

Much, much older novel in this vein: Mary Shelley's The Last Man.

By: Rumple

Rumple — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:46:54 -0800

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.

The Children of Men - P.D. James (also a recent movie)

Devastating Novels about the End of the World

Washington State University has a huge database of post-apocalyptic titles (which I realize is not your primary interest).

I'm trying to think of two specific titles -- one was a zeppelin or airship that happens to be over the south pole when something bad happens to earth, and another being a family in a cabin in the remote Quebec wilderness when a plague hits earth. I'll try to google those up.

By: runningdogofcapitalism

runningdogofcapitalism — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:12:19 -0800

Add me to the list of fans for The Quiet Earth.

By: dreaming in stereo

dreaming in stereo — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:43:36 -0800

Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma culminates with the protagonists being the last people on earth.

By: lorimer

lorimer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:58:53 -0800

This is a running theme in all the incarnations of the Twilight Zone. Here are the best example episodes from each series, IMO. In the first (1960s) series, the famous "Time Enough at Last" and "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air." In the second (1980s) series, the shattering "A Little Peace and Quiet." In the third (2000s) series, one of the few really good episodes, "Sunrise" (technically, Sunrise is a sort of "last few kids on Earth" story -- still unique and memorable).

By: joshrholloway

joshrholloway — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:34:46 -0800

The Taking by Dean Koontz, though it's less about the whole survival portion as it is the events leading up to it.

By: jockc

jockc — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:40:01 -0800

Summer of the Apocalypse
Eternity Road

both have some small civilization but still quite good reads

By: ElDiabloConQueso

ElDiabloConQueso — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:42:21 -0800

In a very similar vein as The Stand, Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon. I tremendously enjoyed reading it years ago, but I can't vouch for the quality of the writing. I seem to recall some of his other stuff being rather... hokey.

By: misozaki

misozaki — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:46:02 -0800

Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka, especially the Future episode. Review here.

By: salvia

salvia — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:56:24 -0800

Thirding Earth Abides
Adding Into The Forest -- not exactly "last man on earth," but two sisters stranded in a forest cabin due to the general collapse of civilization

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:11:07 -0800

Did anyone mention Red Dwarf?

By: web-goddess

web-goddess — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:15:11 -0800

Someone already mentioned "Oryx and Crake," but I'll second the suggestion. I really enjoyed it. Snowman's definitely isolated and the whole book is about learning how he came to be that way.

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:05:21 -0800

"The Silent Towns" is a story from Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles about the last man on Mars.

By: Shebear

Shebear — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:31:40 -0800

Just wondering: is it always "last man on earth?" Do any of these books have a female protagonist?

By: CautionToTheWind

CautionToTheWind — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:42:07 -0800

Lucifer's Hammer

By: donnagirl

donnagirl — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:19:03 -0800

The Apocalypse Reader is cool - it's a collection of short stories, some by the very famous (Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson) and some complete unknowns. I heard about it on this episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge, which has some other suggestions you may find interesting.

By: melodykramer

melodykramer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:28:20 -0800

Z for Zachariah.

By: amphioxus

amphioxus — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:09:56 -0800

The 1948 short story "Knock" by Frederick Brown opens with the lines: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." It was adapted for broadcast on the radio program "X minus one".

By: Clyde Mnestra

Clyde Mnestra — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:23:12 -0800

Sorry if I have overlooked this, but . . . there was a much-anthologized short story that featured a terribly lonely guy, last on earth so far as he could tell, who eventually finds and meets someone who might be the last woman -- and can't stand her. The ending has him ignoring the telephone when it occasionally rings. More comic than thoughtful, to my recollection.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:28:54 -0800

By all means, please keep up the deluge of suggestions though.

Deluge

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:15:10 -0800

Clyde, that's Ray Bradbury's "The Silent Towns". He's the last man on Mars.

By: minervous

minervous — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:38:56 -0800

I can't believe no one has mentioned A Scientific Romance. It's wonderful, and very much a last-man-on-earth narrative.

By: archae

archae — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:01:31 -0800

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
While it's not strictly a last-man-on-earth story, it is a man-alone-on-earth story.
And considering how much of a classic it is, one might even argue that it's the prototype for all similar last-man-whatever stories which have been written since.

By: grumpy

grumpy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:54:37 -0800

Seconding "Lucifer's Hammer". Brilliant book.

By: omegar

omegar — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:27:16 -0800

I would certainly recommend Camille Flammarion's novel Omega: The Last Days of the World (amazon link). In it, the protagonist, Omegar, finds himself the last man on earth (and about to die) after a comet hits the earth. It is quite engaging after the first half, in which Flammarion insists in first making a portrait of the "future" (our present) before getting to the interesting bits.

Flammarion (wikipedia), a very famous astronomer, was also a well regarded and popular SciFi author at the end of the XIX century in France, and elswhere, and was translated into many languages. I've done my research about him as I am named after his character in this novel, Omegar.

Also, Miche Houellebecq's (wiki) The Possibility of an Island (amazon) is quite a good novel in the same French SciFi style, but far more contemporary, about the last men on earth and life in a desserted planet (or almost) as an immortal. Nearly everything by Houellebecq is quite good, if you like "end of the world" scenarios, I specially recommend The elementary Particles

By: jaimystery

jaimystery — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:59:31 -0800

Shebear asked:
"Just wondering: is it always "last man on earth?" Do any of these books have a female protagonist?"

Into The Forest by Jean Hegland has two sisters.

note: just finished a week ago and I'm still not sure if I liked it but it was interesting

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:49:49 -0800

A genuine classic and one of my faves: Fritz Leiber's A Pail of Air. Don't read the intro -- it has spoilers. Originally published in the December 1951 issue of Galaxy magazine.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:51:13 -0800

Ooh! Ooh! The Time Machine.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:49:52 -0800

List of some relevant films here.

By: papafrita

papafrita — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:10:08 -0800

When I was but a wee lad, I remember being so mesmerized by this short story in my Lit book, about a group of people who, for all purposes, thought of themselves as the last people on the planet. Even though it could be considered "post-apocalyptic", my dim memory tells me it does a good job of conveying the sense of isolation you're looking for.

It's called By the Waters of Babylon, by Stephen Vincent Benét. A Caltech machine has the full text.