Do you ever wake up wishing the world would just stop turning? No more bills? No more taxes? No more political nightmare news? Blissful oblivion and post-apocalyptic peace? While I can’t end the world for you (without access to certain nuclear codes, at least) I can recommend a series of post apocalyptic fantasy books that will allow you to immanentize the eschaton within your own imagination. This way, you can enjoy all the comforts of armageddon without any of the logistical, emotional, theological, or existential headaches!
The Fifth Season
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin imagines a world ended by a real life threat: climate change. Set on a massive supercontinent known as The Stillness, the natural world has recently been rocked by a man-made climate disaster called the Fifth Season. And when I say man-made, I mean that literally – one single person brought about the end. This person was a particularly powerful orogene, someone who is able to manipulate the energies of the natural world at will. In the strict caste society of The Stillness, orogenes sit at the bottom rung, as they are hated and feared for their preternatural abilities. The novel follows three orogene women in the wake of the climate catastrophe, each of whom is attempting to survive her own battle against the twin harshnesses of the natural and the man-made world.
Hell Followed With Us
While most cults get the numbers wrong when predicting the end of the world, Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us is centered around a runaway from of a religious group that actually got it right. Benji is a teenage trans boy who was injected with a cult-made bioweapon in order to transform him into a monster that will bring about the end of the world, all according to their fanatical plan. After escaping from the group’s fundamentalist clutches, Benji finds family within the ranks of a group of queer freedom fighters, led by a charismatic young warrior who dreams of saving the world. Now that they’ve gained a member who is currently mutating into an angelic warrior of unimaginable power, victory for the rebels seems preordained.
Between Two Fires
As if the unfortunate souls who lived in Dark Ages didn’t have it bad enough, Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires forces Medieval Europe’s residents to suffer through Armageddon as well. War is a-brewin’ between the forces of Heaven and Hell, and God isn’t around to referee. Demons now run amok across plague-ridden France, making life as a highwayman that much harder for the disgraced former knight Thomas. Luckily, Thomas has just discovered a young girl who may have been chosen by God to end Hell’s reign, so long as he can keep the holy child alive long enough to deliver her to church authorities, that is. And so begins a post-apocalyptic trek across wastelands of Western Europe, told with all the grit and grandeur of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
The Library at Mount Char
While orphans fantasy stories generally have it hard, Scott Hawkins’ The Library At Mount Char ups the suffering to biblically epic levels. Carolyn is one of twelve orphans who grew up under the protection of a man they called Father, a mysterious sort capable of supernatural feats like raising the dead. After reading the enigmatic tomes in Father’s titular library, Carolyn and her adoptive siblings have slowly learned how to summon magic of their own. Now their Father is dead, and each of his surrogate children is eager to inherit his incredible library – even if it means removing their competitors from consideration permanently. When your adoptive dad may or may not be God himself, you do what you gotta do to claim his power – even if you bring about the end of reality as a result.
The Book of the New Sun
Like a Scooby Doo villain, Gene Wolf’s The Shadow of The Torturer appears like a monstrous dark fantasy, but rip off the mask and you’ll find sci-fi in disguise! The first of The Book of The New Sun series introduces the reader to Severian, a young man you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark dungeon. Severian is a torturer, recently fired from an inquisitorial guild for showing mercy to a captive. Unfriended and unemployed, Severian must now trek across feudal world built upon the ruins of a once great civilization in order find safety. Instead, he meets mutant creatures, ancient machines, and political rebels come into possession of advanced weapons of mass destruction – Wolf’s novel really pulls out all the post-apocalyptic stops.
The Dark Tower
While Stephen King’s The Stand may seem like the apocalyptically obvious choice out of the author’s oeuvre, the monumental Dark Tower series is truly the pinnacle of King’s end-of the-world fantasy fiction endeavors. Set in a vast wasteland that was once a thriving empire, The Gunslinger is the story of sharp shooting knight errant Roland Deschain and his mythic quest for some obscure architecture. The Dark Tower is the central hub around which Stephen King’s multiverse revolves, and Roland seeks its fabled power to undo the destruction that caused his family’s dynasty to fall to ruin. Characters and locations from multiple Stephen King novels appear in Roland’s multiverse hopping quest, and avid readers of King’s work will find their literary dedication rewarded by cameo appearances from familiar faces from The Stand, Salem’s Lot, and more.
Who Fears Death
Set in the nuclear ruins of a far-future Africa, Nnedi Okrafor’s Who Fears Death is the story of Onyesonwu, a young woman whose name translates to the question posed by the book’s title in an ancient language. Onyesonwu is the daughter of one the few surviving Okeke, a people who were purged in a genocide conducted by the Nuru people in order to fulfill the demands of a religious text. While Onyesonwu appears to be doomed to suffer the lonely life of one displaced by war, she begins to display an aptitude for an ancient magic that may allow her to defy fate. Under the instruction of a powerful shaman, Onyesonwu creates a new destiny for herself, one where she will use her powers to end the genocide and free her people once and for all.
Riddley Walker
Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker is easily one of the most challenging reads on this list, but given time, it quickly becomes one of the most rewarding. The story is set in a far future world broken by nuclear holocaust, where adolescent Riddley Walker narrates his quest in equally broken English. Featuring some of the most phenomenal world-building in fiction, Hoban crafts his post-apocalyptic society through the ruined language they speak. Riddley’s story to rebuild an ancient weapon is told through fractured prose, totally immersing the reader in the bizarre future that Hoban has imagined. While the novel is often regarded as science fiction, the after-armageddon kingdom in which Riddley lives feels as mythic as full fledged fantasy.
Prince of Thorns
If you thought you had it hard as a middle schooler, Mark Lawrence’s The Prince of Thorns will make you reconsider your 6th grade experience. Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath was forced to witness the execution of his mother and brothers at the tender age of nine, and the disgraced young royal was leading a violent gang of highwaymen by the time he was thirteen. Now the high school sophomore-aged protagonist is plotting full blown political rebellion – he’ll murder his treacherous father and retake the throne for himself. While the novel appears to be textbook dark fantasy at first glance, its post-apocalyptic sci-fi skeleton begins to show upon further examination. Jorg’s world is built upon the ruins of a technologically advanced empire, and the would-be king intends to harness the destructive power of that ancient tech to establish an empire of his own.
The Dying Earth
In the post apocalyptic world of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth , T.S. Eliot got it right – the planet is expiring with a long, slow whimper. As the soon-to-be-exhausted sun flickers on and off in the sky, the darkening world becomes host to all manner of unpleasant monsters adapted to the cold desolation. Civilization survives in pockets, and humanity is adapting to the end times with a heady mix of religious fanaticism and existential ennui. Told over a series of short stories, Vance’s elegy for a dying world is sung with a tone of poetic absurdity. The world is ending, might as well become a wizard and play God by creating artificial life. Or maybe become a “bandit-troubadour” – singing songs and stealing sacred artifacts from churches. Or perhaps go on a quest to find God yourself, who in this world takes the form of an enigmatic curator of a magic museum dedicated to humanity’s decline – close enough.
(Featured Image: Marvel)
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