5 Best TEOTWAWKI Novels for Preppers

 I am a bibliophile.  I often share the quote attributed to Erasmus, "When I get money, I buy books.  If any is left over, I buy food and clothes."  It's not entirely true.  As my shelves have filled and overflowed, I've curbed my book buying - a little - but I still love a good book, and my favorite genre is post-apocalyptic and/or dystopian fiction.

As you can imagine, since it's my favorite genre, I have read quite a few books on the subject, and so I have a pretty good pool from which to choose the best - or at least the best of the ones that I have read.

I don't really like the ones that are pure "prepper" fiction - you know, where there's some guy who always knew something was going to happen, and had a bunker - or whatever - and fights off the hordes of ne'er-do-wells ... with aplomb!  We LOVE that guy, right?  In fact, we preppers are all imagining that we ARE that guy.

I actually don't love that guy, because that guy is the one who shoots first and asks questions later.  I'm not a shoot first kind of gal.  I really need a reason to break out the firearms.  Probably, one doesn't want to give me a reason.  Just sayin'.

Too often those pure prepper novels follow a predictable course.  There's an "event."  The protagonist survives the event.  The protagonist goes on to become the "leader" of the other survivors, because he/she has some previous survival experience (usually from the military), and he/she will pick and choose who is worthy of his/her band of the survivors.  There's an antagonist who attacks the group, but he/she is thwarted, and the "good guys" prevail.

I guess I bristle at the good guys vs. bad guys, because too often we are all a bit of both, and what's good or moral, especially in a survival scenario, can be incredibly subjective.  Defend your family?  Yes!  Of course!  Kill someone else to do it?  Is that good or moral when everyone is just trying to survive?  

Anyway, the following list is my favorites for post-apocalyptic fiction, because these books gave some really good advice on specific things we could do to ensure our survival in a TEOTWAWKI scenario.

1.  Oyrx & Crake, by Margaret Atwood

This book is probably the most disturbing of the the ones in the list.  There are a few scenes in the book that are definitely NOT recommended for young readers.  

This book also isn't one of those that starts in our "normal" world - or at least in the actual, current, reality in which we find ourselves.  

We meet Jimmy, the Snowman.  He is a human, who lives among a group of genetically enhanced humanoids that were created in a laboratory.  Their creator - Crake - is a mad scientist who was attempting to create the perfect human and combined genetic features from various other living organisms (like the ability to heal using a cat purr and the ability to digest rough fibers by ... well, in a rabbit-like way).  

We quickly discover that the world has ended, and the only "people" left are Jimmy, and this tribe of genetic anomalies.  The human race has been destroyed, and all that's left of human-kind are Crake's people.  

Without giving it away, the story is a cautionary tale about believing too much in "science."  It is a caution about trusting big corporations, especially when money is involved.  

As prepper fiction, it warns us to be wary about "drinking the proverbial Koolaid."  

While I'm pretty certain that I was standing on the cliff already, this was probably the novel that pushed me over the conspiracy-theory edge and into those dark waters of distrust and extreme caution.  I don't eat genetically modified food, if I can avoid it; I don't take OTC medication; and I don't trust our corporate-owned government.  

2.  Lucifer's Hammer, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Lucifer's Hammer is an asteroid that is hurtling toward Earth.  Some in the scientific community believe that it will miss us.  Others warn that it's the end.  Since there is not a general consensus in the scientific community, when the asteroid actually DOES hit, too many folks are unprepared.

What I loved about the novel was some of the very creative last minute preps that the authors described.  For example, one of the protagonists, finally deciding, hours before impact, that he believed his astronomer friend, went shopping at the last minute, and like the johnny-come-lately shoppers in March 2020, he found a lot of bare space on the shelves where all of those non-perishables had been.  

Unlike those folks, who left empty handed and angry, he shifted gears and thought, "What CAN I get?"

He bought a couple of huge beef roasts, a lot of pepper and salt, and a butt-load of alcohol.  No, not the kind to make hand-sanitizer.  The kind to drink - rum, vodka, whiskey ....  

Then, he took it all home, sliced the meat thin, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and dehydrated it all.  Beef jerky, man!  

It was genius!  

As prepper fiction, it encourages us to be more creative when it comes to our preps, and to remind us that there's still time to do SOMETHING.  Just start.

3.  One Second After, William Forschen

This is probably my least favorite of the books* on this list, because it's a little too much the formula prepper novel, but since I included, you can be sure that there was something I found intriguing and useful in the story.  

The story is set in the US southeast.  A retired military officer lives in a semi-rural Appalachian community with his children.  At the beginning of the story, the US is attacked by an EMP.  

This story is very similar to Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon.   Frank's story is much better written, and Frank's characters deal with some issues that many preppers may not think about - like the lack of salt and the importance of the mineral for food preservation - but I included the Forschen novel instead, because in the latter novel, the protagonist's daughter is a diabetic.  I don't think that Forschen handles that medical issue very well, but because he does make it a story-line, it prompted ME to look for solutions for insulin-dependent diabetics so that at the end of the world as we know, they wouldn't be facing an automatic death sentence.

Thankfully (even though it really is all theory, and he admits it), Dr. Bones from the website, Doom and Bloom: Survival Medicine, did an entire series on how to deal with and treat diabetes in a powered down world.  We hope we never have to test his theories, but if the SHTF, at least here's something to try.

From a survival standpoint, this book made me look a bit more into survival medicine, and treatments for ailments, I might not have looked into.

*I was really annoyed in the beginning of the book when the grocer started barbequing all of the meat in his cooler after they lost electricity, and it has always bothered me that they didn't try to preserve the meat for the future use rather than having a big gorge-fest at the beginning of the emergency. 

  

4. Eternity Road, Jack McDevitt

I'm not sure that most preppers would even consider this prepper fiction.  It is post-apocalypse, though, and it is actually really well written.  McDevitt spins a fascinating tale.

The story takes place a few centuries AFTER the human race has been destroyed by plague.   Nature has all-but wiped out most traces of human existence, and those few survivors live in small colonies.  They are illiterate - that is, very few, written documents survived, and then ones that did are incredibly precious.  Like the Monks of the Dark Ages, scribes have been employed to recreate those stories of old.

There's a rumor that a whole library of books was stashed in some bunker on what used to be the East Coast, near the ocean, and this story is the trek back to the Atlantic in search of these old books.

McDevitt's tale is fascinating and beautifully written.  It's a shame this his book isn't more popular, just for the fact of how beautifully woven the story is.  

As a prepper novel, it made me take a really hard look at books, and how important they are, and more importantly, how important they will be for helping to preserve our history, but also, the knowledge we have.  We have forgotten how lovely sitting down with a good book is, because sitting and watching television or playing on our phones is just so much easier.  Eternity Road is a good reminder that if the SHTF, we won't be able to depend on our electronics.  Those old books will be all we have.  

5.  World Made By Hand, James Howard Kunstler

The first book I ever read by JHK wasn't fiction.  It was The Long Emergency - the book he wrote that predicted - or rather WARNED - about just the kinds of things we are currently experiencing.  

In the Prepper world, we like to think that the "end" will come in a big bang, and then, those of us who are smart and prepared will survive to create a new world.  Kunstler does not ascribe to that notion, and in fact, The Long Emergency cautions us to not become frogs in boiling water - complacent to our inevitable demise because we ignore the rising temperature.

While JHK's non-fiction talks about the long-con, his fictional TEOTWAWKI is a little faster.  The story opens 10 years after an "event."  Well, not just one event, but a series of unfortunate events (with a nod to Lemony Snicket for the wording), that include the bombing of DC and a flu pandemic.  Can I say that word?  

It takes place in a small town in upper New York State.  

There are a lot of things to really like about the series.  At a minimum, JHK is a good story-teller, but what I really liked about the story was the community aspect.  Too much of prepper fiction focuses on keeping out the bad guys.  In this story, while there are some pretty bad guys, the reality is ... well, reality.  People are people, and there often isn't a truly clear distinction between really "good" and really "bad."  There is room for a lot of gray in the world.

What makes the big difference in TEOTWAWKI will be our ability to come together as a community and work to support and protect each other - not just those we deem worthy.  I loved that not everyone was perfect.  

Obviously, there are a lot of other really amazing post-apocalyptic stories out there.  What's your favorite?