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In honor of Furiosa and Mad Max I’m looking for something post apocalyptic that is NOT depressingly realistic, survivalist porn, dystopic or YA. I’m looking for escapist sci-fi or fantasy preferably with reasonable to over-the-top action, maybe something from the 1980’s or 90’s (so save your recommendations for The Road by Cormac McCarthy). Books I’ve already read but am looking for something similar to: The Stand, Swan Song, World War Z, The Postman, Vampire Winter, Sea of Rust, The Last Policeman, and The Dark Tower series. Give me your wandering heroes, or mutants or ruined cities or radiation storms or fragments of civilization trying to survive, or motorcycle barbarians, something to make me cry out “Witness me!”
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Brute Force, by Scott Meyer, 2023, Post-Apocalyptic Comedy... Cross is a professional cobra milker who is forced to fight in a post-apocalyptic military
The Company of Death, Elisa Hansen, 2019... Surprise, the Undead are real and civilization couldn't handle it
The Girl With All The Gifts, M. R. Carey, 2013... A student and her favorite teacher try to survive in a post-zombie-apocalypse world, despite the over-whelming cravings
Brute Force sounds right up my alley and The Company of Death sounds intriguing. I forgot to add The Girl With All the Gifts to my already read list above. Thanks for the rec’s!
I found The Company Of Death because the author is an entertaining book reviewer herself
Sorry to get your hopes up by commenting, I just found this post and love the kinda genre you described, and I just want to parasite the notifications :D
Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny, Mad Max before Mad Max
I totally forgot about this book and movie. I’ll have to look for a copy.
You may have trouble finding these, but the Deathlands series by James Axler. They pretty much check every box.
There are 126 books in the series and new audiobooks still being produced.
Looks like a total guilty pleasure, I’ll check it out!
Though I normally only stick to books about a Second American Civil War (2ACW), a lot of these might actually be right up your alley! Plus I added a few more that might be more for your tastes outside a 2ACW. I made sure to avoid the ultra-realistic, depression-fuel, survivalist-crazy, and YA-based ones.
Into the Guns, Seek and Destroy, Battle Hymn (William C. Dietz) - Book trilogy. Told from two perspectives, a woman leading a Stryker armored vehicle unit and a man who (via so many deaths in the line of succession) becomes the President of the United States. At first it's about trying to recover from asteroids that destroyed major US cities and the original US federal government, but they're threatened by a corporate state which incites a 2ACW.
Doomsday Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalypse Survival Thriller (Bobby Akart) - Books series (5 total). Told from multiple perspectives, what starts off as a dystopian book telling America's collapse directly builds up to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th books in the series telling the story of how this culminates in the 2ACW.
Standing The Final Watch [The Last Brigade Book Series] (William Alan Webb) - Books series (8 total). Told from the perspective of the commander of the Last Brigade, who leads the last remaining unit of the US Army after they all wake up from cryo storage (don't question it) 50 years after an EMP destroyed the United States as they knew it.
Hell's Hip Pocket, A Reservation In Hell (John Babb & William Alan Webb) - Two books. Told from the perspective of the US Army 7th Cavalry Division, who 50 years after "The Collapse" of the US are fighting in urban and rural warfare against a series of post-Collapse groups.
Survive and Escape, Resist and Evade, Protect and Serve [The Blue Lives Apocalypse Series] (Lee West) - Book trilogy. Told from the perspective of a husband and wife returning to their car after spending weeks on a backtrail hiking trip, only to find out that an EMP attack has sent the former United States into spiraling chaos.
This isn't normally an area of mine, but given the Last Policeman, WWZ, and the Stand were on your list, I think you might enjoy some of these.
Thanks!