It’s the end of the world, I tell ya! Did you all enjoy that snowpocalypse we had last winter? It reminded me of that old movie Day After Tomorrow where the world freezes over. Have you seen it? I absolutely love apocalyptic stories; they always create such a perfect backdrop for lots of human drama and action so I’d like to share with you my list of apocalypse-themed materials that the Salina Public Library has in our catalog. 

Ok! I’ve organized some of these by category, so first up, here are a few books kids and young adults (and anyone else who wants to take a peek) can enjoy. 

Picture Books

What’s the first thing you think about when you think of the apocalypse? Zombies! Sorry. Was that right? I love zombies. They give me the scariest nightmares. It’s great! Here’s a super-cute not-scary book to dip your toes into a zombie retelling of a classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Moldilocks and the Three Scares Clever title right? I thought so too. 

If you know me you know I love wordplay. Check this book out: Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse. The ALPACAlypse. Too funny! Did you ever think that the end of the world could be due to alpacas? Me neither. And it all starts when Lama is trying to skip out on their chores. Check it out for your kids (or yourself. We won’t tell).

For Young Adults

What’s cooler than fighting zombies? Fighting monsters! And especially so if you get to do it with your best friends. The Last Kids on Earth: In this popular graphic series, thirteen-year-old Jack Sullivan and his buddies team up to fight an intelligent monster named Blarg after a monster apocalypse takes over Earth. What would you do with all that free time? Not having to go to school sounds pretty great. Hanging out with friends. Playing games. The monsters are merely an inconvenience. The series is 9 books long, so there’s lots of fun and action to be had. 

The next one I consider to be a bit of a staple for young adult literature. Throughout the years, many children and adults alike have read C.S. Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. It had to be on my list due to its deep world-building and epic climax. The Last Battle is the final book in this popular series The Chronicles of Narnia in which the final battle of good versus evil leads our heroes into life after death and the end of the world as they knew it. It’s a beautifully emotional end to a series and quite a stark difference from your usual depiction of end-of-the-world events. 

Next up we have After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia.  After is such a cool concept. In this anthology, popular young adult writers have compiled 19 short stories of teens’ lives after disaster. What was it like just moments after disaster strikes? Weeks after? What does society look like now? There’s guaranteed to be something for everyone as every author has a different vision about what “After” means to them. 

Did you ever play the popular mobile game Plants Vs. Zombies? Did you know there’s a graphic series about it? Plants vs. Zombies  While loosely connected to the game, the comics are full of crazy shenanigans and funky characters as Patrice and Nate defend their house against an army of quirky zombies led by the evil Dr. Zomboss. What kind of weapons do you think they use? Did the title give it away? Haha. That’s right: Plants! I love plants. These comics are fun and hilarious and certainly don’t take themselves seriously. I can only hope my gardening skills would be as useful in a zombie apocalypse.  

VIdeo Games

Speaking of games,  the Salina Public Library also has quite the selection of apocalypse-based video games. Here are two of my top favorites.

I love almost anything this game company puts out and they really nailed it with this Fallout game. To understand Fallout New Vegas let me give you a brief idea of what the Fallout universe is like. The term frequently used to describe this apocalyptic setting is “retro futuristic.” Think 1950’s but with higher levels of technology like robots and subterranean self-sufficient vaults that house survivors from nuclear war.  Actually the entire franchise of Fallout games are pretty in depth with their post-apocalyptic world building, but I’ve chosen New Vegas because it’s often seen as the best of the series in respect to gameplay and replayability. Available for the PS3 which IS an older console, you can still easily pour hours into the game and not do everything there is to do. It’s a great option if someone wants to fully immerse themselves in a post-apocalyptic world. If older console games aren’t your thing, check out the other newer games in the Fallout series. 

This next game is so good that they made it thrice. The Last of Us Part I and The Last of Us Part II  are remasters of the original The Last of Us game from 2013. The original game was hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling and I have personally never heard anything negative said about this game. The remastering of its graphics has only allowed a new generation of players to enjoy it. Available on PS5, the story is simple; the player is tasked with escorting the young girl Ellie through a post-apocalyptic United States where aggressive infected attack on sight. On the surface it doesn’t sound like a very engaging storyline, but following themes of grief, loss and doing whatever it takes to protect the ones you love, this game is sure to pull at your emotions and deeply submerge the player into a world that feels both familiar and terrifyingly different. 

Adults

 I Am Legend: now, I’m not talking about the movie starring Will Smith that came out in 2007. The movie and the book, in this particular case, are very different creatures. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson came out in 1954 as a simple horror genre, but in my opinion, might be one of the best and first post-apocalyptic books out there. The setting is a post pandemic world in which the survivors of infection have been changed into actual vampires unlike the movie’s vampire-like creatures. While that sounds like it would be a very exciting action-packed book, it’s a lot more focused on the main character being the last survivor and the excruciating loneliness and depression that he has to live with in the aftermath of a crumbling world. It really paints a picture of what it might be like to be the last man on earth.   

Have you ever heard the phrase “Big Brother is watching?” 1984 is an iconic dystopian novel published in 1949 by Geoge Orwell. Orwell wrote this novel in response to the atrocities that occurred during Nazi Germany and serves as a warning against governments who enact too much power over their people. The phrase “Big Brother is watching” is a constant reminder to citizens in the novel that they are under constant surveillance by a government that controls every aspect of their lives down to what they eat and how they think. Truly a dangerous apocalyptic world. It’s a poignant novel that encourages individuality and free thought under the oppressive blanket of a totalitarian government. 

World War Z And we’re back to the zombies! This one might actually be a twofer for apocalyptic zombie content as the author Max Brooks has another book in his repertoire about post-apocalyptic zombie survival. World War Z is written in the style of an oral history of the zombie pandemic that ravaged the whole world. Chapters are presented almost like an epistolary novel containing documents in the form of journals, new articles and interviews. It absolutely paints a picture of what it was like for these varied and lucky survivors.  If you find yourself wondering how anyone could survive something like this, Max Brooks has your back again. His other book, The Zombie Survival Guide, is a fictional survival manual on how to prepare for and survive a zombie apocalypse including advice for armor, transportation and what to look out for with possible zombie infection. I think these two books go hand in hand for any apocalyptic reader. 

For my last fiction recommendation, I’m bringing you a graphic novel: The Man From Maybe.  It’s set in an irradiated wasteland ruled by a corporation called Smile Inc. The hero of the story is a mysterious person who has pulled himself out of a crashed (possibly extraterrestrial) ship. This masked hero has highly advanced technology and becomes a symbol of resistance against Smile Inc helping those who have been oppressed by the all-ruling corporation. The Man From Maybe gives off real western vibes with gunslingers and bandits all while being set in a sci-fi post apocalyptic world: a real action-packed smashing up of the genres. The novel is written by Jordan Thomas and illustrated by Shakey Kayn. For those of you familiar with the graphic artist Shakey Kayn, you’ll recognize his iconic psychedelic style that really adds to the strangeness and otherworldly feeling of this novel. 

Non-Fiction

I’ve talked a lot about fiction from picture books to games to comic books and more.   The concept of apocalypse is often something lighthearted or playful, action-packed, and fun. I’m afraid real-life situations are simply not as glamorous. For my final selections, I’ve chosen some pieces of non-fiction:  two from the past and one for the future. 

Hiroshima

On August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. the first atomic bomb, named Little Boy, was dropped on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The initial death toll is unknown to this day, but it is estimated at 60,000 to 80,000 who died in the initial blast. As time went on following the bombing’s aftermath, the estimated total loss of life was 140,000 to 200,000 of the 255,00 people who were unable to evacuate the city in time. John Hersey’s book (published just one year later) follows six survivors who recount the moments and days that follow after the bombing. Originally, the novel ends after these recounts, but later another chapter is added that details their lives 40 years later. This book is regarded as probably the first example of New Journalism which combines storytelling techniques of fiction, but adapted to fit nonfiction journalistic reporting bringing light to the catastrophe that was the atomic bomb.   

The Ends of the World 

A lot of people know about the end of the dinosaurs, but did you know that earth has experienced not one, not two, but five separate mass extinction events? In this book Peter Brannen takes a look at those five mass extinctions in depth as if it were a crime scene by studying fossil records. He explores what might have led up to these world-ending events and the impact they had on the next world that was born from the ashes. He calls in scientists and paleontologists to walk the reader through earth’s history and how life brings itself back from the brink and what we might be able to do to avoid a sixth mass extinction event.

The Uninhabitable Earth 

David Wallace-Wells first published Uninhabitable Earth in 2017 as an essay for a bi-weekly magazine called New York. It was the most read article in that magazine’s history and later he published the article in book form in 2019. While the book was met with scientific criticism (claiming it to be overly pessimistic and offering no solutions to the problems portrayed), others argued that the starkness of the work was necessary to inspire action against what is perceived as a global threat to humanity. I would encourage any readers who pick this up to read it with a scrutinizing eye. No doubt there are plenty of signs that we as caretakers of the earth could do more or be better, but is this seemingly eventual future too far-fetched? Or does it sound just about right?

I hope you enjoyed my end-of-the-world reading/playing list. Now you’ll know exactly what to do in every type of apocalyptic situation, am I right? Well, it never hurts to be prepared. We look forward to seeing you come in to check these books out. Until next time!