earth abides by george r. stewart was written in 1949, but only really has a few anachronisms that show its age. it’s a really strong post-apocalyptic story, with the human population pared down even further than any other similar book i’ve read. i think the biggest liberty that the author takes is to have the primary character live so long considering the complete lack of medical knowledge, but it is an easily forgiven stretch because it allows for the story to reach much further into the real establishment of an actual community and culture after the plague that wipes out most of the human race.
(i picked up the book based on the mention on boing boing, in reference to the straight dope question and answer about how long power would stay on in the event of a mass zombification.)
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I really enjoyed 'The Wild Shore' by Kim Stanley Robinson, part of his Three Californias trilogy.
It's dated a little, however, in that the cataclysmic event is a massive dirty-bomb attack throughout the US by Russian infiltrators -- but then, it was written in the 80's, and some things just couldn't have been foreseen.
One very interesting aspect of this book is that, unlike most modern post-apocalyptic sci-fi, it has a fundamentally pacifist outlook. Very refreshing!
Jack London's The Scarlet Plague (1912) sounds like an interesting precedent for Earth Abides, btw!