[RJR_fan]

Hope this is not off-topic but what are people’s favorite post-apocalypse novels?

The genre was invented, some would assert, by the guy who wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller?) as an act of penance for his role in destroying Monte Cassino, the oldest functioning monastery in Europe. He was a navigator.

Lucifer's Hammer is worth reading, and re-reading. Weird things happen in stressful times, such as the proliferation of cults. (paranthetically, in Kiev in 1992, there were many hand-made posters plastered up around town recruiting for the White Brotherhood, a movement headed up by a man and wife who claimed to be the reincarnations of Peter and Paul.)

This is a topic dear to my heart. In fact, I'm working on a dissertation that compares several real-world post-apocalyptic documents, that actually looked beyond the end of the writer's world to envision, and define, the replacement world.

[Radagast the Fool]

And, I agree about “Lucifer’s Hammer”, too.

[Oztrich Boy]

Hope this is not off-topic but what are people’s favorite post-apocalypse novels? The genre was invented, some would assert, by the guy who wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller?)

I think Mary Shelly's The Last Man (1826) has precedence.

[squarebarb]

Good for you, sounds deeply interesting.

What is a real-world post-apocalyptic document?

Post-apoc novels are becoming almost literary, with The Road (which I loved) winning the Pulitzer.

However many of them that I read, like Snow Crash, are badly done. They are either clunky or pretentiously hip. I truly enjoyed A Canticle For Liebowitz.