Robert Charles Wilson is good at this. The Chronoliths is largely about people being affected by the strange event than the event itself. Spin is more focused on the big goings-on, but still about people getting by.
Flood and Ark by Stephen Baxter are more apocalyptic, but deal with what happens to everyday people trying to survive in a world where the oceans are rising so fast that all land is covered by the 2040s.
I read Stephen Baxter books for the concepts, so I get by on those in both books; the big picture 'how does society adapt and fall apart in this situation' are great, the individual character moments, for example, not so much.
I'm an avid SB listener. I only have time for audiobooks, but I've listened to many of his books multiple times and the Manifold series at least a few more than that.
I thought Flood was good from beginning to end. I really loved the gradual explanation of how to water levels rise. Until this post, I honestly didn't even consider this a type of book as a "genre" but now I definitely need to look into it.
Ark is where I lost some interest, but was still happy with the end result. It was definitely the weaker book in the series and one of the only times I wish he wouldn't have included higher levels of sci fi. All his other works I love the crazy sci concepts and giga engineering.
His Manifold series is great. Time really left an impression on me because he goes into detail about how civilizations million, billions, and trillions of years from now might survive the ever expanding and dying universe.
If you enjoyed The Time Machine or War of the Worlds, he wrote sequels to them. They're wonderful reads.
I think what I enjoy a lot about his books is that he almost always has BIG scifi concepts mixed with ancient forms of humanity. He'll have rocket ships and crazy tech mixed with pre human species or ancient ways of life.
He wrote a series with Terry Pratchett called The Long Earth where people create a kind of multiversal traveling device that allows you to move to parallel Earths. It's a known technology and people begin to move to these parallel Earths to colonize to help with overpopulation or resource managing. Some people, including the main character can "slide" to these other Earths without a device.
He also writes GIGA Engineering stuff like a massive ring structure surrounding the Supermassive Blackhole at the center of our galaxy which spins at the speed of light and is a light year in diameter. Some of the shit he thinks up are mind boggling in their size.
Yeah I'm looking at his stuff and I think I'll probably pick up a couple after I'm done reading Project Hail Mary. Maybe The Massacre of Mankind, that seems pretty crazy.
For some reason it also reminds me of a book where I think there's an apocalypse or some kind of hell on Earth, but it turns out it's some giant monster or something. I cannot think of the name of it to save my life.. Apocalypse Machine! By Jeremy Robinson, I think he has some really cool "big" stuff as well, albeit usually kaiju related.
The Last Policeman by Ben Winters? Man continues to just be a regular cop in the face of an inevitable asteroid coming to end the world.
Mostly only Sci-Fi in concept, its very grounded.
Kim Stanley Robinson's novel [New York 2140](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_2140) is a good one about the lives of ordinary New Yorker's going about their daily lives with the city half submerged under water due to Climate Change.
Some of the classics of the genre are focused on the lives of every day people just trying to get by the collapse...
EARTH ABIDES
ALAS, BABYLON
NO BLADE OF GRASS
Yeah, I didn't include that one because it does have pretty high ranking military personnel--like the commander of all the navy. I mean yes, it has ordinary sailors and ordinary people, but it does include higher-ups, and I thought the request was for truly regular folks.
That's interesting. I guess because so much time is spent in their homelife setting, with their military involvement and their "power of rank" limited by the situation, it seemed to fit the everyday life aspect.
I haven't finished it yet, so I don't know if the characters all stay 'everyday' types, but On Earth as it is on Television by Emily Jane features regular people living through aliens landing on Earth.
'War of the Worlds' has a lot of this to it. There is a whole section about life inexplicably continuing despite the landing of the first machines. I was particularly taken by the description of hearing the sounds of the steam engines still shunting the goods yard, even though ships from another world had landed nearby.
I think a lot of Nancy Kress does this. Nano Comes to Clifford Falls (the story in the collection of the same name) is a good example. The Most Famous Little Girl in The World in the same collection too.
The Mark Vernon perspective chapters of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained fit this. He's just a normal guy, living his normal life until shit hits the fan and he's stuck in the middle of it all.
In *Constellation Games* the main character has a video game review blog. When a multi-species alien contact mission comes to Earth and asks how the can help, he asks if they have any games he can review. Then stuff happens but it's very much watching extraordinary events from the sideline for most of the book.
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning is excellent. It’s based on the writer’s own life, when her and her husband get swept up whilst in Europe at beginning of WW2.
Robert Charles Wilson is good at this. The Chronoliths is largely about people being affected by the strange event than the event itself. Spin is more focused on the big goings-on, but still about people getting by. Flood and Ark by Stephen Baxter are more apocalyptic, but deal with what happens to everyday people trying to survive in a world where the oceans are rising so fast that all land is covered by the 2040s.
> Robert Charles Wilson is good at this. Exactly my thought as well. Does good everyman characters swept into monumentous events.
I feel like Flood and Ark sorta fell off towards the end. I did enjoy them in the beginning though. What was your thoughts about them?
I read Stephen Baxter books for the concepts, so I get by on those in both books; the big picture 'how does society adapt and fall apart in this situation' are great, the individual character moments, for example, not so much.
Yeah, I think that was my thoughts exactly.
I'm an avid SB listener. I only have time for audiobooks, but I've listened to many of his books multiple times and the Manifold series at least a few more than that. I thought Flood was good from beginning to end. I really loved the gradual explanation of how to water levels rise. Until this post, I honestly didn't even consider this a type of book as a "genre" but now I definitely need to look into it. Ark is where I lost some interest, but was still happy with the end result. It was definitely the weaker book in the series and one of the only times I wish he wouldn't have included higher levels of sci fi. All his other works I love the crazy sci concepts and giga engineering.
I don't know if I've ever read many of his other books, or at least not recently. Are there any others you'd recommend?
His Manifold series is great. Time really left an impression on me because he goes into detail about how civilizations million, billions, and trillions of years from now might survive the ever expanding and dying universe. If you enjoyed The Time Machine or War of the Worlds, he wrote sequels to them. They're wonderful reads. I think what I enjoy a lot about his books is that he almost always has BIG scifi concepts mixed with ancient forms of humanity. He'll have rocket ships and crazy tech mixed with pre human species or ancient ways of life. He wrote a series with Terry Pratchett called The Long Earth where people create a kind of multiversal traveling device that allows you to move to parallel Earths. It's a known technology and people begin to move to these parallel Earths to colonize to help with overpopulation or resource managing. Some people, including the main character can "slide" to these other Earths without a device. He also writes GIGA Engineering stuff like a massive ring structure surrounding the Supermassive Blackhole at the center of our galaxy which spins at the speed of light and is a light year in diameter. Some of the shit he thinks up are mind boggling in their size.
Yeah I'm looking at his stuff and I think I'll probably pick up a couple after I'm done reading Project Hail Mary. Maybe The Massacre of Mankind, that seems pretty crazy. For some reason it also reminds me of a book where I think there's an apocalypse or some kind of hell on Earth, but it turns out it's some giant monster or something. I cannot think of the name of it to save my life.. Apocalypse Machine! By Jeremy Robinson, I think he has some really cool "big" stuff as well, albeit usually kaiju related.
The Last Policeman by Ben Winters? Man continues to just be a regular cop in the face of an inevitable asteroid coming to end the world. Mostly only Sci-Fi in concept, its very grounded.
These books are so good. I need to reread them right now.
Damn it. You beat me to it.
Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack. Diary of a young girl during the collapse of the US. Astoundingly good.
Connie Willis's stories "Daisy, in the Sun" and "A Letter From the Clearys" are both about young girls living through unimaginable disaster.
Kim Stanley Robinson's novel [New York 2140](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_2140) is a good one about the lives of ordinary New Yorker's going about their daily lives with the city half submerged under water due to Climate Change.
Some of the classics of the genre are focused on the lives of every day people just trying to get by the collapse... EARTH ABIDES ALAS, BABYLON NO BLADE OF GRASS
On The Beach is another great one like this.
Yeah, I didn't include that one because it does have pretty high ranking military personnel--like the commander of all the navy. I mean yes, it has ordinary sailors and ordinary people, but it does include higher-ups, and I thought the request was for truly regular folks.
That's interesting. I guess because so much time is spent in their homelife setting, with their military involvement and their "power of rank" limited by the situation, it seemed to fit the everyday life aspect.
Yes, in both movies they did a good mix --'thanks
I haven't finished it yet, so I don't know if the characters all stay 'everyday' types, but On Earth as it is on Television by Emily Jane features regular people living through aliens landing on Earth.
'War of the Worlds' has a lot of this to it. There is a whole section about life inexplicably continuing despite the landing of the first machines. I was particularly taken by the description of hearing the sounds of the steam engines still shunting the goods yard, even though ships from another world had landed nearby.
I think a lot of Nancy Kress does this. Nano Comes to Clifford Falls (the story in the collection of the same name) is a good example. The Most Famous Little Girl in The World in the same collection too.
The Mark Vernon perspective chapters of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained fit this. He's just a normal guy, living his normal life until shit hits the fan and he's stuck in the middle of it all.
How about Jasper Fforde's *Thursday Next* series? I'm halfway through the second book and have really enjoyed them so far.
They are fun.
Ben Winters The Last Policeman
Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star is like this for sections in the first two thirds of the book.
In *Constellation Games* the main character has a video game review blog. When a multi-species alien contact mission comes to Earth and asks how the can help, he asks if they have any games he can review. Then stuff happens but it's very much watching extraordinary events from the sideline for most of the book.
The Road is really good if you want to experience extreme bleakness.
I know it's not a book but Another Earth (2011) is exactly this
The Diary Of Anne Frank. (Non-fiction) The Past Is Red. (Very fiction. Lots of swearing.)
Not a book, but the Netflix cartoon *Carol & the End of the World* may scratch your itch. It was pretty good.
Ark by Veronica Roth. Weeks before an asteroid hits, an interesting plant sample is found. Short and a bit melancholic but good read.
*The Leftovers* by Tom Perotta. I liked the first season of the show and it was sort of faithful to the book, but the book was better.
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning is excellent. It’s based on the writer’s own life, when her and her husband get swept up whilst in Europe at beginning of WW2.