The Postman
This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin's The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction.He was a survivor--a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter's day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.From the Paperback edition.
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What Hacker News says
- One may jest but the subtext of The Postman (particularly the David Brin novel, which I can recommend) is analysing which pre-apocalyptic institutional operating models are predisposed (or otherwise) to being rebooted/reconstituted even after the loss of all staff and centralised records, which is a definition of business continuity and process resilience I certainly intended to be in scope of the remark above.
Which is to say, Kevin Costner did make a movie about it. Just not a good one.
In practice though you can simulate/stimulate most of the failure mode conditions of central control dependencies by parking a delivery truck underground, or addressing something to a farm.
- The Postman by David Brin
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Anything by Dalton Fury (RIP)
One Second After by William Forstchen
Black Autumn by Jeff Kirkham
- Usually special operations/espionage/post-apocalypse type fiction. Some recent examples:
- The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (I've re-read this a number of times)
- The Postman by David Brin (Again, re-read this many times). Nothing like the movie.
- Sapiens
- The book series by Dalton Fury (RIP). His fiction is great, and if you do a little OSINT on the places in the book, you can see that he's describing these places from first-hand experience. Extremely realistic and you get the sense that many of these events really happened and are fictionalized to bypass censorship. I've re-read his book series at least 7 times. Easy reads.
- One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Although I have some minor issues with things in it, it's a fun post-apoc book.
- Anything by Derek Sivers. His writing is concise.
- The Terminal List by Jack Carr. Pretty good, not quite as good as Dalton Fury, but will read the next in the series.
- Bunches of tech books
I am very picky about the fiction I'll read but am open to unsolicited suggestions. Prefer post-apoc type stuff. Can't really get into fantasy. It needs to be an easy read because I have a house full of kids and no privacy.
- I am not your traditional sci-fi fan, so while the books below may not be considered masterpieces or even "true" sci-fi, they may be a good "gateway drug" for others like me:
- The Postman by David Brin
- The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
- I am Legend by Richard Matheson
- I can't recommend David Brin enough:
1. The Postman
2. Earth
3. Existence
- Haven't read it, but I have read Alas, Babylon. Sounds similar but definitely worth checking out.
One book I was thinking of in my post is The Postman by David Brin. In it, the post-apocalypse was triggered by a cascading series of disasters, including (non-nuclear) warfare and disease... but the final societal collapse was caused by domestic militants following a hyper-survivalist, regressive philosophy. In other words, the preppers themselves were behind the fall of America.
