1.City of Ember series:

emm. too childish and optimistic

2.Nausicaa

Man. That was epic.

But nothing compares to fallout, especially in sheer scale. Any competitors?

Waterworld! j/k

But honestly, nothing in scale that I have found. There are few series in sheer length who could be said to do Fallout honor, but they are basically macho gunporm with extremely conservative political undertones. Cool if that's your thing, but not very rewarding reads if you happen to have views across the aisle.

If you read the cultural references for the different games on the Fallout wiki, you can find some cool places to start.

Oh yes Fallout no matter how great is actually a copy of 3 major fictions Fallout is based heavily on A boy and his Dog and Mad max which both goth universal aclaim from critics and fallouts predecessor Wasteland was awesone and Inxille Entertainment is most likely making a sequel

The comic book Wasteland is pretty awesome.

Tim Cain said that he wouldn't/couldn't do a Wasteland 2, and that Wasteland 2 WAS Fallout :sadvaultboy:

But we can always dream.

If you are talking about games? I thought that Metro 2033 was a pretty good game. For post apocalyptia.

The Book of Eli


laugh out loud

Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series is pretty great, in terms of post-apocalypse. "The Stand" wasn't bad, either, though VIRUS OF D00M was sorta "meh" for me.

Word, as series go "The Dark Tower" is probably my favorite ever written. And "The Gunslinger" is may favorite book ever, period, though I like "The Wastelands" best in the series. Maybe not the best written books ever, but especially in the fourth and seventh, an emotional ride to hell and back.

You're good people, Remy, good people indeed. When you say "The Gunslinger" are you referring to the original, or the revised and expanded edition? I've only ever read the former and am hesitant to see how he expanded it. I liked the original. "The Wasteland" is my favourite installment as well.

They're well written enough, I think. King's strength is in his characters, really.

I've only read the original, as well. From what I understand it's just a lot of retconning to make the novel fit the canon in the revised edition, such as removing references to paper, mentioning John Farson, etc. But I agree, the strength is really in the characters. The story is pretty far-out by the end. Also for some post-apocalyptic flavor, both "The Talisman" and "Black House" have some great apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic scenes.

In relation to Fallout, "The Dark Tower" has more civilized wastes, in some respects, and much worse in others. More fantastical, but a great addition to anyone's end-times library.

Hummph never heard of that Stephen King guy, but you know who all in all is a great writter Richard Bachman....... ahem ( Try reading the running man movie did not do it justice)

Back on point (well as on point as i can get)

I would like to give a little nod to games before Fallout, that maybe just maybe helped shape it (hell i do not know really )

Way back in the dark ages (when we actually used pen and paper to game... not long actually after the wheel was first made) I stumbled upon a Tsr game called " Gamma World" and that really gave me love for the Atom so to speak around 1980 .... ya (first edition was 1978 ---seventh edition was put out last year now thats a run heheh no guite as good old DnD but still something).. Aftermath and Twillight 2000 came out mid eighties (maybe memory is the first thing that goes) and both were great games in there own rights... Heck even good old Steve Jackson (err the american one not the Brit who did the choose your own adventures) had Car wars, and illumanati hehe both Microgames (well when the first came out that have the Dark humor aspect of fallout down pat .. heh

But then came Fallout and it has well the best bits (aside from using your noggin to imagine what stuff looks like heh)

So Game wise for me ya Fallout blows away all the compatition, pen and paper or computer screen for that matter.

Now Vrs books doubtfull good old S and K and "the stand" thats gonna be hard to beat
and movies well Mad max franchise did set the bar perhaps (the really great thing about sales say off Fallout 4 is some ass in hollywood will finally go hey lets do a new Road warrior (forget mel as among his other problems he did not want any part of thunder road ... Start over

@2 caps -- ha, ha at the Richard Bachman reference. Also, I have not yet been able to sit through a single movie based on any of his books. Movies just don't stick well enough to canon. But I digress and won't derail this topic

I like The Road, but that is obviously not sci-fi.

I have heard they are making a Mad Max 4.

Blood Meridian is not apocolyptic, but the behavior of characters in this book remind me of how people would behave in a post apoc world. It is also the best book I've ever read.

"While writing my report to the Elder" Yes, the Stand, very good book, i should pull that out of the archives, it was a good one about being the end of the world without nukes. *sigh* Oh well, enough day dreaming, back to my report.

The Stand is by far my favorite book and it is the thing that kind of got me into postapocalyptic fiction. Then there is, as so many of you have already said, the Mad Max series, which i think Mad Max 2 comes closest to Fallout. Then there's The Book of Eli that i found quite good and some similiarites to Fallout 3 (maybe it's just me). But I think it's fair to say not many things come close to the Fallout series. :fallout:

it's not out yet but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(video_game) game seem like it's going to be a good post-apocalyptic game.

Nothing has yet to even match the literary transcendence of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz -- not even Fallout, which focuses much more on the visceral than the cerebral, unlike the novel.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is not simply a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, but also a multi-layered meditation on the conflict between knowledge and morality, and the rebuilding of civilization some 600 years after a nuclear holocaust. A fascinating book, Canticle is both a rich treasure of fine writing, and a moving piece of fiction.

Which is actually the case for many great works of literature (and almost all good science fiction) -- the real stuff eschews formula, defies convention, evades compartmentalization...it succeeds, despite its subject matter. And so, Walter Miller's great novel ignores conventions and defies genres. It's a true work of literature in its own right.