No discussion of great post-apocalyptic books would be complete without mention of George R. Stewart’s 1949 classic, EARTH ABIDES. It’s been reported that it was Stephen King’s inspiration for THE STAND, and worthy inspiration it is. This book is part Robinson Crusoe, part brilliant speculative anthropology, and part Moby Dick, all laid out in scenes of decay like the ones depicted in The History Channel’s LIFE AFTER PEOPLE. This book portrays what it would be like to lose our technology, nearly everything from the bow and arrow onward, and start anew in our tribes.

But EARTH ABIDES doesn’t begin with loincloths and venison roasting on the spit. It begins with young Isherwood Williams alone in the Northern California wilderness, performing research for his graduate thesis. The tension begins immediately. He’s bitten by a snake and then he contracts a nasty virus, but he recovers from both. He then tries to end his lonely and quite nearly life-ending sojourn by driving into the nearest town—only to discover that the people are gone. He drives further into the town, blaring his car horn, but there’s no response. He gets out. Finally he reads the last edition of The San Francisco Chronicle, a single folded sheet carrying the headline: CRISIS ACUTE.

In EARTH ABIDES, civilization is brought down by a pandemic of nightmarish lethality. The people are dead; most of the bodies are buried or collected in the last places where emergency services were available. It’s all very orderly, in a Rod Serling kind of way. In this version of The End, we died well and left the place tidy. The lights are still on. There are no roving bands of criminals or cannibals, no zombies or mutants or cyborgs or nose-twitching apes intent upon ruling the world. There’s only one man alone. And that’s as fine a way as any to begin a post-apoc story.

So, there he is. The people are gone but the supplies and infrastructure of civilization are still intact. The first part of the book follows Isherwood (or “Ish” as he likes to be called) as he explores the realities and limits of his vast new cage. No post-apocalyptic story is complete without a road trip, and this is a good one. Ish meets a few people along the way, but they’re not the sort of people he’d like to spend his life with, so he moves on. Without an external threat, and with enough groceries to last many lifetimes, people have no immediate reason to band together.

But of course they do band together. We’re social creatures, and this unpredictable strength shapes the brilliant core of the book. Ish returns to California. He marries and leads a small band of people, but his primary concern is how to begin the process of rebuilding modern civilization. This is the central obsession of his life, and he’s consumed over the decades to find ways to plant the seeds that will bring it all back.

The story of his large failures and small successes is as engaging as any quest in fiction. And the inevitable death, not only of America and all of modern civilization, but even firsthand reports of it, brings a long-burning and somehow satisfying sorrow that most post-apoc books can’t match.

(This is Terry DeHart’s third post on post-apocalyptic tales. The first two explored A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ and I AM LEGEND. His own contribution to the literature itself, his debut novel THE UNIT has been called by and Publishers Weekly “a striking picture of human vulnerability and strength.”)