There are a few books I come back to over and over again. One of these is George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. If you haven’t read it, I implore you to find a copy. It’s probably the best post-apocalypse story you’ll read.
In the novel, Californian Isherwood Williams wakes from a snake-bite-induced delirium to discover a plague has all but erased mankind. Stewart does a grand job of chronicling Ish’s journey and ultimate ascension to the role of ‘the last American’, but what I really love about it are the glorious interludes where the author tracks the gradual decay of technology, and its absorption back into the natural world.
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know by now I have a thing about names. For some reason, the name ‘Ish’ has always struck me as hauntingly odd. Today I discovered why.
In 1911 a man from a stone-age culture walked out of the California hills and became famous as the ‘last wild Indian’. His name was Ishi, and he experienced a few years of celebrity at the university in San Francisco. David Pringle has written a great piece about Ishi, in which he remarks:
“There can be no dispute that [Stewart] had the real-life tale of Ishi very much in mind: his hero is called Isherwood Williams, or ‘Ish’ for short, and he drives out of those same Northern California mountains to find a world where almost everyone has died as the result of a mysterious new plague … in my view, Stewart’s book is the finest work of California sf, and the greatest ‘apology to Ishi.'”
They say truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, it’s at least as fascinating.
Graham Edwards 
>Ta for the recommendation – must admit this one slipped past me. Two of my favourites in the same genre are John Christopher's The Death of Grass and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. Oh and not forgetting Dr Bloodmoney by Philip K Dick, of course.