List of nuclear holocaust fiction

This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of speculative fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war, nuclear holocaust, or crash of civilization due to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse.

Films

Title	Year	Author and notes
Five	1951
Unknown World	1951
Invasion U.S.A.	1952
Captive Women	1952
Day the World Ended	1955
The Chrysalids	1955	John Wyndham (novel)
Alas, Babylon	1960	Pat Frank (novel)
On the Beach	1959	Nevil Shute (novel); John Paxton (screenplay)
The World, the Flesh and the Devil	1959
The Time Machine	1960	H. G. Wells (novel); David Duncan (screenplay)
The Last War	1961
The Day the Earth Caught Fire	1961
The Creation of the Humanoids	1962
La jetée	1962
Panic in Year Zero!	1962
This is Not a Test	1962
Ladybug Ladybug	1963
Fail-Safe	1964	Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler (novel); Walter Bernstein (screenplay)
Dr. Strangelove	1964	Peter George (novel); Peter George, Stanley Kubrick, and Terry Southern (screenplay)
The War Game	1965
In the Year 2889	1967
Planet of the Apes	1968	Pierre Boulle (novel); Michael Wilson and Rod Serling (screenplay)
The Bed Sitting Room	1969
Glen and Randa	1971
Zardoz	1974
A Boy and His Dog	1975	Harlan Ellison (short story); L.Q. Jones, Alvy Moore and Wayne Cruseturner (screenplay)
Damnation Alley	1977	Roger Zelazny (novel)
Wizards	1977
Virus	1980
Malevil	1981
The New Barbarians	1982
Future War 198X	1982	Anime movie produced by Toei Animation about World War III breaking out in the 1980s that triggers a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR.
2019, After the Fall of New York	1983
Testament	1983
The Day After	1983
The Terminator franchise	1984, 1991, 2003, 2009, 2015	based on characters created by James Cameron (with acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison)
Countdown to Looking Glass	1984
Threads	1984
One Night Stand	1984
Def-Con 4	1985
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome	1985
O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization	1985
Radioactive Dreams	1985
Dead Man's Letters	1986
The Sacrifice	1986
When the Wind Blows	1986	Based on the 1982 graphic novel
Whoops Apocalypse	1988	Based on the ITV series
Akira	1988
Miracle Mile	1988
By Dawn's Early Light	1990
Hardware	1990
Judge Dredd	1995
Star Trek: First Contact	1996	Most of the film takes place in the mid-21st century as civilization rebuilds after nuclear war. Continuation of Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series.
The Postman	1997
Der 3. Weltkrieg, aka World War III	1998
Six-String Samurai	1998
Blast from the Past	1999
Deterrence	1999
The Matrix (franchise)	1999, 2003
On the Beach	2000
Equilibrium	2002
The Dark Hour	2007
City of Ember	2009
The Book of Eli	2010
The Divide	2012
Cloud Atlas	2012
Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl	2014
Mad Max Fury Road	2015

Television programs

• A Day Called 'X' (CBS, 1957)
• The War Game (BBC, 1965)
• Level Seven (BBC, 1966), adapted by J. B. Priestley for Out of the Unknown
• Genesis II (CBS, 1973)
• Planet Earth (ABC, 1974)
• Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (NBC, 1979)
• World War III miniseries (1982)
• Whoops Apocalypse (ITV, 1982)
• Special Bulletin (NBC, 1983)
• Testament (PBS, 1983)
• The Day After (ABC, 1983)
• Countdown to Looking Glass (HBO, 1984)
• Threads (BBC, 1984)
• By Dawn's Early Light (HBO, 1990)
• Woops! (Fox, 1992)
• Fail Safe (CBS, 2000)
• On the Beach (Showtime, 2000)
• Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi, 2003, 2004–2009)
• Jericho (CBS, 2006–2008)
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox, 2008–2009)
• Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 2010–)
• The 100 (The CW, 2014–)

Television episodes

• Masters of Science Fiction: "A Clean Escape" (2007)
• The Motorola Television Hour: "Atomic Attack" (1954 ABC-TV series Season 1, Episode 15) A family living 50 miles away try to flee from the fallout of an atomic bomb that fell on New York City. Based on the novel _Shadow on the Hearth_ (1950) by author Judith Merrill.
• The Twilight Zone: "Time Enough at Last" (1959)
• Playhouse 90: "Alas, Babylon" (1960)
• The Twilight Zone: "The Old Man in the Cave" (1963)
• Star Trek: "Space Seed" (1967)
• Star Trek: "Assignment: Earth" (1968) The crew goes back in time to find out how the human race was able to survive the Cold War.
• The Twilight Zone: "A Little Peace and Quiet" (1985)
• The Twilight Zone: "Quarantine" (1986)
• The Twilight Zone: "Shelter Skelter" (1987)
• The Outer Limits: "Bits of Love" (1997)
• The Outer Limits: "The Human Factor" (2002)
• The Twilight Zone: "Chosen" (2002)
• A few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise depict both humans and Vulcans as being close to extermination caused by nuclear war.

Novels

• Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
• Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem (regarding Hatfork)
• Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
• Arc Light by Eric Harry
• Armageddon's Children By Terry Brooks (2006) (Genesis of Shannara Trilogy book 1)
• The Ashes Series by William W. Johnstone
• Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1960)
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence
• The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
• Commander-1 by Peter George
• Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
• Dark December by Alfred Coppel
• Dark Mirrors (original title) Schwarte Spiegel by Arno Schmidt
• Davy and other works by Edgar Pangborn
• The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams
• Deathlands series by a variety of authors writing under the pen name James Axler
• Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb by Philip K. Dick
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
• Domain by James Herbert
• Doomday Wing by George H. Smith
• Doomsday Plus Twelve by James D. Forman
• Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham
• Earthwreck! by Thomas N. Scortia
• The Eclipse Trilogy by John Shirley
• Einstein's Monsters by Martin Amis
• End of the World by Dean Owen (novelization of the film Panic in Year Zero!)
• Endworld series by David Robbins
• Eon by Greg Bear
• The Erthing Cycle by Wayland Drew
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
• Fire Brats by Scott Siegel and Barbara Siegel
• First Angel by Ed Mann, published by Soldier of Fortune magazine
• Free Flight by Douglas Terman
• The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
• A Gift Upon the Shore by M. K. Wren
• God's Grace by Bernard Malamud
• The Guardians series by Richard Austin
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Jenny, My Diary by Yorick Blumenfeld
• The Last Children of Schewenborn by Gudrun Pausewang
• The Last Ship by William Brinkley
• Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald
• The Long Loud Silence by Wilson Tucker
• The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
• Long Voyage Back by George Cockcroft, under the pen name Luke Rhinehart, 1983
• Malevil by Robert Merle
• Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Not This August by C.M. Kornbluth
• Obernewtyn and subsequent novels in the series by Isobelle Carmody
• On the Beach by Nevil Shute
• One Second After by William R. Forstchen
• The Outward Urge, by John Wyndham and Lucas Parkes
• The Pelbar Cycle, Book One (Beyond Armageddon) by Paul O. Williams
• Plan of Attack, a 2004 thriller by Dale Brown
• The Postman, a 1985 post-apocalyptic novel by David Brin
• Prayers for the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno
• Red Alert, by Peter George
• Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois
• Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
• Prime Directive, by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (A Star Trek novel where an alien civilization is apparently destroyed by a sudden, unexpected nuclear war among its own people.)
• Pulling Through, by Dean Ing (first half of the book is a novel on a family surviving a nuclear blast, the second half was a non-fiction survival guide)
• The School for Atheists by Arno Schmidt
• Second Ending, by James White
• The Seventh Day by Hans Hellmut Kirst (original title Keiner Kommt Davon)
• Shadow on the Hearth by Judith Merril (1950) A novel about a young housewife's ordeals in the aftermath of nuclear attack
• The Silo Series by Hugh Howey(2011) A nuclear exchange is used to cover up a nano-bot attack
• Single Combat by Dean Ing (second in the Ted Quantril trilogy)
• A Small Armageddon by Mordecai Roshwald
• Star Man's Son by Andre Norton (1952) a post-apocalyptic novel that takes place about two centuries after the Great-Blowup. This story is also entitled Daybreak - 2250 AD in reprint editions.
• The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun by Christopher Anvil
• The Survivalist by Jerry Ahern
• Swan Song by Robert McCammon
• Systemic Shock by Dean Ing (first in the Ted Quantril trilogy)
• Tengu by Graham Masterton
• Test of Fire by Ben Bova
• There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson
• This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow
• This Time Tomorrow by Lauran Paine
• Tomorrow! by Philip Wylie
• Trinity's Child by William Prochnau (1983)
• Triumph by Philip Wylie
• The Valley-Westside War by Harry Turtledove
• Vaneglory by George Turner
• Viper Three by Walter Wager
• Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka
• When the Wind Blows, by Raymond Briggs
• Wild Country by Dean Ing (Third in the Ted Quantril Trilogy)
• The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The World Next Door by Brad Ferguson
• The World Set Free by H. G. Wells
• Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove (alternate history: World War II turns nuclear in 1943, another nuclear war in the 1960s)
• Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
• The Zone series by James Rouch

Short stories

• "The Blast" by Stuart Cloete (1947), published in 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, 1954
• "Thunder and Roses" (1947) by Theodore Sturgeon
• "Not with a Bang" (1949) by Damon Knight
• "The Last Word" (1956) by Damon Knight
• "A Clean Escape" (1985) by John Kessel
• "The 16th October 1985" (2009) by James Plumridge
• "The Edge of the Knife" (1957) by H. Beam Piper
• "Lot" (1953) and "Lot's Daughter" (1954) by Ward Moore (inspiration for the film Panic in Year Zero!)
• "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury (1951)
• "Preview of the War We Do Not Want", published in Collier's Magazine (1951)
• "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke a short story featuring a boy living in a colony on the moon, left isolated by the destruction of the Earth.
• "A Boy and His Dog" by Harlan Ellison (1969)
• "Fermi and Frost" by Frederik Pohl (1985)
• "Tight Little Stitches In A Dead Man's Back" by Joe R. Lansdale (1986)
• "The Custodians" by Richard Cowper

Short Story collections

• Countdown To Midnight, 1984 edited by H. Bruce Franklin
• Beyond Armageddon, 1985 edited by Walter M. Miller, Jr. and Martin Harry Greenberg
• Nuclear War, 1988 edited by Gregory Benford and Martin Harry Greenberg

Comics

• 2000AD/Judge Dredd, set in a post war Earth where the majority of the United States is called the "Cursed Earth".
• Akira features Tokyo after a nuclear conflict.
• AXA, set in the aftermath of a nuclear- and biological war with heroine AXA fighting against evil.
• Barefoot Gen, Japanese manga about life after the Hiroshima bombing
• Cobalt 60 by Vaughn Bodē, Mark Bodē and Larry Todd set in a post-apocalyptic world
• Fist of the North Star, a Japanese comic franchise set in a post-nuclear Earth.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a Japanese graphic novel, later partly adapted in film, set in a far, post-apocalyptic future, rife with themes of bioethics, environmentalism, genetics and psionics.
• The Punisher - The End, a one shot issue of Marvel Comic's Punisher by Garth Ennis and Richard Corben.
• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd is set in an England which has survived through a nuclear war which devastated the majority of the rest of the world.
• Strontium dog, set in a post - nuclear war earth where many humans have been deformed by the radiation and are branded as 'mutants'.

Animation shorts

• The Big Snit (National Film Board of Canada, Richard Condie; 1985)
• The Hole featuring the voice of Dizzy Gillespie

Music

• "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" by Jimi Hendrix
• "1999" by Prince, from the album 1999
• "540,000 Degrees Fahrenheit" by Fear Factory
• "99 Luftballons" by Nena
• "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden, on the subject of the Cold War
• "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", by Bob Dylan
• "Aftermath" by Armored Saint
• "Aftershock" by Anthrax
• "Against The Machines", by Downlink Featuring Datsik, on one of the albums called Dubstep. The song features machinery sounds and 'techno' beats with voice-over references to The Terminator Franchise including a line about the survivors of the nuclear fire.
• "Arise" by Sepultura
• "As It Was, As It Soon Shall Be" by Exodus, on the album The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A
• "As The End Draws Near" by Manufacture, featuring Sarah McLachlan on vocals
• "As The World Burns" by Bolt Thrower on the album The IVth Crusade
• "Atomchild" by Underground Zero
• "Beneath the Remains" by Sepultura
• "Blackened" by Metallica, the first track off their fourth album, ...And Justice for All.
• "Bomb" by Gang Green
• "Boom!" by System of a Down on the album Steal This Album!
• "Breathing" by Kate Bush, the final track off her third album, Never For Ever
• "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" by Iron Maiden, from the album A Matter of Life and Death
• "Christmas at Ground Zero" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" by Ultravox
• "Damnation Alley", by Hawkwind, inspired by Roger Zelazny's novel of the same name
• "Dachau Blues", by Captain Beefheart, which also touches on World War III.
• "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You Black Emperor!, first track from their album F♯A♯∞
• "Destruction Preventer" by Sonata Arctica
• "Distant Early Warning" by Rush
• "De Bom" by Doe Maar
• "Domino" by Genesis, from Invisible Touch, subject of the effect of dropping the bomb
• "Dresden Blues" by Cold Chisel
• "The Earth Dies Screaming" by UB40
• "Electric Funeral" by Black Sabbath. 1970 from the Paranoid LP.
• "Epitaph" by King Crimson
• "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire
• "Ever Since The World Ended", by Mose Allison
• "Everyday is Like Sunday" by Morrissey
• "Fabulous Disaster" by Exodus
• "Fight Fire with Fire" by Metallica, the first song off their second album, Ride the Lightning
• "Four minute warning" by Radiohead
• "Generals and Majors" by XTC
• "The House at Pooneil Corners" by Jefferson Airplane, from their album Crown of Creation
• "Ignorance" by Sacred Reich
• "In the Hole" by Armored Saint
• "Ink Mathematics", by Captain Beefheart
• "It's a Mistake" by Men at Work from the album Cargo
• "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" by Nik Kershaw
• "Killer of Giants" by Ozzy Osbourne
• "King of the World" by Steely Dan, from the album Countdown to Ecstasy
• "Last Sunset" (Последний Закат) by Russian metal band Aria.
• "Last Rockers" by Vice Squad
• "Like A Thousand Suns" by Heaven Shall Burn
• "Living Through Another Cuba", by XTC
• "London Calling" by The Clash
• "M.A.D." by Hadouken!. The song's lyrics and title refer to nuclear war. Indeed, the whole album has several themes and lyrics which refer to atomic war.
• "Man at C&A" by The Specials, from the album More Specials
• "Manhattan Project" by Rush, third track from their album Power Windows
• "Memories of Tomorrow" by Suicidal Tendencies
• "Morning Dew", by Bonnie Dobson; also recorded by Jeff Beck, Blackfoot, and The Grateful Dead.
• "Mutually Assured Destruction" by Gillan (band), from 1989 re-issue of their album Future Shock
• "Northern Wind" (Северный ветер) by Russian singer Linda (Линда) on the album Crow (Ворона)
• "Nuclear Annihilation" by Bolt Thrower on the album In Battle There Is No Law
• "Nuclear Attack" by Gary Moore on the album Dirty Fingers
• "Nuclear Attack" by Sabaton on the album Attero Dominatus
• "Nuclear War" by Sun Ra
• "Nuclear Winter" by Sodom
• "Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me", by Charles Mingus
• "One of the Living" by Tina Turner, from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
• "One World" by Anthrax
• "Or Shall We Die?" by Michael Berkeley
• "Part III" by Bad Religion
• "Party at Ground Zero" by Fishbone
• Pink World by Planet P Project
• "Put Down That Weapon" by Midnight Oil
• "Quite Unusual" by Front 242
• "Radioactive Toy" by Porcupine Tree
• "Reclamation" by Lamb of God
• "Rumours of War" by Billy Bragg
• "Rust in Peace...Polaris" by Megadeth, from the Rust in Peace album
• "Seconds", by U2
• "Set the World Afire" by Megadeth, from the So Far, So Good... So What! album
• "Skeletons of Society" by Slayer
• "So Long, Mom (A Song For World War III)", by Tom Lehrer
• "Stop the World" by The Clash
• "Talkin' World War III Blues", by Bob Dylan
• "Thank God For The Bomb" by Ozzy Osbourne
• "The Sun Is Burning" by Ian Campbell, performed by Simon and Garfunkel and The Dubliners
• "Survive" by Nuclear Assault
• "The Only Hope For Me Is You" by My Chemical Romance
• "Third World War" by Evil's Toy
• "This World Over", by XTC
• "Trouble", by Tonio K.
• "Twilight of the Gods", by Helloween
• "Two Minute Warning", by Depeche Mode from the 1983 album Construction Time Again
• "Two Suns in the Sunset" by Pink Floyd from the album The Final Cut
• "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• The music video for "Untitled 1" by Sigur Rós features a world ravaged by a nuclear holocaust as its setting.
• "Warhead" by Tarot
• "War Pigs", by Black Sabbath
• "We're So Small" by The Epoxies
• "We Will All Go Together When We Go" by Tom Lehrer
• "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service
• "When That Hell Bomb Falls*" by Fred Kirby
• "When the Wild Wind Blows" by Iron Maiden from their album The Final Frontier based on the Raymond Briggs book When the Wind Blows
• "Who's Gonna Win the War?" by Hawkwind
• "Will The Sun Rise?" by Dokken
• "Wooden Ships", recorded by both Crosby Stills & Nash and Jefferson Airplane
• "World War III" recorded by D.O.A.
• "World Wars III & IV", by Carnivore
• "WWIII" by KMFDM
• "Your Eyes Were Open" by UB40, from the album Geffrey Morgan
• "Your Attention, Please!" by Scars
• "Nuclear Suicide" by Skallbrand, from the album Welcome To The Nuclear Suicide

Games

Name	Year	Notes
2300 A.D.	1986	Role-playing game
Aftermath!	1981	Role-playing game
Balance of Power	1985	A computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War
Blast Corps	1997	Nintendo 64 video game
Burntime	1993	A role-playing video game for DOS and Amiga
DEFCON	2007	A real-time strategy game for Windows, Mac and Linux
Fallout series	1997 (1st) 2015 (latest)	A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game for several platforms, early games were top down 2D while the last three are 3D, spiritual successor to Wasteland.
Gamma World	1978	A post-apocalyptic role-playing game
M.A.D. Global Thermonuclear Warfare	2001	PC Strategic simulation game released by Small Rockets
Metro 2033	2010	A survival horror first-person shooter set in post-apocalyptic Moscow
Metro Last Light	2013	A survival horror first person shooter which is a sequel to Metro 2033
Missile Command	1980	An action video game which was wildly popular in the 1980s, widely recognized in popular culture.
The Morrow Project	1980	Role-playing game
Neocron	2002	A post-apocalyptic cyberpunk MMORPG for Windows
Nuclear War	1989	A turn-based strategy game for Amiga and DOS
NukeWar	1980	A turn-based strategy game for Apple II, Commodore 64, and other early home computer systems
Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet	2004	A post-apocalyptic visual novel
Star Ocean: The Last Hope	2009	An action role-playing video game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Superpower 2	2004	A real-time strategy wargame
Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers	1984	A board wargame
Trinity	1986	An interactive fiction game examining the futile nature of nuclear war
Trojan	1986	Arcade game and platformer set shortly after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization, which is now overrun by occultists who are bent on terrorizing the surviving population with psychological and biochemical warfare.
Twilight: 2000	1984	A role-playing game
WarGames	1984	A video game based on the game in the hit movie
Warzone 2100	1999	An open source real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game
Wasteland	1988	A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game
Wasteland 2	2014	A post-apocalyptic role-playing video game which is a sequel to Wasteland.

See also

• Nuclear holocaust
• Nuclear weapons in popular culture
• World War III in popular culture
• List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
• Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
• List of books about nuclear issues
• List of films about nuclear issues
• List of apocalyptic films
• List of dystopian films

External links

• Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, By Paul Brians, Professor of English, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
• Annotated bibliography of nuclear literature from the Alsos Digital Library