Top 14 Books Like Station Eleven Updated 04 /2024

Station Eleven, by Milo St. John Mandel, was published in 2014 and is widely considered one of the best post-apocalyptic novels ever written.

One of the best-known and most critically acclaimed works of science fiction, Station Eleven focuses on what happens when the deadly Georgia Flu pandemic breaks out and what follows. Traveling Symphony is the name of a group of traveling actors and musicians.

For Kirsten Raymonde and her fellow performers, classical music and Shakespearean texts serve as reminders of what it means to thrive and not just survive in the wake of societal collapse. However, a ruthless individual claiming to be the Prophet follows the performers as they travel through the area formerly known as the Great Lakes.

Those who have devoured Mandel's haunting novel Station Eleven and are looking for more will be unable to put these seven books down.

Zone One

By Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning Zone One is a post-apocalyptic zombie novel set in New York City. As a young man, Mark Spitz lost his entire family and all of his friends during Last Night.

His survival has depended on a combination of luck, vigilance, and the willingness to cut himself off from contact with other humans when it was clear that doing so would lead to his death.

However, the war's sands have now turned in the favor of the survivors. Mark is part of a sweeping team tasked with eradicating the last few undead New Yorkers in lower Manhattan after civilization was resurrected across the country. Resurrecting New York is a symbolic victory for the entire world once the city has been cleared.

Just like Kirsten and the rest of the Traveling Symphony in Station Eleven, Mark is adjusting to life in Manhattan and lamenting the loss of many wonderful and horrifying aspects of modern life. In order to fully embrace the dawn of a new day, Mark and his fellow survivors must also cope with their PASD (Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder).

Ashes of the Earth

By Eliot Pattison

Ashes of the Earth, a haunting apocalyptic mystery, takes place thirty years after a nuclear disaster wiped out much of humanity. A rudimentary society has been built in Carthage since the disaster, but dissent and infighting have slowed progress, and anyone with radiation poisoning has been exiled.

As the current governor rules tyrannically over Carthage, Hadrian Boone stands by and watches helplessly. In the wake of the murder of a high-ranking Carthaginian scientist, Hadrian realizes he can no longer ignore the colony's corruption and injustice. Hadrian journeys outside the town limits, visiting the banished victims of radiation poisoning in the wildlands in search of answers.

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Station Eleven and other works of fiction

Lightning in a Veil

Through the eyes and pen of Rebecca Roanhorse

Trail of Lightning, the first book in the Sixth World series, is a Locus Award winner and a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.

A Dinétah monster hunter named Maggie is at the center of Trail of Lightning, which takes place in the aftermath of an unspecified environmental disaster.

With the exception of her friendship with the elder Tah, Maggie has kept to herself since she parted with her mentor and lover. Maggie must rely on the help of obstinate and infuriatingly attractive Kai Arviso, Tah's grandson, when a monster hints at a new danger on the horizon. They'll have to work together to figure out what this new force of evil is and how to stop it.

The Road

By Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007, is unquestionably darker than Station Eleven. However, like Mandel's book, it examines how love endures even after the world in which it was created is destroyed.

An unnamed father and son are on a journey across the desolate American landscape in McCarthy's novel, which is a tribute to the author's son.

The elderly man and his son are making their way to the coast because they know they won't make it through the winter together. It is during this journey that the boy is taught the distinctions of good and evil, as well as how to avoid the cannibals who are enslaving the vulnerable along the road.

Y: The Last Man

By Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra

It's an Eisner Award winning post-apocalyptic comic that ran from 2002 to 2008. Suddenly, in the month of July of 2002, the Y chromosome was eradicated from all living organisms everywhere.

Only Yorick Brown, a young man, and his pet monkey, Ampersand, are known to have survived. A Washington politician, Yorick's mother recognizes that her son is a figure of global importance...and perhaps the only hope for the survival of humankind. All Yorick wants to do is find his girlfriend Beth, who was studying in Australia when the incident occurred and is now the focus of scientists and militaries all over the world.

A society reeling from a catastrophic loss is perfectly captured in Y: The Last Man, which manages to be both funny and sobering at the same time.

A cross-country road trip between the Traveling Circus and Y: The Last Man might have some interesting conversations about both of their respective apocalyptic events, even though they are worlds apart.

Pandora: Contagion

By Eric L. Harry

Apocalypse-themed series Station Eleven and Pandora follow the lives of a family as they cope with an outbreak of a pandemic called Pandoravirus horribilis. In the past, Emma Miller worked as a disease researcher, but now that she has been infected by the Pandoravirus, she is unable to do anything but wreak havoc.

She hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that Emma, the person she once was, is no longer with her. In Virginia, Isabel and her brother Noah find sanctuary in their family's old home. In spite of the apocalypse, they are threatened by their sick sister Emma and her hordes of infected followers, who arrive at their home.

Jonesbridge

By M. E. Parker

The apocalypse is depicted in a style reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road. Jonesbridge is a steampunk iron structure that serves as a town and a prison, separated from the outside world by a deep moat. As a "worker" in the Jonesbridge Industrial Complex, Myron is effectively a slave. Myron's spirits are lifted when he meets and falls for Sindra, a coworker.

Sindra and Myron come up with a plan to get out of Jonesbridge. As a result, after Myron is falsely accused of a guard's death, the couple must look for assistance in Jonesbridge's sewer system. As the Jonesbridge society disintegrates around them, the two find more supporters of their cause than they expected.

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