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
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
Plague Summer[citation needed], adaptation of The Journal of Albion Moonlight	circa 1962[citation needed]
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
Mad Max 2	1981	Released as The Road Warrior in the United States. There is debate as to whether this movie takes place before or after a nuclear holocaust.
Malevil	1981
The New Barbarians	1982
The Atomic Cafe	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.
Blade Runner	1982	Based on the Philip K. Dick Book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and is set some time after World War Terminus. A nuclear war in which the Nuclear fall out has caused the destruction of most of the planet's eco-system.
2019, After the Fall of New York	1983
Testament	1983
The Day After	1983
Countdown to Looking Glass	1984
The Terminator franchise	1984, 1991, 2003, 2007, 2009
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	1986	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
Deterrence	1999
The Matrix (franchise)	1999, 2003
On the Beach	2000
Equilibrium	2002
The Dark Hour	2007
City of Ember	2008
The Road	2009
The Book of Eli	2010
The Divide	2012
Chernobyl Diaries	2012

Television programs

• A Day Called 'X' (CBS, 1957)
• The War Game (BBC, 1965)
• Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (NBC, 1979)
• World War III miniseries (1982)
• Whoops Apocalypse (ITV, 1982)
• 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–)

Television episodes

• 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.
• Twilight Zone: "Time Enough at Last" (1959)
• Playhouse 90: "Alas, Babylon" (1960)
• Twilight Zone: "The Old Man in the Cave" (1963)
• Twilight Zone: "A Little Peace and Quiet" (1985)
• Twilight Zone: "Quarantine" (1986)
• Twilight Zone: "Shelter Skelter" (1987)
• Twilight Zone: "Chosen" (2002)
• A few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise depict that both humans and Vulcans were close to extermination caused by nuclear war.

Novels

• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (The world is in a state of permanent war amongst the 3 Superstates - Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia. It is stated in the book that whereas Rocket Bombs are allowed and are used against the civilian population (as are other conventional weapons), Nuclear Weapons are banned from use. The book mentions that there was a Nuclear War during the 1950s (Winston has a childhood memory of Colchester being destroyed by a nuclear weapon) just before the Revolution that brought Ingsoc to power in Oceania.)

• A Gift Upon the Shore by M. K. Wren
• Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
• Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem (regarding Hatfork)
• 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)
• 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 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
• 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 (the book mentions that there is an ongoing war with an unnamed aggressor, and that there has been a previous Nuclear War before (it does not mention when but it appears to be in the 1960s), and in the end of the book it has Montag and one of the living books looking out of the camp towards the City which has been struck by a nuclear weapon.)
• Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
• Fire Brats by Scott Siegel and Barbara Siegel
• "Free Flight" by Douglas Terman
• The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
• God's Grace by Bernard Malamud
• The Guardians series by Richard Austin
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen^{[citation needed]}
• 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
• 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
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• 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
• Single Combat by Dean Ing (second in the Ted Quantril trilogy)
• A Small Armageddon by Mordecai Roshwald
• Star Mans 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
• The Silo Series by Hugh Howey(2011) A nuclear exchange is used to cover up a nano-bot attack

Short stories

• "The Blast" by Stuart Cloete (1947), published in 6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin, 1954
• "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)
• "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
• 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.

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
• "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 (Genesis song)" 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
• "Fallout" by Fortification 55
• "Fight Fire with Fire" by Metallica, the first song off their second album, Ride the Lightning
• "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 Breath Before We Are Unmade" by Apathy in Edea
• "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
• "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" by Billy Joel
• "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 Holocaust" by Holocaust 427
• "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 World" by Anthrax
• "Or Shall We Die?" by Michael Berkeley
• "Pink World" by Planet P Project
• "Part III" by Bad Religion
• "Party at Ground Zero" by Fishbone
• "Put Down That Weapon" by Midnight Oil
• "Quite Unusual" by Front 242
• "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

Games

Name	Year	Notes
2300 A.D.	1986	role-playing game
Aftermath!	1981	role-playing game
Balance of Power	1985	PC, Mac
Blast Corps	1997	Nintendo 64
Burntime	1993	PC, Mac
DEFCON	2007	PC, Mac, Nintendo DS
Fallout series	1997 (1st)	PC, Mac, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360
Gamma World	1978	Role playing game
Metro 2033	2010	PC, Xbox 360
Missile Command	1980	Video arcade game
The Morrow Project	1980	Role playing game
Neocron	2002	PC, MMORPG
Nuclear War	1989	Amiga, PC, Mac
Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume	2006	PC, PS2, FOMA, S3G, PSP
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl	2007	PC, Depicts a fictional aftermath of the Chernobyl power plant meltdown.
Star Ocean: The Last Hope	2009	Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers	1984	Board game
Trinity	1986	Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 128, MS-DOS, Macintosh
Twilight: 2000	1984	Role-playing game
WarGames	1984	ColecoVision, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Warzone 2100	1999	PlayStation, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Wasteland	1988	Commodore 64, Apple II, DOS
Superpower 2	2004	Windows: Control a country, build armies and tactical weapons, destroy the world.

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

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