Quintessential Prepper Books

So I went on Amazon and bought Lights Out and Collision Course. That got me thinking. If you had to teach someone why they should be prepared, what is the one fiction book that would sum it all up? I'm thinking Lights Out is that one. I will admit that other than it and some internet stories, I haven't read any other survival stories. Your thoughts?

 

Lucifer's hammer is the one that planted the seed for me.

 

'Lights out' gets my vote

 

For me "Alas Babylon" was the one that got me started. "Lights Out" is more of an eye opener though.

 

One Second After opened my eyes and got the ball rolling. I was able to look around my life and see that if anything like One Second After happened, we would be toast. I really like Lights Out but they certainly didn't have to do without much, which made it semi-unrealistic. I picked up many tips and information from LO but those people never starved or skipped meals or did without.

Top 5 IMO- eye openers
One Second After
Life As We Knew It
Alas Babylon
Lights Out
Lucifer's Hammer

 

The Going Home series by my friend Angery American. The latest in the series Enforcing Home (book 6) is out on Amazon.

He started in on SB one chapter at a time back in 2011. It had the highest views of any thread ever on SB. Several of us encouraged him to publish it. Several of us chipped in $$, Silver and a laptop to get him started.

He paid $8000 and "self published under Xlibrus(Penguin) and after the first 6 months on Amazon, he was the highest grossing author they ever had under that brand.

That got the attention of the big guys at Penguin and they gave him a publisher and transfered him to the Plume mark under Penguin. The next 4 books took off like wildfire.

Chirs got disgruntled with Penguin and the accounting and did not sign for any further books. Enforcing Home was published by him alone so no he can keep all of the profits.

After book 2 Chris quit his day job and now just writes full time.

If you have not read the series, take a look. i will warn you book 1 Going Home is full of editorial mistakes thanks to little to no editing by Xlibrus. The rest of the series is much better.

 

Will have to check out all these suggestions. I do like to read when I can. It's not always just pikture books.

 

The premiss of Going Home:

Saleman driving home to southern Florida after a trip to the SE US.

Entering N FL his car stops running. Pulls to the side of the freeway, and grabs his phone....DEAD. laptop DEAD. Walks to the crest of the hill on the freeway and as far as he can see cars are stalled everywhere. He knew there was a CME scheduled to hit, but was forcast NOT to be that bad.

He has his GHB in the car, take inventory and starts his 250 mile walk home to his wife and 3 girls.

Toss in people unprepared, DHS and the GOV wanting to start a new world order amd just happen to set off something under the cover of the CME that ensured that the entire US was nuked(hint) back to the stoneage.

Add SpecOps upholding the Constitution, good people, bad people, Ham radio finding out the rest of the world is relatively in good shape amd the battle to not only survive but take back the country.

 

That is a good series but I never finished it, I think I left off on book 4.

The author of the Dark Grid series is a monkey and I enjoyed those book. @CATO & @PaxMentis read the PAW/SHTF genres so it would be good to see their opinions.

 

Sorry, I couldn't even start to pick one. I think I would have to try hard to come up with 3 lists of 5 or so each...one for the prepper viewpoint, one for what I call "non-prepper PAW" and one just for pure enjoyment of a story well told. Of course the difficulty is magnified by the fact that my memory has gotten so spotty that I can reread a book after 3-4 months and it is like a whole new book with a few vaguely familiar incidents.

I can say that the first I ever read (Patriots) wouldn't make any of the lists. Interestingly, one that comes immediately to mind as being on a couple of the lists (even eliminating my bias for authors who are fellow Monkeys) I don't believe has ever been published except as a PDF on the site is the "Normal/Tales of The Ranch" series...I usually dislike the "rich guy prepper" scenario, but they overcome overcome it for me. "Normal" a post SHTF novel (Story 1 of the "Normal" Saga) | Survival Forums

 

One Second After for me. It was clear to me after reading that book that if I kept on my current path and something happened, I would starve. So, I did a web search for "survival" and Rawles' page was the first to come up. So, I started reading and haven't looked back.

The great part about these books is that they open your eyes to things you just don't think about. New horizons . . . .

The 299 Days series is good too, but, the complete series is too expensive. It would be like paying $100+ for Lights Out if you're going by page count. Great marketing (he's on a lot of PODcasts) and more power to Glen Tate for selling for whatever price he wants, but, they're just over-priced for what you get IMO. There's a sweet-spot for selling e-books that readers are willing to pay, and $10 per book is just too high.

The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly is a good one. Makes you realize you might have to off one of your neighbors to save your family. Konkoly has done some PODcasts. One was with the Survival Mom, which was quite good.

The Holding Their Own Series by Joe Nobody was pretty good early on . . . then it took a tin-foil route and were more expensive than most, but not as much as 299 Days.

Last but not least is Rawles' Patriots. If you read it purely as a novel, you will be disappointed--it's not as good as Lights Out. It is a survival manual woven into a novel. So, get a pen and pad when you read it and take notes. But, know that the set-up they have in the book is the ultimate in prepper's retreats and supplies--a dream set-up if you will. It is OK to fall short when you have that final laundry list of items to get, so, don't get bummed out (I did). Having 30k rounds of ammo for your MBR is a bit unrealistic *for most of us.*

 

I liked Last Blade of Grass. Granted it involves zombies instead of EMP or war or anything but I still got some ideas from it. Like dental torture.

 

My library is going to need more room. A lot of interesting stories.

 

I would go along with this one as a book in general...just never considered it Prepper/PAW.

 

I liked Lightning Fall and One Second After .

 

A friend (Captian in the AF) was involved in hardening "stuff"(opsec) againts EMP threats.

He said before they started, the assigment was to read One Second After.

He gave it to me in Sept of 2010 and by December, I had read Lights Out, Patriots, and joined SB. That is where I "met" several of "yous guys" and Angery American.

That read of One Second started me down the path most of us are on. It also spurred me to get my amateur radio license and went from "zero" to Extra/VE in 6 months

 

Jerry D. Young has some pretty good books for free on his site along with some of Flea taxis work...

 

I agree with Motomom34 and CATO. One Second After.