Requiem by Lauren Oliver

This book was a little bit of a slow starter for me, mostly because I couldn't remember what had happened in the first two books. Once I figured that out, things went much better. As Lena copes with the aches, pains, and irrationality of love, she and the rest of her small group find that the Regulators have started patrolling the Wilds. They move towards Portland. Interspersed with Lena's story, Hana's story gets its own sections: Hana is about to marry the mayor of Portland, but everything's not domestic bliss (despite her procedure). I enjoyed the book, but it wouldn't be at the top of my YA recommendations.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

I found this book a little hard to pick up--but I suspect it would be much easier had I read the previous book, The Passage, more recently. There's a lot of shifting in time in this book: one set of stories shows the actions of a devastated few immediately after the virals escaped--a pregnant doctor so traumatized by the attack she sees that she loses her mind, a lone wolf's escape from the penthouse apartment he'd holed up in, a group's response to the camps the US government set up to control the flood of refugees from infected areas--and the other set of stories is set about one hundred years later, as Amy and a variety of characters from the first book, attempt to destroy the 11 remaining, original virals. Once I figured out what was going on, I enjoyed this book, which was well plotted and well written.

Looking for Jake by China Miéville

This collection of stories covers a wide range of fantasy; there's one set in Bas-Lag (home of Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, and The Scar), there are a number set in various post-apocalyptic Londons (including The Tain, a novella about vampires and people captured in mirrors), and even an illustrated story. I really enjoyed "'Tis the Season" about a world in which Christmas is so trademarked that you have to buy permission to celebrate. The stories were all good. Once again Miéville shows off his endlessly inventive and entertaining imagination.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

This book recounts the actions of a sweeper, trying to clear the skels out of Zone One to reclaim Manhattan for human habitation after an apocalyptic zombie plague. While by the end it becomes a moving meditation on survival and humanity, it was a little difficult for me to get into the flow of the story--the time keeps jumping and it was hard for me to piece out what was going on exactly. As a portrait of what it might mean, psychologically, to live in a post-apocalyptic world, I appreciated this book for its thoughtfulness and for its refusal to sugar-coat the experience.

The Night Eternal by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

As this book opens, things look bleak for humankind: the Master has leashed a nuclear apocalypse that covers the world in polluted darkness for all but a few hours a day, humans have turned on each other, vampires round up humans to live in camps, and there's even dissent among the resistance. This book changes up the relationship dynamics within the group and gives a full background of the vampires (although they turn out to be as mythologically/religiously/magically grounded as anything, in an interesting twist for a series that started out portraying vampirism as a disease to be studied scientifically). Overall a fitting conclusion to the series.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

This book is an amazing tour de force: the world is crumbling, and seven strangers are called upon to go make the Shrike pilgrimage--a journey to the strange world of Hyperion, where the Time Tombs go backward in time, to face the Shrike. One will be granted his wishes, and the others will die. To pass the time on their journey, these pilgrims tell of their connections to Hyperion. In the race against the Ousters (a differently-evolved branch of humanity which is seen as uncivilized and threatens Hyperion), though, not everyone is who he seems. The individual stories are great and the frame narrative is gripping. There's also a lot of interest in both Chaucer and Keats, which makes the story rich with literary allusions. An absolute must-read.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler

This book collects five stories and two essays by Octavia Butler. The stories are challenging, because they're often set in different societies (the title story focuses on an outpost of humans who have developed a parasitic relationship with a host species) or in a different version of our society (two focus on disease--a psychological disorder that happens to children whose parents took a miracle drug for cancer, and a world where people are losing their ability to hear and read)--and it often takes almost the entire story to figure out what's happening. I really enjoyed these stories, which all focus on what constitutes a family, what does it mean to love another being, how do we communicate with one another, and how do we cope with disease. All in all, a brilliant collection.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

This book is epic, on the scale of something like Moby Dick or War and Peace or Ulysses. Various sub-plots, which involve the Ennet Drug Recovery House and the Enfield Tennis Academy (whose founder, James O. Incandenza, but known to his family as Himself, committed suicide by sticking his head in a microwave oven, after completing an entertainment known as Infinite Jest so compelling that it causes viewers to stop thinking about anything else while they view it), proliferate throughout the book. The version of the near future presented in the book is fun to entangle, bit by bit, so I'll avoid saying too much about the plot. I think it is fair to say that the novel presses on the conjunction of entertainment, pleasure, and communication, and examines how we connect with those around us. It's a bit of a challenge to get all the way through, but it repays the effort put into it.

METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi

This book is a collection of five stories set in a post-apocalyptic future where the city gains a whole new meaning--they offer modes of political collectivity, ways of innovation, and sustainable interactions with the environment. The stories range in location and tone (Scalzi's story in particular, "Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis," was really funny), but they work together really well (the five authors did the world building parts together). I read them instead of listening to them (they were initially written to be made into an audiobook first), but I really enjoyed this collection.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This book, set in a post-apocalyptic (precise nature of the apocalypse never specified) wasteland, is one of the best things I've ever read by Cormac McCarthy. A father and his son prowl through the desolated landscape, looking for food, fuel, and other useful items, and avoiding the bad guys who cannibalize dead people. They gradually make their way to the ocean, mostly helped by luck. It's when their luck turns sour that they must discover who they are, what they believe in, and whether they're able to trust. The prose is clear and strong.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This book, like If on a Winter's Night A Traveller..., consists of a series of interlocking stories. While at first the shifts in time are disorienting, and the connections between the stories not entirely clear, Mitchell gradually makes a case against colonialism, slavery, and settling to be part of a morally unacceptable system, despite personal cost. Mitchell speculates on the ends of civilization and on the power of writing (and communication more generally) to forge human connections and inspire hope for the future. In addition to containing all of these moving themes, the book is beautifully written. I suspect this book will stay with me. Booker shortlisted, 2004.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Although this book is different from the first two in the Hunger Games series in that the games have been ended and it's all about the resistance to the Capital, I found this book very enjoyable and a fitting ending to a great series. Katniss is faced with choices to make (should she accept the role of being public face of the resistance?) and consequences for those choices--and she has to determine what sacrifices should be made for liberty. This book asks big questions and answers them bravely--while it's not for the weak of heart, it will leave you with a lot to think about and a lot to ponder.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

This novel tells the story of Onyesonwu, the outcast girl who grows up to be the Sorceress with the potential to rewrite history and reality. The book is beautiful and I think it does the post-apocalyptic and the group-journey narratives very well. It doesn't sugar-coat its heroine--she has moments of violence and anger and failure as much as anyone. Although I found myself wanting more about what the apocalyptic moment was, the hints that were given were more than enough to put together the outlines. I am still wondering about the role of technology in the novel--people have computers, for example, but it wasn't clear to me quite how they use them.