Post Apocalyptic and Old Feel Setting Inspiration?

I am looking for some good inspirational PA reading/viewing with more of a fantastical feel. Less Mad Max gritty and more with mutants and strange events and characters.

I read Clifford D. Simak's Heritage of Stars and Piers Anthony's Battle Circle years ago and that is the type of book I am looking for. If you have read neither, you should track them down.

What specificly intrigued me in Heritage of Stars were the robots who has gone independent. A robot character in the book had learned to hunt bears and render the fat to lubricate his joints and keep himself from rusting and oxidizing. That image of a robot hunting a bear with a spear is one that has stuck with me and that I want to integrate into a campaign setting.

I also like the feeling of the civilization long lost and unrecoverable. Thousands of years versus a few generations.

Here are a few that I have thought of that are to influence a campaign that I plan to start:
Books: Clifford D. Simak Heritage of Stars, Jack Vance’s Tales of Dying Earth (Rhialto and Cudgel), Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series, Piers Anthony’s Battle Circle, Sterling Lanier Hiero series, Orson Scott Card’s Wyrms and the Memory of Earth series.

Film: Thundarr the Barbarian by Hanna Barbara, City of Lost Children by Jean Junet, and the Dark Crystal by Henson/Froud.

Anyone else have some recommendations?

here's a couple more to look out for, though i expect they are all long out of print:

• Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, Deus Irae
• Philip Jose Farmer, Dark is the Sun

these are both squarely in the PA genre. Farmer's book is set in the far distant future, and reads almost like a fantasy world. the Dick + Zelazny book is much closer to the apocalypse and suitably weird, as expected given the authors.

• Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

probably the classic PA novel. deals with the loss and recovery of knowledge following an apocalyptic nuclear war.

• Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men
• William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

neither is strictly in the PA genre, but both detail a world after an apocalypse. Stapledon's book is a "history of mankind" from the present-day (at the time he wrote the book in the 1920s) up to several billion years in the future. lots of cool and strange ideas. the Hodgson book is about the world milions of years in the future after the sun has gone out and all is dark. consider it the follow-up to Vance's Dying Earth. a bit Lovecraftian in flavor.

• Gene Wolfe, the "Book of the New Sun" tetralogy; Shadow of the Torturer, Claw of the Conciliator, Sword of the Lictor, Citadel of the Autarch

also not strictly PA. about the world an untold amount of time in the future. there must've been some kind of apocalypse at some point, because the world of the book's time is very different from our own. some interesting beasties and techie gadgets. in a lot of ways, feels more like a fantasy world than anything else.

Here's some classics:

Andre Norton: Daybreak 2250 (which was originally titled Star Man's Son):
Not bad if I remember, I read it years ago

Robert Adams: The Horseclans series:
Milo the Undying in PA America.

Brian Aldiss: Starship:
This had to be the basis for the old TSR Metamorphosis Alpha game. PA decendents on a lost colony ship careening through space.

Fred Saberhagen: Empire of the East:
Magic, PA, good story - this has to be one of my favorites. Make sure you get the compiled book, I think it was originally published in three parts.

Some of these might be hard to find (out of print).

Another series worth checking out is one by Paul O. Williams. The name of the series escapes me at the moment, but there are 8 or 9 books in it. The titles I can remember off the top of my head are:
The Breaking of Northwall
The Fall of the Shell
The Dome in the Forest
Song of the Axe

These are set a couple of thousand years after the fall of modern civilization, in the Mississippi river valley. Mostly low-tech, but with occasional finds of pre-collapse science to make the setting something more than a future regression to feudalism. Some of my favorite PA-type stories.

Stephen King - The Dark Tower series.

This is quite possibly the best post-apocalyptic series ever written, though he mixes in a liberal amount of magic. The setting is almost Old west style, but then you have things like giant robotic bears and automated psychotic trains. There are also mutants, future tech, and lots and lots of grit. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.

I recomend the Computer Role Playing Games <b>Fallout</b> and <b>Fallout 2</b>. Gritty but still fantastical. VERY Retro and VERY fun. They can be found togeather online for like $10 or less.

Psyckosama said:

I recomend the Computer Role Playing Games <b>Fallout</b> and <b>Fallout 2</b>. Gritty but still fantastical. VERY Retro and VERY fun. They can be found togeather online for like $10 or less.

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I agree. Fallout is extremely good. It stands up today, despite its non-GeForce'd graphics.

Not to derail, but Thundarr the Barbarian!!??!! Good call! Can you get those anywhere? In the back of my mind, I've had this growing hankerin' to watch those again, but I've decided it's fairly hopeless to try and find them.

Joshua Dyal said:

Not to derail, but Thundarr the Barbarian!!??!! Good call! Can you get those anywhere? In the back of my mind, I've had this growing hankerin' to watch those again, but I've decided it's fairly hopeless to try and find them.

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I bought a bootleg DVD set of the entire series on ebay for about $50. I love it.

Baraendur said:

Stephen King - The Dark Tower series.

This is quite possibly the best post-apocalyptic series ever written, though he mixes in a liberal amount of magic. The setting is almost Old west style, but then you have things like giant robotic bears and automated psychotic trains. There are also mutants, future tech, and lots and lots of grit. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.

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I strongly agree. I have eagerly gobbled up each novel in the series as it comes out.