I love a good adventure. I love the stories about epic destinies and quests, of those happy few standing against all odds in the face of pure evil and then going home to live in the new world that they have wrought. But sometimes I wonder: What happens next?
Perhaps it’s the fanficcer in me, but I am always curious about how our heroes live on in this world that they have fixed. It’s not like every problem would disappear, after all, and as has been said: We need to handle our financial situation. I love the idea of The After, and I love reading books that examine how these new worlds are stabilized after the foundations are laid.
An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet
Leah Bobet writes beautiful books, so when she told me she was writing a post-quest story about what happens after the Wicked God is dealt with, I was all in. Her examination of the scars we bring with us into new places, and her unpacking of each trauma, whether it’s the ones who fought or the ones who stayed to farm or the ones who push the science of why, is absolutely gorgeous and real. Effortlessly balancing the cosmic and the personal, An Inheritance of Ashes unfolds like a riddle with healing at the centre.
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An Inheritance of Ashes
The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson
Carson’s Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy turns several things on their heads at the end of book one, and by the time we get to the third installment, the characters are kingdom-building to save themselves and everyone else. Decrees are made, but they’re a little difficult to enforce while on a road trip, and I loved how Elisa (the main character), used her divine influence to get what she wanted—even if her divine influence had a different plan. (I love a girl who takes every advantage she can get and plays on people’s expectations of her!) Carson doesn’t finish the whole story, because that’s not how fiction works, but we get to see so much of Elisa’s efforts towards peace making, and that’s an absolute delight.
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The Bitter Kingdom
The Inquisitor’s Apprentice by Chris Moriarty
(Let me begin by saying what I always say about this book: It has the best magical system and world-building I have ever come across.)
Anyway! So Sasha is born into a New York that doesn’t love him. Magic has lost. J.P. Morgaunt has made his millions and cut magic off from the working class, and Thomas Edison is trying to invent machines that will replace magic entirely. The Pentacle Shirtwaist fire looms. And Sasha can see every bit of the magic that clings to the city. The Inquisitor’s Apprentice is a brilliant examination of faith and privilege and family and deciding when you’re 12 to make a better world because the grown-ups are wrong.
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The Inquisitor’s Apprentice
Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas
I love everything about this book. Introverted science nerd becomes incredibly reluctant Queen? Check. Political machinations to make Josh Lyman blush? Check. GIRLS WHO ARE FRIENDS WITH GIRLS??? Check. Rebuilding a kingdom is hard enough when you’ve been raised to rule, and Freya was twenty-third in line for the throne. With almost everyone dead and all of the survivors (including herself) prime suspects, Freya has to be entirely self-reliant and deal with everything from her anxiety to her father to the fact that her kingdom is on the brink.
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Long May She Reign
The Swan Riders by Erin Bow
So imagine you’re an AI and you’ve taken over the world. You hold hostages around the globe to ensure everyone’s good behaviour, and you have a host of devotees called Swan Riders who cure diseases and build desalination plants and occasionally host you in their bodies if you need to make a physical appearance for some reason (like executing a rebellious general via cider press). Imagine the world is pretty good, only you have lost touch with it. Except you’re not wrong. You can’t be. It is literally impossible. Oh, and there’s a new AI, and she thinks your Riders may be on to something. You made a perfect world. And now you have to deal with the consequences.
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The Swan Riders
E. K. Johnston is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several YA novels, including the L.A. Time Book Prize finalist The Story of Owen and Star Wars: Ahsoka. Her novel A Thousand Nights was shortlisted for The Governor General’s Award. The New York Times called The Story of Owen “a clever first step in the career of a novelist who, like her troubadour heroine, has many more songs to sing” and in its review of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, The Globe & Mail called Johnston “the Meryl Streep of YA,” with “limitless range.” E. K. Johnston lives in Stratford, Ontario. Follow her on Twitter at @ek_johnston.
Ha, I came in to comment on Bitter Kingdom (which I have read) but because I thought it was Bitterblue – another book that fits this description that I really like. Bitter Kingdom was solid. But Bitterblue is an intriguing story that deals with the aftermath of a climactic previous story.
Seanan McGuire’s Newsflesh series is a zombie book, but it is NOT about the zombie apocalypse, it is about politics and blogging in a world twenty years AFTER the zombie apocalypse. The first book is Feed, do not google it at all or you will be spoiled for a MAJOR twist that is worth waiting for. And yelling about afterward.
I would also add Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. But I won’t say why because of major spoilers. If you know what happened at the tail end of Part 17 of the Revival. You know why the Final Dossier is important to digest the Tail end of Part 17 of Season 3.
Miles Vorkosigan’s entire life is made possible by the world-changing shenanigans his parents got up to in Barrayar.
And there’s always The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin’s classic take on after-the-revolution.
Nick Harkaway’s “The Gone-Away World”. I will not post spoilers. Just read the damned thing. You won’t regret it.
For a more personal story, Jo Walton’s Among Others is about a former chosen one who saved the world and paid a terrible price. But now that its over she has to deal with being a teenage girl, loss, disability, and living with a family she never knew. Its also about the power of fandom to bring people together.
Don’t forget Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It does deal with life after world changing events and leads to even more.
Zelazny’s Forever After (https://web.archive.org/web/20160329092635/http://www.iblist.com/book4216.htm) in which the war on evil has been won… but a bunch of magical artifacts need to be disposed of. He invited a bunch of other authors, including David Drake into this one, which is how I found it.
Villains By Necessity by Eve Forward: In a fantasy land where good won decades ago, villains team up to bring back balance.
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemison starts at the apocalypse and looks both at how people survive in the immediate aftermath and work to rebuild the world again.
The second book of the Insiders Duology by Maria V. Snyder also looks at a post-revolution world for a YA audience.
One of my favorites in this subgenre is Sean Stewart’s “Clouds End.” The world he built is fascinating. And weird, because Sean Stewart.
For this category you need to include Carrie Vaughn’s series Tha Bannerless Saga. The reader travels to the future, after a world disaster and the people left have established ways to not only survive, but continue “living”
Commenters whitespine and BrendaA took the words right out of my mouth. Bitterblue is a book that destroyed me and left me sobbing on more than one occasion which is decidedly NOT my norm. (Normally I’m a bit of a stoic.) Thankfully the read was cathartic and the tears were not always a bad thing. Gorgeous book.
In a similar vein to the Newsflesh recommendation (written under McGuire’s penname Mira Grant), i’d recommend her Wayward Children books. These almost fit the theme better, since the Home for Wayward Children referenced in the title is a home established for children who have come back from fantasy worlds and can’t adjust to normal life anymore. It’s beautiful and thought provoking and well worth reading. Honestly, a lot of McGuire’s writing deals with the AFTER (for example that lovely twist in the first few pages of Rosemary and Rue). Love her stuff.
Well, it’s rare to read an article on here where I haven’t read any of the books in said writings, but this time there are two such h articles. Guess I need to catch up on my reading.