The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Apocalypse: Expert Advice for Doomsday Situations

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Apocalypse: Expert Advice for Doomsday Situations by David Borgenicht amd Joshua Piven

How would you handle the collapse of civilization. At first, the book purports to offer "survivalist" advice on gathering supplies. It gets more extreme as it discusses hoarding gold and building a hidden bunker. Then it goes off the deep end and turns pure comical. There are discussions of surviving widespread destruction from zombies, dinosaurs and aliens among others. This was probably more fun to write than it is to read.

Hatchet

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

A boy is on a bush flight to visit family in the Canadian wilderness when the pilot has a medical emergency. The boy tries to radio for help. However, the signal is not strong and they only make erratic communication. Eventually, the plane crashes and only the boy survives. He initially hopes to be rescued and dreams of burgers. Then he starts to struggle with the resources he has. (The hatched is one important tool.) He is able to survive until he is finally rescued. It is a familiar survival story told fairly well.

The Mosquito Coast

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux

Dad is upset with society. He feels America is falling apart. There is too much materialism and too much control from external forces. He is also an inventor and a tinkerer. He feels he is not respected. 

He decides to take his family via boat to the middle of nowhere in Honduras. On the boat, he is remote, criticizing others. He also encourages his kid to do dangerous activities. Nobody seems to like him. However, he understands what is causing problems with the ship and offers to help fix it.

Once in Honduras, he buys a remote location from a German who was unable to succeed in business there. He tinkers and creates ice making machine and sends icebergs down the river. He refuses to use "natural" bug repellant, but works on various inventions. Most of the people abonden the village. Later three guys come to threaten them. They get locked in the ice maker, and shoot their guns, causing it to explode. This results in the death of the three as well as pollution in the river.

They move further out to more remote locations. Dad is convinced that the United States has been destroyed. He is upset that he keeps finding "civilization" and the missionaries that bring it. He eventually suffers his own demise.

The book is told from the point of view of the son. Dad seems quite stubbornly crazy, yet his family still respects him and goes along with his plans. The book is long and moves at a slow pace.

I Am Still Alive

A girl is still alive after her family has all died. The novel moves backward and forward in time to gradually unravel the tale. She had grown up mostly with her mother. They were in a car accident that killed her mother and injured her. After some time in foster care, she made it out to her father in what she thought was Alaska. Only it turns out he was living off the land in a rural part of Canada. She agrees to stay for a season there. However, some bad guys fly in, murder her dad and burn down the cabin. This leaves her in full survivalist mode. She barely makes it through nature with the help of a dog. Then she has to battle the bad guys as they return. It turns out they are the "bad actors" of some survivalist organization. The story starts out fairly believable, but does seem to ramp the action up a little bit beyond plausibility.

The Martian

A Martian storm requires a space crew to rapidly depart. One astronaut was injured and his vital signs show that he is dead. Following policy, they leave him there. Alas, he is still alive and must now fend for himself on Mars. 

He uses his skill and training to survive on Mars. He is a trained botanist, and uses his skill to create a Martian greenhouse. He ransacks the available supplies and equipment to help ensure his survival. Mission control on earth eventually discovers that he is alive by through evidence in satellite imagery. He even finds ways to initiate two-way communication via some other equipment that is left.

The entire earth becomes captivated by his fate and the quest to bring him home. (Though they wait some time to alert the other astronauts.) Many people work hard to help bring him back. At times, he tires from the attention. While the narrator has plenty of obscene words to describe his situation, he seems to be generally upbeat regardless of the circumstances. There are a number of different challenges and a few false starts, but the story eventually reaches a satisfying conclusion. 

Alas, Babylon

This reminded me a lot of One Second After. (Only this one was written a few decades earlier.) They both center around some southerners who have some survivalist mentality. A big event happens that rips away modern technology, and the people manage to create a society. They are the "good guys" who hole up in their semi-rural community, while the city dwellers resort to becoming savage marauders.

In Alas, Babylon, the catastrophe is a nuclear war. Russia uses submarines to launch nukes at most major US cities and military sites. The US managed to launch a retaliatory force that wiped out much of Russia. In the end, the US won, but in the process, life was severely disrupted for most everybody. Even "survivalists" who had been prepared, merely found themselves the greater targets. Humans may attack with guns, but dogs and other animals could also become dangers. Some people don't even get that far. They see the "meaning" of their life ripped apart by the changes, and manage to end it rather than try to adapt.

Makes you wonder if this is what happened to some ancient civilizations that were only encountered in later stages. Perhaps the Australian Aborigines or American Indians had a civilization much more advanced than us today, but managed to wipe most of it out before the Europeans came around. The "survivalists" that were left reverted to the primitive ways of life.