Earth Abides: Difference between revisions

** As long as the can retains its integrity, canned goods can last more than a century (although their flavor and texture will leave something to be desired, they'll retain their nutrient content and remain safe to eat). And the leaded gasoline used in the 1940s had a much longer shelf-life than modern gasoline (although corrosion from the container it's held in will lead to contamination). The belts, seals, and tires in the vehicles Ish salvages...not so much. After about five years there should be nothing left driveable in this world even assuming the gasoline was usable.

* [[New Eden]]

* [[Only the Chosen May Wield]]: To his surprise, Ish's hammer ends becoming this.

* [[The Plague]]

* [[Slept Through the Apocalypse]]: The protagonist was hiking in the Rocky Mountains at the novel's opening, gets laid low by a rattlesnake bite, and returns to find the world has ended. The novel suggests that it was the snakebite itself that allowed Ish to survive the plague (while recovering from the bite, he suffers measle-like symptoms, and the plague is described as a kind of super-measles).

* [[Time Marches On]]: They name every year that passes, by the time the book ends it's into what would be the 1980's, not that anyone's keeping track.

* [[World Half Empty]]: what's left behind after the plague. Ish's Tribe, the only meaningful population center in what's left of San Francisco, consists of only a few dozen people (many of whom are his descendants) until decades after the Event when they merge with a similar group to the north.