Malevil

John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1974)

If you are a fan of the post apocolypse genre, then you will appreciate this gem of a book. It is difficult to find, but it is well worth perservering with a search. The title of the book refers to an old castle in rural France, and which is owned by our hero, the narrator of the story. By a happy coincidence of ancient stone and being sheltered by a cliff, a small community survives the aftermath of a "clean" bomb by sheltering within its walls. At first the community is obsessed with the everyday challenges of life - what to eat, drink, will there be fallout? But as the novel progresses, and we learn of other survivors, it begins to look at the very nature of human behaviour when stripped of the facade of civilization