Left Behind Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Road

Set after an unspecified event that seems to have wiped out most of the world, "The Road" is perhaps Cormac McCarthy's bleakest work as it follows a father and son, really only referred to as 'the man' and 'the boy' as they try to travel south to survive the coming winter.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and saw major success after being picked as an Oprah Winfrey's Book Club choice. It was adapted for the screen in 2009 with Viggo Mortensen in the lead role.

Answer: The Stand

"The Stand", King's fourth novel and one of his longest, is considered by many fans of his works to be a true classic. The novel starts with a Superflu nicknamed 'Captain Tripps' which wipes out the vast majority of the planet. Survivors manage to unite in Colorado and the remainder of the book turns out to follow a massive battle between the forces of good and evil (the latter personified in a figure named Randall Flagg, who returns in King's "Dark Tower" series).

Answer: Borne

Hitting shelves in 2017, "Borne" featured many concerns with the future explored in Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy, but from a much more personal point of view. In "Borne", a woman named Rachel plucks a weird creature from the side of Mord, a colossal bear, and it turns out to have a mind of its own.

She lets it live with her and learn from her mannerisms and determines that it may not have been her best decision.

Answer: Station Eleven

The book briefly looks at the early days of the 'Georgia Flu' pandemic, but soon moves into the lives of some of the survivors of the event who, traveling around performing Shakespeare's classics, try to survive twenty years past the point. As the main characters recall what brought them to that point, they try to look forward at the potential of a future.

Despite author Mandel's insistence that her book was not a science fiction novel, it won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015.

Answer: The Passage

Although the first quarter of "The Passage" looked at the unleashing of a contagious virus spread through vampires (that may have been found in the jungles of South America), the novel soon jumped more than ninety years into the future, at which point billions had been killed or, otherwise, turned into the infected.

A small colony of under a hundred people, now considering this world to be their new way of life, ended up stumbling upon a little girl who was around at the time of the pandemic. "The Passage", released in 2010, was followed by "The Twelve" and "The City of Mirrors" and spanned many more centuries of story.

Answer: I Am Legend

'I Am Legend" seemed to transcend its own time since it was repeatedly adapted after its release in 1954 as Matheson's first novel. Following a man named Robert Neville, the sole survivor of a deadly vampire pandemic due to an immunity, it tracks his mental state as he hypothesizes a cure. Things appear to change when Neville finds another person in the city with him, but not all is as it seems. Perhaps the most famous adaptation featured Will Smith and showed up in theatres in 2007.

Answer: Oryx and Crake

Snowman is an interesting character since his role in the book seems to run parallel to the title characters, nicknamed Oryx and Crake, and while he doesn't seem to have their smarts, he outlasts many as genetically-engineered creatures and deliberately-spread diseases (hidden in BlyssPluss pills) take over as dominant life-forms on Earth. "Oryx and Crake" was followed by "The Year of the Flood" and "MaddAddam" in Atwood's trilogy.

Answer: Bird Box

Malerman's debut novel chronicled the events that transpired when some unknowable force started driving people mad upon first glance. As the world's population began to dwindle, the few who kept their eyes closed ended up being the only ones to survive.

The main character strives to protect herself and her two children as they make an attempt to leave their home, blindfolded, and navigate a river for a chance at freedom that don't even know exists. The book was adapted into a film starring Sandra Bullock in 2018 and released on Netflix.

Answer: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Written by Walter M. Miller Jr., "A Canticle for Leibowitz" is among a series of mid-century sci-fi novels to have a lasting influence over the decades, particularly because of its obvious Cold War influences. The story follows an order of Monks in the Southwest U.S. who reside there after a nuclear apocalypse.

The book is split into three parts, each about five hundred years apart, as the Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz cycles through history yet again.

Answer: Metro 2033

Originally written in Russian by Dmitry Glukhovsky in 2005, "Metro 2033" is likely best known for its association to the video game series of the same name, following survivors of nuclear war as they battle against each other and the creatures on the surface outside the Moscow Metro. Two sequels were written as well, both following the protagonist, Artyom, in successive years as he tried to survive amongst the last humans.