The Books That Inspired The Last Of Us (or Share The Post-Apocalyptic Feel)

With Season 2 just around the corner, The Last Of Us is bound to whet peoples’ appetites for post-apocalyptic fiction. Fortunately, the world of literature is packed full of ideas. Some of these books have directly influenced TLOU, while others simply exist in the same space.

The emotional weight and bleak beauty of The Last of Us didn’t appear from thin air. While the franchise, spanning critically acclaimed games and a hit TV adaptation, feels like a genre-defining achievement in its own right, it also draws deeply from a well of literary influences. 

The world of Joel and Ellie is shaped by more than post-apocalyptic survival tropes. It’s stitched together from human connection and moral ambiguity.

Here’s an in-depth look at the novels that either directly inspired the game and show or share the same thematic backbone. Each of these books helps explain where TLOU’s mood, tone, and character-driven storytelling came from—and how they continue to echo through every dusty road and ruined cityscape.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Few books loom as large over The Last of Us as McCarthy’s The Road. It’s arguably the single most direct influence. The author has even been credited with the birth of this genre of media!

The novel follows a father and son navigating a desolate, ash-covered world after an unspecified apocalypse. There’s no government safe haven, and barely any humanity left. The prose is stripped-down. It is short and haunting. There’s almost no punctuation. Dialogue is bare, but heavy with emotion.

That same raw intimacy defines the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Like the father in The Road, Joel is emotionally closed-off, weathered by grief and survival. Yet in both stories, love doesn’t just endure, it becomes a lifeline. Small, tender acts carry enormous weight against such a bleak backdrop.

Visually, the similarities are striking too. Both stories lean into minimal colour palettes with greys and soft blues. The landscapes feel empty and vast, yet constantly threatening. Whether trudging through the snow or scavenging in burned-out towns, the overgrown world of The Last of Us inherits its emotional gravity directly from McCarthy’s masterpiece.

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

Published in 1949, Earth Abides is one of the earliest serious works of post-apocalyptic fiction, and its influence on TLOU is subtle but significant and Neil Druckmann has acknowledged this to be the case. 

Throughout “The Suburbs” chapter of TLOU, there are notes left strewn around with references to “Ish”. This is a reference to the main character of Earth Abides, a survivor of a global pandemic, who watches civilization fade while nature reclaims the earth.

While The Road focuses on emotional connection, Earth Abides focuses on environmental transformation and cultural decay. Cities crumble but animals and plants thrive. That same idea pulses throughout TLOU with grass overtaking sidewalks and even that iconic scene with giraffes appearing in Pittsburgh. Civilization collapses, but the planet recovers.

Thematically, the novel questions whether civilization was ever as permanent or superior as we believed. Ish eventually mentors a new generation of semi-nomadic survivors who seem indifferent to rebuilding the old world. TLOU flirts with that idea through the Fireflies and Jackson community, contrasting those clinging to the past with those forging something new.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

Benioff’s novel, set in the frozen ruins of Leningrad during WWII, is a fast-paced character-driven survival story with a strong narrative voice. It follows two young men on an absurd quest to find a dozen eggs – an impossible task in a city under siege.

Neil Druckmann has mentioned City of Thieves as a key influence, especially in shaping the tone of Joel and Ellie’s relationship. The book balances gallows humor with dread and action with quiet reflection. Much like in TLOU, the journey is absurd and dangerous, but it’s the bond between the characters that appeals most.

The structure is also familiar: travel from one dangerous checkpoint to another, each filled with unique threats. And like Ellie, one character uses sarcasm and wit to defuse tension, while the other carries the burden of violence. It’s less about the destination, more about what’s shared on the journey. 

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Look at any list of classic science fiction and this will crop up. Matheson’s book has elements of fantasy and mythology as well as the same bleak feel of TLOU.

Published in 1954, I Am Legend was revolutionary in how it depicted a lone survivor in a world overrun by infected beings. The novel’s protagonist, Robert Neville, spends his days fortifying his home and hunting the infected. But over time, he realises he may no longer be the hero of his own story.

This narrative arc is echoed in Joel’s moral ambiguity. Matheson’s novel redefined what it meant to be monstrous and it’s not always the infected who are the villains. In TLOU, Joel is both protector and destroyer. Like Neville, he makes questionable choices out of love and fear, not evil.

Also, the infected in TLOU owe a narrative debt to Matheson’s vampiric creatures. They were once human and they still retain eerie human behaviors, adding emotional weight to every encounter. The journey of those who have been infected may well owe a lot to this inspiration.

Blindness by José Saramago

Blindness is a harrowing exploration of what happens when a society collapses from within. In this novel, a city is struck by an unexplained epidemic of “white blindness.” The government rounds up victims and isolates them in filthy camps, where law and order dissolve almost instantly.

The novel doesn’t offer easy answers or traditional heroes. Characters are often selfish and violent. Much like in TLOU, morality is fluid. Trust is dangerous. Survival means compromise.

Saramago’s novel also avoids proper names, reinforcing anonymity and loss of identity. While TLOU offers more character development, it still shares that tone of depersonalised cruelty. Many NPCs in the game are unnamed, their stories unknown, but their suffering is still deeply felt.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Less horror, more humanity. Station Eleven explores life after a flu pandemic, but it focuses on art and meaning. A troupe of actors and musicians travel between communities performing Shakespeare, believing that “survival is insufficient.”

Though it differs from TLOU’s brutal tone, Station Eleven shares its meditative undercurrent. Ellie’s love for comics and puns echoes the idea that people need beauty and expression even in ruin. Art is what makes survival feel human. Comics have even been used in both. Station Eleven is the name of a graphic novel discovered by the characters in this sci-fi.

Both stories also play with time in a way that makes events feel a little close to the bone, jumping between the pre- and post-collapse world to highlight what’s lost, and what’s still worth holding onto.

The Children of Men by P.D. James

This dystopian thriller imagines a future where humanity has become infertile. Without children, society stagnates. But when one woman becomes pregnant, everything changes.

If you have heard of P.D. James, it is likely for her detective novels. Her huge catalogue of work has fed British television execs for decades, so it was quite a departure when she dipped a toe into the world of post-apocalyptic sci-fi. 

Thematically, Children of Men speaks to Ellie’s symbolic role in TLOU. She’s not just a character; she’s hope incarnate. Her existence is what makes Joel’s final decision so morally complex. She represents possibility in a world where future generations are at risk of vanishing.

The tone is similarly bleak but threaded with flickers of hope. The narrative explores how systems of power exploit that hope and how ordinary people are caught in the struggle.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

An epic trilogy beginning with The Passage, this series follows the aftermath of a government experiment gone wrong, unleashing vampiric creatures across the U.S. A mysterious girl named Amy holds the key to survival.

Cronin’s world is larger in scale than TLOU but shares similar DNA: mutated infected beings, humanity on the edge, and a young protagonist who may offer salvation. The blend of emotional storytelling, sweeping settings, and tragic loss feels right at home alongside Joel and Ellie’s story.

Swan Song by Robert McCammon

This massive novel explores life in a post-nuclear America. Survivors grapple with supernatural forces and human cruelty, but at its core, Swan Song is about resilience.

Its protagonist, Swan, is a young girl with mysterious abilities. Her journey across the wasteland echoes Ellie’s own. Both girls experience trauma, carry heavy emotional burdens, and ultimately symbolize rebirth and healing.

The novel is grim, but it offers redemption and light—something TLOU balances in its own bittersweet way.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

A literary take on zombie fiction, Zone One follows a man known only as “Mark Spitz” who helps clear undead stragglers from Manhattan. But it’s less about action and more about psychological fallout.

Whitehead’s novel is introspective and packed with both trauma and existential malaise. The infected barely feel threatening, they’re background noise to a story about isolation and fractured identity. This matches the more contemplative moments in TLOU, where characters wrestle with guilt and meaning in a world in tatters.

Bonus Mentions

For the voracious readers out there, there are plenty of other novels that exist in the same sort of ball park as TLOU.

World War Z by Max Brooks

An oral history of a zombie apocalypse, exploring global responses to a pandemic. Though TLOU is more intimate, World War Z offers fascinating contrasts in how systems react to collapse. 

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

A post-apocalyptic novel focusing on grief, solitude, and connection. Much like TLOU Part II, it explores how people move on after loss and whether they ever really do.

The Stand by Stephen King

A supernatural pandemic tale with good versus evil stakes. It shares thematic ground with TLOU but leans heavier into allegory and mysticism.

Screen Adaptations

For those who are looking for something to watch, plenty of the above have screen adaptations. 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was adapted into a 2009 film starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The film captures the same bleakness of the novel, and its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic father-son bond strongly mirrors Joel and Ellie’s dynamic.

I Am Legend has had multiple screen versions, the most famous being the 2007 film starring Will Smith. While the movie takes a lot of creative liberties, it still retains the central idea of isolation in a world overrun by infected.

Children of Men was turned into a critically acclaimed 2006 film directed by Alfonso Cuarón, known for its gritty realism and powerful imagery. Though the story differs slightly, its core message of hope in a crumbling world remains intact.

Blindness was adapted into a 2008 film by director Fernando Meirelles. While the adaptation received mixed reviews, it stays true to the novel’s unsettling portrayal of societal collapse. There is also a television adaptation of Station Eleven, which was met with mixed reviews.

World War Z also became a blockbuster film in 2013, though it focuses more on action than the book’s oral history format.

Final Thoughts

What elevates The Last of Us beyond typical genre fare is its emotional depth and narrative richness. These books helped lay the groundwork. They informed the creators’ understanding of loss, love, survival, and humanity’s fragile tether to hope.

Whether through minimalist prose or sweeping post-apocalyptic landscapes, these stories reflect what makes TLOU resonate so deeply. They’re not just about the end of the world, they’re about what’s worth saving when everything else is gone.