Dear Apocalypse Books in Order

Dear Apocalypse is one of Hugh Howey’s newest experiments, built in collaboration with writer and artist Elinor Taylor. Instead of a traditional prose novel, these books lean on visuals, found documents, and the tactile feel of postcards and handwritten notes.

The first volume, The Balloon Hunter, drops readers into a ruined world smothered in fog. A wary survivor follows simple rules that have kept them alive—chief among them, shoot anything strange—until a drifting balloon appears overhead. When the shot balloon falls with a message attached, it sparks an obsession with the stranger who sent it.

Postcards become lifelines, and a scavenger hunt turns into a love letter to stubborn hope.

The sequel, Death to Anyone Who Reads This, keeps the same playful, ominous tone while widening the lens on the broken world behind the correspondence. The books mix bleak landscapes with intimate, often funny remarks scribbled in the margins, inviting you to piece together how much danger the characters are really in and what they’re willing to risk to find each other.

On the page, that means unusual layouts, layered handwriting, stamps, and doodles—objects that feel like they’ve survived an end‑of‑the‑world mail system. On the story level, it means small human connections cutting through the usual noise of post‑apocalyptic fiction.

This series background gathers those threads: how the project was put together, how the two creators split the work, and where these books sit alongside Howey’s more traditional novels. If you enjoy fiction that plays with form as well as plot, Dear Apocalypse is worth a closer look.