What is Your Appendix N?

[Malcadon]

So what motivates your Mutant Future and/or Gamma World game?

I generally avoid the gritty Mad Max stuff in-favor of the weird and the exotic - plus some gratuitous kinky stuff. For my games, I like to find strange and interesting mutants and aliens, retro-styled technology, some steam-punk, worlds subject to cold war era styled nuclear apocalypse or social-decay. Social commentaries are quite common with post-apocalyptic fiction, so I put then in for traditional or comedic reasons (mostly comedic).

Books:
Armageddon 2419 A.D. - Philip Francis Nowlan
Barsoom saga - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Colours Out of Space - H.P. Lovecraft
The Lost Content (aka Beyond Thirty) - Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Last American - John Ames Mitchell
Orphans of the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein
Red Shadows, Slithering Shadows, etc. (anything with the strange green-stone cities found in the Conan yarns) - Robert E. Howard

Comic Books/Manga:
Axa
Comic book anthologies (Heavy Metal, 1984 (Warren), Epic, Witzend, etc. - these are mixed-bags of stories and genres)
Kamandi
The Last Generation
Magnus Robot Fighter
Mighty Samson
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
The Savage Land
Warlord

Shows:
Highlander TAS
Thundarr the Barbarian

Movies:
Barbarella
Damnation Ally
Gandahar (aka Light Years)
Heavy Metal (Den and Taarna segments)
La Planète Sauvage (aka Fantastic Planet)
Logan's Run
The Omega Man
Sleeper
Westword/Futureworld
Zardoz

Update: added Woody Allen's 1973 film Sleeper. (It should be known that the "Pleasure Orb" also appeared in the 1st ed Gamma World treasure list - that list was full of easter eggs)

[Dungeoneer]

That's a pretty comprehensive list!

However, you forgot a couple:

Movies:
She (a post-apoc flick supposedly inspired by H.R.Haggard's novel, AND starring Sandahl Bergman from Conan/Red Sonja)
Warrior of the Lost World (saw it on MST3k)
A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell
Badlanders
Land of Doom

Short Stories
The Fall of Fawk Toraum (ok, I'm cheating here, it's a short story that I wrote, but it was inspired by my conceptions of Gamma World before I actually got to look at the game!)

[gentleman john]

I will most definitely second Nymphoid Barbarian! I would also like to add to the list:

Books
A Canticle for Leibowitz

Manga
Fist of the North Star
Space Adventure Cobra

Shows
Scrapheap Challenge (the original British TV version, with Robert Llewellyn doing his mad post-apocalyptic warlord schtick)

Movies
Rock and Rule
Wizards

[Adapt]

I would add:

Books
"The Change" series by SM Stirling (Dies The Fire, The Sunrise Lands, etc.)
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
"Planet of the Apes" by Pierre Boulle
"Logan's Run" by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
"The Stand" by Stephen King
"Cell" by Stephen King
"The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King (Dark Tower, Gunslinger, etc.)
"I am Legend" by Richard Matheson
"The Postman" by David Brin
"Battlefield Earth" L. Ron Hubbard
"Far North" by Marcel Theroux
"The Chrysalids" (aka "Re-Birth") by John Wyndham

Movies
Last Man on Earth
Book of Eli
Planet of the Apes
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
The Postman
Children of Men

[ancarr13]

You guys had me at MST3K but I cant think of anything not already sad on this thread

[Malcadon]

There is nothing wrong with re-posting stuff. Not everyone might like everything that was listed. This is about showing off your own list, not to build a common list.

[finarvyn]

Armageddon 2419 A.D. - Philip Francis Nowlan
Barsoom saga - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Orphans of the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein
Red Shadows, Slithering Shadows, etc. (anything with the strange green-stone cities found in the Conan yarns) - Robert E. Howard

The above would be high on my list.

Add to this the Metamorphosis Alpha RPG (pre-GW) and Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss (the inspiration for Metamorphosis Alpha).

[JDJarvis]

as many above plus:

Hiero's Journey and The Unforsaken Hiero by Sterling E. Lanier
Death Lands series from Gold Eagle
Endworld series by David Robbins
Outlanders series by James Axler
Earth Abides

[Will Mistretta]

Gotta give some credit to A Boy and His Dog and Six-String Samurai.