I have an even earlier precursor, John Varley's _The Opiuchi Hotline_ and _The persistence of Vision_. Again it's a tale of strange posthumans doing strange things in space. Not a whole lot of AI though.

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Of course, you do mention THE LAST MAN--why dismiss it as not starting the sub-genre; clearly it did. But if you're going to skip over that and fast-forward to the post-atomic era, then clearly EARTH ABIDES is the choice for the "genre-launcher," though there are probably other (more minor) works that precede EARTH ABIDES but were published after the atomic bomb.

Other books that came before ON THE BEACH:

There's also THE LONG TOMORROW by Leigh Brackett (1955); NO BLADE OF GRASS (A/K/A THE DEATH OF GRASS) by John Christopher (1956); AFTER LONDON by Richard Jefferies (1886). I could go on.

If you'd looked in the back of WASTELANDS, you had a perfect research cheat-sheet right there. I didn't list pub dates in it, but it's a pretty comprehensive list of post-apocalyptic literature.

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Think as well you need to include a category for Gay SF, I would nominate Delaney with Dhalgren.

Also, generally sex with aliens: although it was explored a little bit in Ringworld and elsewhere, I think Tanith Lee really did her best to own that genre...

Finally, SF as newtonian astrophysics tutorial and SF as modern physics tutorial: Arthur C. Clarke and Neal Stephenson respectively.

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