Book picks similar to
Distant Suns by Patricia Smith


reviewing
scifi
d20-modern
dystopian-future

Season Of The Harvest


Michael R. Hicks - 2011
    The group’s leader, Naomi Perrault, is a beautiful geneticist who Jack believes conspired to kill his friend, and is claiming that a major international conglomerate developing genetically engineered crops is plotting a sinister transformation of our world that will lead humanity to extinction. As Jack is drawn into a quietly raging war that suddenly explodes onto the front pages of the news, he discovers that her claims may not be so outrageous after all. Together, the two of them must battle a horror Jack could never have imagined, with the fate of all life on Earth hanging in the balance…

Probability Chain


Regan Keeter - 2013
    - Out of Print -

The Beholder


Ivan Amberlake - 2013
    Each has a sign. Each is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. A NYC interior designer Jason Walker receives a message saying he is the final piece.Emily Ethan, a startling beauty with supernatural powers, appears and tells Jason that powers dormant within him are about to wake. He is the only person who can prevent darkness from enslaving the world. He is the Beholder whose advent has been awaited for many years.Setting out on a journey with Emily, Jason discovers the world he could have never imagined, but the greatest surprise arrives the moment he realizes he has fallen in love with Emily.

Cage of Souls


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2019
    Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, surviving on the debris of its long-dead progenitors, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new, is Stefan Advani, rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will treat with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

The Heap


Sean Adams - 2020
    Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap. In exchange for digging gear, a rehabilitated bicycle, and a small living stipend, a vast community of Dig Hands removes debris, trash, and bodies from the building’s mountainous remains, which span twenty acres of unincorporated desert land.Orville Anders burrows into the bowels of the Heap to find his brother Bernard, the beloved radio DJ of Los Verticalés, who is alive and miraculously broadcasting somewhere under the massive rubble. For months, Orville has lived in a sea of campers that surrounds the Heap, working tirelessly to free Bernard—the only known survivor of the imploded city—whom he speaks to every evening, calling into his radio show.The brothers’ conversations are a ratings bonanza, and the station’s parent company, Sundial Media, wants to boost its profits by having Orville slyly drop brand names into his nightly talks with Bernard. When Orville refuses, his access to Bernard is suddenly cut off, but strangely, he continues to hear his own voice over the airwaves, casually shilling products as “he” converses with Bernard.What follows is an imaginative and darkly hilarious story of conspiracy, revenge, and the strange life and death of Los Verticalés that both captures the wonderful weirdness of community and the bonds that tie us together.

The Last City of America


Matthew Tysz - 2013
    The United States became the Seven Cities of America.Chicago, cut off from the other cities, ruled in darkness, is home to the scientist who created the virus. Hateful of humanity, hateful of himself, the dying scientist passes his knowledge on to his apprentice, who he believes will use it to damn all life to everlasting misery.The apprentice, Harold, his own past stained with unforgivable acts, does not share his master's hatred. But he wants this knowledge, and would shamelessly kill innocents to get it. But to what end, he struggles to realize--- all the while wondering if humanity, worthless as it seems, deserves compassion more than he deserves omniscience.As Harold struggles with his future and his identity, Chicago's ruler, the host, learns of the knowledge he has. Harold is has to flee his home.The host, Grakus, is on a journey of his own--- to prove that humanity should never have existed, to guide it to its destiny of self-destruction. He will not allow the apprentice to thwart his delicate plan to do so.But the apprentice will not allow the host to steal his decision before he's had the chance to make it.The Last City of America is a character-driven epic touching every corner of America, exposing every level of its beauty. The individual emulates humanity, and humanity's faults are written in the individual. The two walk with one another into the final decision. Cities fall one-by-one to man's ignorance. The world is ending. This time forever. Two hands reach out to save it: good and evil.This is the story of how we will be remembered.

20 Years Later


Emma Newman - 2011
    A place where laws are made and enforced by roving gangs—the Bloomsbury Boys, the Gardners, the Red Lady’s Gang—who rule the streets and will do anything to protect their own.THE FOUR: Zane, Titus, Erin, Eve. Living in this new world, they discover that they have abilities never before seen. And little do they know that as they search post-apocalyptic London for Titus’ kidnapped sister that they’ll uncover the secret of It, and bring about a reckoning with the forces that almost destroyed all of humanity.

Kahayatle


Elle Casey - 2012
    My name is Bryn Mathis. I'm seventeen years old, and I live in a neighborhood outside of Orlando, Florida. I’m here alone because my dad died almost a year ago, along with all the other adults in the world. I'm almost out of food, and the gangs of kids that roam around my town are getting more vicious by the day. It's time for me to leave and find another place to live ... a place where I can find food and shelter ... a place where they won't be able to find me. Alone, it might have been possible, but now I've got company. I'm worried that I don't have what it takes to get from here to my final destination, and I have no idea what might be waiting for me when I get there.

The Sunlight Pilgrims


Jenni Fagan - 2016
    There's snow in Israel; the Thames is overflowing; and an iceberg separated from the Fjords in Norway is expected to drift just off the coast of Scotland. As ice water melts into the Atlantic, frenzied London residents evacuate by the thousands for warmer temperatures down south--but not Dylan. Grieving and ready to build life anew, he heads north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands where they once lived. Hundreds of miles away, twelve-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, scrape by in the snowy, mountainous Highlands, preparing for a record-breaking winter. Living out of a caravan, they spend their days digging through landfills, searching for anything with restorative and trading value. When Dylan arrives in their caravan park in the middle of the night, life changes course for Estella and Constance. Though the weather worsens, his presence brings a new light to daily life, and when the ultimate disaster finally strikes, they'll all be ready. The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature's most violent hour. It's by turns an homage to the portentous beauty of our natural world, and to just how strong we can be, if the will and the hope is there, to survive its worst.

High Strangeness


Eric Bickernicks - 2018
     Ken Wakeman, a skeptical UFOlogist who seeks the truth about paranormal phenomenon, struggles to discredit the myriad of crackpot theories out there. Melissa "Mel" Howard, a reporter for a small Cape Cod newspaper, copes with the seasonal tourist invasion and its accompanying anxieties. When the Cape becomes the national focus over a rash of UFO sights, they join forces to get to the bottom of it. Despite denials from town officials and the military that UFOs have landed, mass hysteria overcomes the seaside community. In addition to the frantic humans, Astro (Ken’s Golden Retriever) has also been acting strangely. Joining the invasion is Klick, the promiscuous leader of a spandex-clad UFO cult whose members want to “amalgamate” with the Fornacisians when their spaceship lands. Mel learns that when dealing with wing nuts, the truth isn’t necessarily “out there”. Tom Frasier, an infamous proponent of crashed saucers and frozen alien bodies, claims the local military base houses some intriguing secrets. After a visit from the FBI gives legitimacy to Tom’s story, Ken will ultimately decide how far he’s willing to go to witness humanity’s greatest close encounter.

Emerge


Heather Sunseri - 2015
    The only person to contract the virus and survive, Cricket fled her identity and the safety of New Caelum, an airtight city. Now eighteen, she watches the city where the wealthy cocooned from the devastating outbreak. When the city's rumbling incinerator wakes her one night while she and her friends are camping just beyond the city walls, she alone knows what the fiery machine means: the lethal virus is back. Only eighteen, Westlin Layne is already being groomed to succeed his mother as New Caelum's next president. Suddenly West's sister develops symptoms of the deadly virus thought to be eradicated years ago. Placed under quarantine, the president confesses to West a long-held secret: Christina Black, West's childhood friend and first love, survived the virus, and her body alone holds the precious antibodies to save his sister. Now West must leave the city to find Christina. But Cricket has no intention of being found.

The Gone-Away World


Nick Harkaway - 2008
    Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out, but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings.

Shelter


Sarah Jaune - 2015
    No one was, although Mia and her fifteen-month-old sister had a slight advantage: their father, a hardcore doomsday prepper, left them a safe haven to help them survive their new reality. Andrew Greene is Mia's childhood friend. On track to graduate college at nineteen years old, his sharp mind gives him an edge against the competition. How will the trio survive the harsh winters of Pennsylvania? How will they survive attacks from hungry wildlife? What will they do when faced with perhaps their greatest danger: the other survivors? Can they live in this new world? Or will their Shelter turn into their tomb?

Glory Main


Henry V. O'Neil - 2012
    Both sides battle for control of habitable planets across the galaxy—often at any cost.Lieutenant Jander Mortas is fresh out of officer training and new to the war zone, but eager to prove himself. There's just one problem: disaster strikes while he's traveling to his first assignment. He wakes to find himself marooned on what appears to be a deserted planet, with only three other survivors: a psychoanalyst, a conscientious objector, and a bitter veteran of a brutal slave-scout detachment. As the group struggles to reach safety on a nearby base, Glory Main, they discover a Sim colony—which could mean their salvation, or their demise.Thrown together, they must fight the harsh elements, an ever-present enemy, and possibly each other.

Awakening


K.M. Fortune - 2017
    A woman awakens from the past. She is the key to restoring humanity, except not everyone believes humans are worth saving. Raven Winter lives a normal everyday life. Until one day, while on vacation, she is involved in an accident which freezes her in time. A century later, her body is found by a scientist on an expedition searching for the key to humanity’s survival. Hoping Raven’s body was frozen before the plague and the nuclear wars which followed it, he revives her. Now Raven, confused and suffering amnesia, is in a world completely alien to her own. All she knows is nothing is as it seems in the underground colony where she is a prisoner. Only one thing is clear. The residents have revived her for a single reason – to take her possibly fertile eggs.Matthew, a lead scientist in the colony, is shocked when his specimen awakens. Thinking she would remain in a coma forever, he finds himself enthralled by the beauty and intelligence of the woman from the ice. Before long he is faced with a horrible decision – to harvest her or give up all he has ever known to set her free.Awakening is the beginning of an epic post-apocalyptic story written in the serial novel format. If you like a quick read filled with intrigue and adventure, mixed with conflict and heroism, then you will love KM Fortune’s new page-turning book. Buy a copy now to explore the world of “The Forever Winter Chronicles” today and begin an unforgettable journey with book one Awakening.