Book picks similar to
American Exit Strategy by Mark Goodwin
post-apocalyptic
fiction
survival
apocalyptic
Fever
Deon Meyer - 2016
They are among the few in South Africa--and the world, as far as they know--to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country. Their world turned upside down, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father's protector, even though he is still only a boy.But Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is both a thinker and a leader, a wise and compassionate man with a vision for a new community that survivors will rebuild from the ruins. And so Amanzi is founded, drawing Storm's -homeless and tempest-tost---starting with Melinda Swanevelder, whom they rescued from brutal thugs; Hennie Flaai, with his vital Cessna plane; Beryl Fortuin, with her ragtag group of orphans; and Domingo, the man with the tattooed hand, whom Nico knows immediately is someone you want on your side. And then there is Sofia Bergman, the most beautiful girl that Nico has ever seen, who changes everything.So the community grows--and with each step forward, as resources increase, so do the challenges they must face--not just from the attacks of biker brigands, but also from within. As Nico undergoes an extraordinary rite of passage in this new world, he experiences hardship and heartbreak and has his loyalty tested to its limits. Looking back later in life, he recounts the events that led to the greatest rupture of all--the hunt for the murderer of the person he loves most.An exhilarating new standalone from the author of the internationally bestselling Benny Griessel thriller series, Fever is a gripping epic like nothing else Meyer has written before.
The Last Girl
Joe Hart - 2016
Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.
Joshua
John S. Wilson - 2012
He had to get away, from the rioting, the lawlessness, the killing. Away from the brutal gangs that ruled the highways. Then there was the boy that he found along the way, an orphan with no place to go. He couldn’t leave the child behind; that would be murder. Together they had to make their way across the razed landscape of post collapse America, west to where there was safety, a chance to begin again. If only they survived the journey.
Collapse
Richard Stephenson - 2012
With the American people deep in The Second Great Depression and two of the most powerful hurricanes on record to contend with, the United States is in no condition to deal with hidden terrorists on its soil, maniacal politicians, and the most formidable military threat the world has seen since the Third Reich. This is the story of three men from three very different walks of life: Howard Beck, the world's richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome; Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict; and Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned-out chief of police of a small Texas town. At first, they must overcome their own struggles and fight for their survival against impossible odds. In the end, the unlikely trio must band together to save their beloved country from COLLAPSE. Empires topple. Nations crumble. Civilization is fragile. In 2027, America will fall.
Wanderers
Chuck Wendig - 2019
She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
Enemies Foreign And Domestic
Matthew Bracken - 2003
A police marksman kills the sniper, a mentally unbalanced Desert Storm veteran holding a smoking assault rifle. It's an open and shut case, or so America is led to believe... In the aftermath of the stadium massacre, an outraged public demands an end to the threat posed by assault rifles, and Congress passes emergency legislation banning their private possession. American gun owners have one week to turn in their semi-automatic rifles, or face mandatory five year federal prison terms. Jimmy Shifflett, the alleged stadium sniper, is linked to a shadowy "gun club" in southeastern Virginia, which the FBI believes is a cover for a secret right wing militia terror group. Those who knew Shifflett the best don't believe he was a member of any militia, or that he was guilty of the horrific mass murder. But if he didn't fire the "assault rifle" into the stadium, who did, and why? A small band of Virginians, thrown together by fate, is forced to undertake a desperate odyssey through a minefield of government blackmail, official deception and covert death squads, to discover the truth behind the stadium massacre, and save their own lives.
The Journey Home
Jeff Motes - 2016
It has been revised to reflect a 1st person point of view for each chapter's main character. Take note of which character leads the chapter title. This will help make the flow of thoughts smooth. This is not a book on religion or religious ideology, however, two of the main characters are Christian. They pray often and acknowledge God's influence upon the events taking place. If you find praying, acknowledging God, or seeing Jesus' name used in a positive context offensive, then I suggest you do not read this book. These are strong characters, who I think many can relate to. I hope you enjoy the book. The Day The day was like any other day—until it became “The Day.” At 4:05 p.m. the United States was attacked with an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon. A 20 mega-ton nuclear warhead was detonated high in the atmosphere above Kansas, blanketing most of the contiguous United States and parts of Canada and Mexico with an electro-magnetic pulse that damaged nearly all microprocessors and electronic controls beyond repair. Nearly every system that depends on computers and electronics has ceased to work. The electrical grid goes down. The water system goes down. The sewer system goes down. The phone system goes down. The cellular system goes down. Cars stop. Tractors stop. Radio and TV stations go dark. The internet is no more. No more ambulance services. No more emergency services. No more government services. No more 911. In the twinkle of an eye America is sent back deep into the 19th century. Jill Barnes, a single mom, finds herself stranded on the side of Interstate 459 near Birmingham, Alabama. Jack Chance, a bank vice-president, is stranded on Interstate 85 near Montgomery, Alabama. John Carter, a contractor, finds himself stranded near Leeds, Alabama. Each must travel home to Clarke County in rural southwest Alabama. Follow them as they each make their decisions and journey home while the fabric of American society is torn asunder and criminals run amok. The story is exciting and enlightening, compelling and fast moving, infuriating and redemptive, heart-rending and heart-warming. Keep some tissue close to hand, just in case...
Before the Power was Gone
P.A. Glaspy - 2017
“My name is Anne Mathews. I'm a prepper. But I haven't always been. This is how it started.”
A Distant Eden
Lloyd Tackitt - 2012
Three hundred million Americans are suddenly faced with a survival situation. They have no water, electricity or fuel. Food rapidly disappears from the store shelves, not to be replaced. Only three percent will survive. Those three percent will have much in common. What does it take to be one of them?
The Last One
Alexandra Oliva - 2016
She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it human-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes. But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing. Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
After the Fall: Jason's Tale
David Nees - 2016
With no food deliveries, no vehicles working, society begins to unravel.Starvation and death begin to reign and panic leads to violence. Marauding gangs roam the countryside, stealing, killing or worse and cities begin to wall themselves off from the danger outside.As society breaks down, Jason heads to the Appalachian Mountains to avoid the growing anarchy, hoping to wait out the chaos. The gangs threaten but loneliness becomes his biggest enemy as the solitude envelopes him.In a secluded mountain valley he finds a woman, Anne, and her two daughters struggling to survive. They are near starvation when Jason shows up.Violence soon follows him. Survival will mean fighting...and killing. The power hasn't returned, the country is still shattered and Jason and Anne must struggle for a new life in a dangerous world.If you like "One Second After" and other survival/post-apocalyptic stories, you will enjoy this personal story of trying to survive and thrive after an EMP attack.
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?
EMP
Orion Enzo Gaudio - 2014
Things get unimaginably worse when two nuclear devices are detonated in the atmosphere over the United States. The country is torn to pieces and only the strong can put it back together again.Nick is stuck in traffic on his way to work in Denver. General Sutherland is on his way to Ft. Drum for a routine inspection. Sandra is sitting on her porch and drinking her morning tea.
The United States of America is about to change forever.
Outland
Dennis E. Taylor - 2015
"When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Richard and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. They go panning for gold and become millionaires overnight, while fantasizing about Nobel Prizes and patents. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts on Earth in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet. Richard and his friends have less than an afternoon to get as many people as possible across to Outland before Nebraska is covered in a lethal cloud of ash. Now Richard finds himself in charge of a disorganized and frightened band of reluctant pioneers, on a world with none of the modern infrastructure that people have come to depend on. Richard has been a loner all his life, and has always wanted to be part of something bigger– but this is far more than he bargained for. If he doesn’t get this right, it’s not just the lives of the people in his care that could be lost– it may very well be the end of human civilization.
Erupting Trouble
Grace Hamilton - 2021
His ailing father, David, an Army vet, has the skills the Riley family needs to survive in the dark new world, but with no medication for his heart condition on hand, keeping him alive may be an impossible task as they journey home from what was supposed to be a simple day trip.She’ll keep her daughter safe and reunite her family…Kathleen doesn’t share her husband’s optimistic view of humanity. When the power goes out during a visit to her brother in prison, she and her teenage daughter will need to find their way out and start the long journey back to Galena, IL, in the hope they can reunite with the rest of their family.They’ll defend their home…With the rest of the Riley family gone, it’s up to Ruth and her grandson, Patton, to keep their newly renovated hotel safe for the family they know is coming their way. But food is running low and some see an elderly woman and a pre-teen boy as easy pickings.In a broken civilization the only way to survive is strength in numbers. One family is determined to work together in this new world, but will they be able to defend themselves against desperate survivors?