Book picks similar to
After Days by Scott Medbury


young-adult
dystopian
dystopia
sci-fi

Until Morning Comes


J.T. Sawyer - 2014
    It ended with a staggering body count as the world around her unraveled from a deadly virus. With her mission to extract the President’s daughter from the University of Arizona gone awry, she must choose between her sworn duties and her moral obligations to others as the city is overtaken by roving packs of flesh-eating mutants. If she and her small group are to survive the night and find a way out of the ravaged city, she will have to summon all of her training, mental prowess, and tactical abilities.

After the Event


T.A. Williams - 2014
    He had become a disappointment to his parents, and had become a stranger to the only good things he had ever done in his life, his children. Yet when his long estranged wife loses her battle with cancer he has to return to a family he long abandoned. Then The Event happens. Now Grant has to achieve victory in a war he has never won, in order to bring his family together and protect them from a world that has fallen into chaos. The first step in an epic journey of one family's fight to survive in a world, After The Event.

The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment


Better Hero Army - 2013
    When Tom, the son of a powerful Senator, becomes stranded in the Plagued States of America while searching for his lost sister, his only hope of survival rests in the hands of a few grizzled veteran zombie hunters and a mysterious half-breed zombie woman he thinks may know where to find his sister.

The Cloud Seeders


Jamie Zerndt - 2012
    This is the slogan of the Sustainability Unit and of a country gone eco-hysterical. After nearly twelve months without rain and the hinges of the world barely still oiled, Thomas and his younger brother, Dustin, set out across a drought-ridden landscape in search of answers. What they discover along the way will change their lives, and their country, forever.

Ashes of the Fall


Nicholas Erik - 2016
     In the year 2048, the crumbling remnants of western North America are suddenly buried in ash, weakening the grip of the brutal dictatorship. A factional landscape springs from the ashes, con man Luke Stokes artfully navigating the clash. But he can't remain above the fray for long, as each faction seeks the truth from Luke regarding his murdered brother's final project. A neural-interface technology that will forever shift the fragile balance of the ashen plains. With the true believers, desert nomads, survivalists and existing regime closing in, Luke must delve deeper into his genius brother's secrets. And the truth about his last project will dramatically alter the remnants of civilization. Because the fall isn't always the end - sometimes, it's only the beginning.

Pulse


Craig Zerf - 2014
    A man who has been trained in the savage arts of war. A man who lives his life according to a creed. A simple man who wants none of the power thrust upon him. This man is Marine Sergeant Nathaniel Hogan, seconded to the American Embassy in London and, although he does not know it, he is – The Forever Man.The first pulse occurred in the old calendar year of 2022. A sequence of gigantic solar flares created a series of massive electromagnetic pulses that stopped the heart of our modern world and returned us to the DARK AGES.Tens of thousands died within the first few hours as airplanes fell from the skies, hospitals ceased to work and every form of modern transportation ground to a halt.Within days the death toll had reached the hundreds of thousands. Fires raged unchecked through the cities, water supplies ran out and survivors turn on each other as mob rule surpassed all else.And Nathaniel finds that he has been changed by the huge amounts of Gamma radiation in the solar flares. They have enhanced his natural abilities, giving him increased speed, strength and healing. Indefinitely extended his life span and enabling him to be able to draw on the power of the solar flares to create magik.But even The Forever Man was not prepared for what happened next, as the ongoing flares tore a hole in time and space, creating a gateway through which ‘they’ appeared. From the realms of fantasy came the orcs, the goblins and, leading them all – the Fair Folk.Were they here to help – or to conquer?

Shock


K.R. Griffiths - 2013
    Davids, now little more than a ghost town, retrieve the target and return to base. Trouble is, the target is a man named Victor, and it looks like somebody else got to him first. And St. Davids is anything but a ghost town... *** SHOCK is a novella that picks up where K.R. Griffiths' acclaimed debut PANIC left off.

New World


Stephen Birch - 2013
    The UK is now lawless and the power is off. The survivors are left to fight over the remaining supplies of food and water. Nick Smith is a man with a tough past. He was a fugitive when the virus hit. He survived by living off the land and by staying constantly on the move. Up until then he had avoided all contact with other people. Following the pandemic he reluctantly saves a young boy from a vicious gang and his life is turned upside down. Nick and the young boy then cross paths with Beth and her two daughters at an abandoned motorway service station. Nick is then drawn further into a situation that he has been avoiding for years.Beth and her daughters have been forced to leave the safety of their house. They are on their way to the coast and they are looking for something that no longer exists. A safe home in this harsh New World.

Broken Skies


Theresa Kay - 2014
    A disillusioned alien boy. They were never meant to meet…When Jax Mitchell’s twin is kidnapped by Earth's alien settlers, the E'rikon, she'll do anything to get him back—even form an alliance with a teenage E'rikon left behind by the same ship that took her brother.Jax agrees to act as a guide, and in return, the alien agrees to sneak her past the human-proof barrier surrounding the E'rikon city. Too bad it's not that simple. Jax soon finds that she's drawn to the alien boy with bright green hair and jewel-like scales on his back—and he's equally affected by her, the courageous redhead with haunted eyes. But she doesn't know the alien's true motives, and he has no idea that she is much more than she seems.With the aliens and the humans at odds, the connection forming between the two teens has consequences. What started off as a rescue mission sets in motion a chain of events that threatens not only the remaining humans and the growing alien society, but Earth itself.

The Breeders


Katie French - 2012
    When Riley was born, her mother escaped the Breeders, the group of doctors using cruel experiments to bolster the dwindling human race. Her parents do everything possible to keep her from their clutches-- moving from one desolate farm after another to escape the Breeders' long reach. The Breeders control everything- the local war lords, the remaining factories, the fuel. They have unchecked power in this lawless society. And they're hunting Riley.When the local Sheriff abducts the adult members of her family and hands her mother over to the Breeders, Riley and her eight-year-old brother, Ethan, hiding in a shelter, are left to starve. Then Clay arrives, the handsome gunslinger who seems determined to help to make up for past sins. The problem is Clay thinks Riley is a bender-- a genderless mutation, neither male nor female. As Riley's affection for Clay grows she wonders can she trust Clay with her secret and risk her freedom?The three embark on a journey across the scarred remains of New Mexico-- escaping the Riders who use human sacrifice to appease their Good Mother, various men scrambling for luck, and a deranged lone survivor of a plague. When Riley is shot and forced into the Breeder's hospital, she learns the horrible fate of her mother—a fate she'll share unless she can find a way out.

The Becoming


Jessica Meigs - 2011
    In the heart of Atlanta, Georgia, the Michaluk Virus has escaped the CDC, and its effects are widespread and devastating. Most of the population of the southeastern United States have become homicidal cannibals. As society rapidly crumbles under the hordes of infected, three people-Ethan Bennett, a Memphis police officer; Cade Alton, his best friend and former IDF sharpshooter; and Brandt Evans, a lieutenant in the US Marines-band together against the oncoming crush of death and terror sweeping across the world. As Cade, Brandt, and Ethan hole up in a safe house in Tupelo, others begin to join them in their bid for survival. When the infected attack and they're forced to flee, one departs to Memphis in search of answers while the others escape south to Biloxi, where they encounter more danger than they bargained for. And in Memphis, the answers that one man finds are the last answers he wanted, answers that herald a horrific possibility that there may be more to this virus than first suspected.

Planet Urth Boxed Set


Jennifer Martucci - 2015
    It’s dangerous, deadly. Inhuman creatures rule the planet. Animals have mutated. The land is hostile. But it’s all I’ve ever known. Hunger. Fear. Panic. Those emotions are my reality. They are my every day. I am Avery, and I am seventeen. My father died a year ago. Since then I’ve been responsible for my eight-year-old sister, June. I worry we are the only humans left. Humans have been hunted for centuries, to the brink of extinction. I must fight each day to protect my sister. It is the reason I wake, the reason I breathe. But how long can I go on fighting? How long will it be before they find us? More than two hundred years into the future, human beings are an endangered species. The planet has been battered by war, its inhabitants plagued by disease and death. Few humans survived and remained unaffected. Most changed dramatically and evolved into something else entirely. Irrevocable alterations caused by chemical warfare have created a new species. North America is in ruins and has been overtaken. Humanity has fallen at the hands of mutants known as Urthmen. Seventeen year-old Avery is alive and unchanged. But she has not been immune to the harshness of the new world. She has lived on the run for much of her life, in terror. After losing her father, Avery is the sole guardian of her eight-year-old sister, June. Avery is now charged with June’s safety as well as her own, a nearly impossible task. Forced to hide deep in the forest and away from the cities overrun by Urthmen, Avery and her sister are constantly hunted. Danger awaits them at every turn. They fear they are the only human beings left, that they are the last of their kind. But are they truly alone?Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2)After fleeing the only refuge she’s known for much of her life, Avery, along with her sister June and new friends, Will, Oliver and Riley forge through the forest to uncharted territory in search of a better life, in search of other survivors. But Avery soon learns that life beyond the woods is far worse than she ever imagined. She finds that safety does not exist for human beings in a world run by Urthmen. Hope seems futile. But Avery refuses to surrender hope and chooses, instead, to push forward and move her group into the heart of danger, to seek out more humans. Will she and the others survive their journey into the savage lands of Planet Urth?Planet Urth: The Underground City (Book 3)We can’t stay out here in the open any longer. We killed the king’s son. It’s only a matter of time before his people find us, before they slaughter us all. We need to leave now. We need to make it to the underground city. Avery, June and their friends are being hunted. They need to find fuel so that they can travel across the country to the underground city, to a place where humans live safely, free from the terrors above ground. But once they make it there, will it be the idyllic paradise they imagine it to be or will it be worse than the current nightmare in which they live?

The China Pandemic


A.R. Shaw - 2013
    Whether accidental or intentional, only two percent of the population has survived including preppers and carriers. In the Pacific Northwest, a dying mother recognizes that her young child is among the immune. What will she do to ensure his survival before her own death? Meanwhile, as natural predators come into the land of the living, Graham has buried his last remaining family member and promised to carry out his father’s wise advice to make it to the family cabin. He meets with triumph and tragedy, learning new rules along the way. Just when he thinks he’s finally got a handle on this new world, he’s taken by surprise, as he learns he’s not alone. Will he find the strength to escape these dangers and go on living? And more importantly, will he have the ability to protect those he's come to trust?

The Cleansing


Sam Kates - 2013
    Swift and deadly. Merciless. Seven billion people inhabit this planet in blissful ignorance of imminent annihilation. Destruction comes, not from meteors or nuclear holocaust, but from a source no one even knows exists. The architects of doom have long moved among us, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the signal to trigger our extinction. A handful of survivors—traumatised, bewildered—must come to terms with the new reality. And quickly. For the Cleansing is only the beginning…

Invasion


M.D. Massey - 2016
    And to do it, he'll need to traverse half the state of Texas while dealing with out-of-control military units, violent redneck looters, and all manner of evil things that go bump in the night...