Book picks similar to
Lights Out by Ryan Casey


apocalypse
apocalyptic
fiction
survival

Zom-B


Darren Shan - 2012
    The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

Day by Day Armageddon


J.L. Bourne - 2004
    An unknown plague sweeps the planet. The dead rise to claim the Earth as the new dominant species. Trapped in the midst of a global tragedy, he must make decisions...choices that that ultimately mean life, or the eternal curse to walk as one of them.

The Runner


W.J. Davies - 2013
    As the Great Flood threatens to consume the silo, Ace and a team of divers are in a desperate battle to avert disaster. When a terrible accident destroys the person he cares about most, Ace has little left to live for. After nearly succumbing to the silo's flooded depths, he realizes that drastic measures must be taken in order to save their underground home. But those in charge deem his ideas too dangerous, his methods too forbidden, and he is shunned for his sin of toxic words. When an opportunity for redemption presents itself, Ace has only one question: Why should he fight to save these people, if they aren't willing to help themselves?

The End of the World Running Club


Adrian J. Walker - 2014
    When the sky begins to fall and he finds himself alone, his best hope is to run – or risk losing what he loves forever.When the world ends and you find yourself forsaken, every second counts. No one knows this more than Edgar Hill. Stranded on the other side of the country from his wife and children, Ed must push himself across a devastated wasteland to get back to them. With the clock ticking and hundreds of miles between them, his best hope is to run -- or risk losing what he loves forever.

Extinction Shadow


Nicholas Sansbury Smith - 2019
     Welcome to the Dark Age.    Survivors thought the extinction cycle ended, but a powerful evil lurks in the shadows...    Eight years ago, an engineered virus ravaged the globe, infecting and transforming humans into apex predators called Variants. Billions died, civilization collapsed, and the human race teetered on the brink of extinction.  Nations banded together and heroes rose up to fight these abominations. On the front lines, Captain Reed Beckham and Master Sergeant Joe "Fitz" Fitzpatrick of Delta Force Team Ghost fought against the Variant hordes. With the aid of CDC Doctor Kate Lovato, they helped lead humanity to victory.  Now, almost a decade after the end of the war, civilization has slowly clawed toward recovery. In the Allied States of America, survivors live in outposts where they have rebuilt industry, agriculture, and infrastructure. The remaining Variants are believed to be dying off under destroyed cities and the abandoned frontier.  But evil and intelligent forces dwell in the shadows with the starving beasts, scheming to restart the extinction cycle and end humanity forever. And once again, Beckham, Fitz, and Kate will rise to fight them, joining forces with new heroes to try and save what's left of the world.  READER NOTE: You don't have to read the first 7 books of the Extinction Cycle to jump into Book 1 of Extinction Cycle: Dark Age. This new season is a self-contained storyline. For returning readers, this book takes place after book 7, Extinction War.

Chaos


John O'Brien - 2010
    Humanity went out not with a whimper, but a bang.Jack, a sometimes humorous, sometimes philosophical ex-special operations pilot and soldier is one of the few left to struggle through the desolation left in the aftermath; seeking to survive as a new ferocious species emerges from the rubble, hungry and unrelenting. Will his special forces training be enough? Will he be able to keep his children safe and guide the few survivors through perils that now roam the world they once knew? Or will the hordes that now own the night prevail, forever removing the last of mankind from existence? Humankind was once at the top of the food chain. But that has now changed. This hard-hitting, action-packed series begins with Jack Walker being suddenly thrust into a world where the infrastructure which cherished Armani suits, night clubs, fast and expensive cars and watching the daily stock market are gone. Left in its place is the material world mankind built but a majority of the population has vanished; replaced by a new, savage, unrelenting, cunning, animalistic species which hunts and operates at night.

Overfall


Marcus Richardson - 2020
    A country torn apart. A man who will stop at nothing to get home to his family.When a massive landslide in the Canary Islands sets off a mega-tsunami, the east coast of North America is square in its path. On a fishing trip off the coast of Maine, Reese Lavelle barely manages to make it to high ground when the wave hits. His only thought? Getting home to his wife and daughter in South Carolina.Cami and Amber Lavelle barely escape the wave in Charleston, they retreat inland, watching the city as it's wiped out by the wave in one fell swoop. As those who survived slowly sink into madness and the country succumbs to chaos, Cami's goal is simple: survive at any cost.

First Strike


Bobby Akart - 2021
    The shot heard 'round the world at Lexington and Concord in 1775 birthed a nation. Less than a century later, cannons firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina thrust that same nation into a civil war. The assassination of an obscure archduke sparked a chain of events leading to World War I. The dastardly bombing of Pearl Harbor led America into the Second World War.Akart's new novel, Nuclear Winter First Strike, depicts a world on the edge of nuclear Armageddon. Will history repeat itself as warring nations take their battles to the highest level of destruction? Can America avoid being drawn into these conflicts beyond her borders?Nuclear Armageddon hangs over us like a mighty sword and ordinary Americans will be caught in the crosshairs.This is more than the story of nuclear conflict. It's about the devastating effects wrought by Nuclear Winter. Our possible future is seen through the eyes of the Albright family whose roots stretch back to the early settlement of the Florida Keys.Hank Albright, a widower and proprietor of the Driftwood Key Inn, is the epitome of the laid-back islander inhabiting the Keys. His brother, Mike, is a homicide detective for the Monroe County Sheriff's department. Along with his wife Jessica, a paramedic and member of the Sheriff's department water emergency team, they become involved in the investigation of a sadistic serial killer.Hank's son, Peter Albright, is a Washington, DC reporter covering the State Department. He's unknowingly thrust into the middle of the conflict in the Middle East. Upon his return home, he begins to unravel a conspiracy leading to an unexpected dynamic between the President, the Secretary of State, and North Korea.As the drumbeats of war beat louder, Hank's oldest child, Lacey McDowell, begins to sense the warning signs. Along with her husband, Owen, and teenage son, Tucker, she begins to prepare for a hasty exit from their San Francisco Bay Area home.Will America become embroiled in the nuclear conflict? Will the President cross the Rubicon, that point of no return after which lives and cities may be destroyed? For the Albrights, like their fellow Americans, their lives are about to change forever.It was not our fight, but it became our problem.

Ashfall


Mike Mullin - 2011
    Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End


Manel Loureiro - 2007
    But he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity’s last days.The end of the world has begun…Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called “Safe Havens” are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to live, a lone survivor will give mankind one last chance against…Apocalypse Z

The Passage


Justin Cronin - 2010
    government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

The Lucky Prepper: A Gardener's Story of Surviving a Pandemic


Emma Zeth - 2019
    Then at school, people start falling ill.The virus is airborne and highly infectious. It starts with flu symptoms, confusion and sleepiness, which worsen until one day they just don’t wake up. It decimates the population and leaves chaos in its wake. Now Zoe has to find a way to survive.Luckily, when the pandemic strikes, she already has a greenhouse full of vegetable seedlings, but not everyone around is as prepared. Can she avoid the people hunting for food: the ‘knockers’ who don’t always just knock? And will her strategy of stay in, hide and wait, be enough? Released 9th November 2019 Reviews coming soon...'Actually not that bad.' The Authors brother (1st draft)'Enjoyed reading it very much.' The Authors Tai-Chi-teacher's wife (2nd draft)'Good suspense.'beta reader (2nd draft)

Commune: Book One


Joshua Gayou - 2017
    For humans: Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When the Earth is hit by the greatest CME in recorded history (several times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859), the combined societies of the planet’s most developed nations struggle to adapt to a life thrust back into the Dark Ages. In the United States, the military scrambles to speed the nation’s recovery on multiple fronts including putting down riots, establishing relief camps, delivering medical aid, and bringing communication and travel back on line. Just as a real foothold is established in retaking the skies (utilizing existing commercial aircraft supplemented by military resources and ground control systems), a mysterious virus takes hold of the population, spreading globally over the very flight routes that the survivors fought so hard to rebuild. The communicability and mortality rates are devastating, leaving only small pockets of survivors scattered throughout the countryside. Commune Book One is the story of one small group of survivors who must adapt to a primitive, hostile world or die. As they learn the rules of this new era, they must decide how far they’re willing to go to continue living, continually asking themselves the same question daily: is survival worth the loss of humanity?

The Feed


Nick Clark Windo - 2018
    It destroys us.The Feed is everywhere. It can be accessed by anyone, at any time. Every interaction, every emotion, every image can be shared through it.Tom and Kate use The Feed, but they have resisted addiction to it. And this will serve them well when The Feed collapses.Until their six-year-old daughter, Bea, goes missing.Because how do you find someone in a world devoid of technology? And what happens when you can no longer trust that your loved ones are really who they claim to be?

The First Days


Rhiannon Frater - 2008
    Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together. During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot. A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization. It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love…anything is possible at the end of the world.