Book picks similar to
Fallout by Jacob Appel


short-fiction
40k
literary
sci-fi

Understories


Tim Horvath - 2012
    Whether making offhand references to Mystery Science Theater, providing a new perspective on Heidegger’s philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath’s writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.

The Egg


Andy Weir - 2009
    A short story about the universe and your place in it.

The Woman Lit by Fireflies


Jim Harrison - 1990
    Across the odd contours of the American landscape -- Jim Harrison's country -- its natives search for the incandescent beneath the ordinary in three novellas: Brown Dog, Sunset Limited, and The Woman Lit by Fireflies.

Swimming Home


Deborah Levy - 2011
    Set in a summer villa, the story is tautly structured, taking place over a week in which a group of beautiful, flawed tourists in the French Riviera comes loose at the seams. Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize.

All You Zombies


Robert A. Heinlein - 1959
    It further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work, "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years earlier.

The Low Bird


David L. Robbins - 2016
    Stranded in a valley teeming with enemy troops, Sol scrambles to survive and evade capture. Pararescueman Bo Bolick has been given just twenty-four hours to find Sol before a US carpet bombing destroys every living thing in the valley, friend or foe.As Bo’s search intensifies, Minh, a young Hanoi woman who entertains the fighters and travelers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, becomes inextricably caught up in the raging battle between her North Vietnamese troops and the American forces sent to rescue Sol. In the midst of heavy combat, Minh tries to find and understand love for the first time in her life.But the clock is ticking. A curtain of fire is going to descend. The desperate realities of jungle warfare are about to collide with a warrior’s code that says no man will be left behind.

Dead College


Kent Reaper - 2013
    He's confused, he's disoriented. He asks himself what's going on. But he doesn't know. It's not like anyone's alive to tell him anyway. Just a short trip to the bathroom, a welcome break from the geology class that puts him to sleep and his world is turned upside down. He sees things that defy explanation: His classmate eating his professor, his professor getting up, shrugging off fatal injuries and coming for him.Zack knows he must get out of this nightmare. But when he's inadvertently trapped in the faculty building by a fellow survivor, he soon discovers that the living may be even more dangerous than the monstrous undead.

Christmas on the Anvil


Michael Penmore - 2021
    Everyone but the spaceship’s grumpy XO/navigator. When mysterious Christmas-themed things start happening, can the jaded second-in-command debunk the myth, or will she start to believe in the magic of Santa and the sleigh? Warning: Filled to bursting with humour and Christmas songs you know and love to hate. Get into the spirit of Christmas with the Anvil’s crew in this light-hearted seasonal romp from the author of the Jane Poole Genesis.

The Call of Cthulhu


H.P. Lovecraft - 1926
    Lovecraft's 'the Call of Cthulhu' is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.

Cloud Cuckoo Land


Anthony Doerr - 2021
    Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

Gerilya


Norman Wilwayco - 2008
    The third book of the "hardcore" and multiple Palanca winning novelist and short story writer Norman Wilwayco.This book could be downloaded for free in the author's official blog, http://absurdrepublic.blogspot.com

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl


Yiyun Li - 2010
    In the title story, a professor introduces her middle-aged son to a favorite student, unaware of the student’s true affections. In “A Man Like Him,” a lifelong bachelor finds kinship with a man wrongly accused of an indiscretion. In “The Proprietress,” a reporter from Shanghai travels to a small town to write an article about the local prison, only to discover a far more intriguing story involving a shopkeeper who offers refuge to the wives and children of inmates. In “House Fire,” a young man who suspects his father of sleeping with the young man’s wife seeks the help of a detective agency run by a group of feisty old women. Written in lyrical prose and with stunning honesty, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl reveals worlds strange and familiar, and cultures both traditional and modern, to create a mesmerizing and vibrant landscape of life.

Girl with Curious Hair


David Foster Wallace - 1988
    From the eerily "real," almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, where terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, and the familiar strange.This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN: 0393313964/9780393313963

Dangerous Laughter


Steven Millhauser - 2008
    Thirteen darkly comic stories, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.

Arch Allies


Audrey Sharpe - 2019
    Sure, restoring the ship won’t be easy, especially when the Feds figure out she’s running an illegal salvage operation, but she’s never shied away from hard work. Or challenges. Good thing, too. Because she’s on a collision course with her competition. If you like sailing the black with rogues and rascals, then you’ll love Arch Allies. A must read for fans of Firefly and Star Wars. Pick up your copy today!