Book picks similar to
The Blackout by Stephanie Erickson
science-fiction
sci-fi
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Survival
Devon C. Ford - 2016
By the time the country realised it was everywhere, nearly everyone died. Being one of the few left alive wasn't the freedom he would have expected. Banding together those he found along the way, he has to fight to keep them safe. To keep them alive. To survive.
The New Hunger
Isaac Marion - 2013
Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future…
The Death of Grass
John Christopher - 1956
The rest of the world looks on with concern, though safe in the expectation that a counter-virus will be developed any day. Then Chung-Li mutates and spreads. Wheat, barley, oats, rye: no grass crop is safe, and global famine threatens.In Britain, where green fields are fast turning brown, the Government lies to its citizens, devising secret plans to preserve the lives of a few at the expense of the many.Getting wind of what's in store, John Custance and his family decide they must abandon their London home to head for the sanctuary of his brother's farm in a remote northern valley.And so they begin the long trek across a country fast descending into barbarism, where the law of the gun prevails, and the civilized values they once took for granted become the price they must pay if they are to survive.
Sunset Rising
S.M. McEachern - 2013
Welcome to the Biodome, where steel, rock and armed guards separate the privileged from the slaves ...Born and raised as a slave in the Pit, Sunny O’Donnell has always accepted that she'll spend her life working to keep the Dome running and, if she lives long enough, willingly meet her end in the annual Cull when she reaches the age of thirty-five. This was the price her ancestors paid for their place inside the Biodome, the only haven from the global nuclear war of 2024. But when Sunny’s mother is killed in the Cull, the hopeless reality of her existence becomes painfully clear. Bereft and disillusioned, she heads down a reckless path that sets off a riot in the Pit and leaves her accused of treason. Her only way of escaping public execution is to make a truce with her prison mate, who happens to be the heir to the dictatorship and hated enemy of the Pit. Now caught between two worlds on the brink of war, Sunny must weigh her own survival against risking everything to save the Pit. S.M. McEachern delivers the action and adventure of The Hunger Games, the intrigue of The City of Ember", and the romantic philosophical notes of Les Misérables in her debut novel set in a future that is disturbingly plausible.
Qualify
Vera Nazarian - 2014
You die, or you Qualify.
The year is 2047. An extinction-level asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and the descendents of ancient Atlantis have returned from the stars in their silver ships to offer humanity help.But there’s a catch.They can only take a tiny percent of the Earth’s population back to the colony planet Atlantis. And in order to be chosen, you must be a teen, you must be bright, talented, and athletic, and you must Qualify.Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family.Because there’s a loophole.If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis Citizenship. And if you are in the Top Ten, then all your wildest wishes are granted… Such as curing your mother’s cancer.There is only one problem.Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd. While she’s a hotshot in classics, history, science, and languages, the closest she’s come to sports is a backyard pool and a skateboard.This time she is in over her head, and in for a fight of her life, against impossible odds and world-class competition—including Logan Sangre, the most amazing guy in her class, the one she’s been crushing on, and who doesn’t seem to know she exists.Because every other teen on Earth has the same idea.
You Qualify or you die.
* * *EXCERPT!Now you can read
Chapter One
in its entirety (click here)!* * *
H10N1
M.R. Cornelius - 2011
There is no easy-fix vaccine. No eleventh-hour containment. Only death. With no workforce, power plants have been shut down, police and fire departments have collapsed, crops lie unpicked in the fields.When Dr. Taeya Sanchez finds herself unceremoniously dismissed from an emergency medical facility in New York, she decides to steal the hospital's armored van for a midnight escape. Unfortunately, Rick DeAngelo, a driver for the hospital, has already stocked the van for his own getaway.Thrown into an unfriendly alliance, these two must pick their way across the dangerous wasteland of America in search of a safe haven. And as the miles roll by, they discover that the living should be feared much more than the festering corpses out there.
Among Wolves
R.A. Hakok - 2015
It’s the last place you should be. Gabriel doesn't know how it began. Nobody does, not even Kane, and he was President. Gabriel was on a tour of the White House with Mags and the rest of Miss Kimble’s first-graders when it happened. They fled in helicopters to a long-abandoned mountain bunker, even as the first of the missiles found their targets.Ten years have passed, and Gabriel still lives deep inside the mountain, waiting for the world to thaw. But outside the ash-storms continue to rage, and supplies are running low. The President says it will be okay, but Gabriel isn’t so sure. He’s their scavenger; he’s seen what it’s like out there.Then one day Gabriel finds a bloodstained map. The blood’s not a problem, nor are the frozen remains of the person it once belonged to. Gabriel’s used to seeing dead bodies; there's far worse to be found in any Walmart or Piggly Wiggly you care to wander into. Except this one he recognizes, and it shouldn’t be here. Now all Gabriel can think is how he's going to make it back to the bunker to let the President know what he's found.But the map Gabriel has found is the key to a secret, one that has been buried for a decade. Gabriel's about to learn that inside the mountain things are not as they seem. And to get Mags and the others out he will need to face the thing that terrifies him most.
Farnham's Freehold
Robert A. Heinlein - 1964
What he hadn't expected was that when the apocalypse came, a thermonuclear blast would tear apart the fabric of time and hurl his shelter into a world with no sign of other human beings.
The Inner Circle
Kevin George - 2011
Siberia... A tiny comet rips through Earth's atmosphere and explodes above the Tunguska region of Siberia, instantly engulfing thousands of square acres of the mostly desolate region. The explosion is heard for hundreds of miles, the light of the comet seen halfway across the globe. Had the comet hit a few hours earlier in a more populated area, millions would have been killed...A century later, another comet - this one hundreds of times bigger and more powerful - encounters a black hole in deep space and is pushed onto a new, deadly course leading straight to Earth...A small group of humans - including the President of the United States, a former astronaut and a middle school science teacher - discovers the existence of this potentially deadly comet and keep its existence hidden from the rest of the world. Although the group - which calls itself the Inner Circle - has twelve years to deal with the problem, they will need every second of that time. Not only must they figure out a way to avert this crisis, they must also start to make plans in case they can't avoid a catastrophe that could annihilate humankind...The Inner Circle is the first book of the 12-part Comet Clement series. Please enjoy and if you like it, keep an eye out for books 2 and 3, which will be available in one download...
The World Gives Way
Marissa Levien - 2021
Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract--butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles.But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated--and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world--and embrace what's left before it's too late.A sweeping novel with a darkly glimmering heart, The World Gives Way is an unforgettable portrait of a world in freefall, and the fierce drive to live even at the end of it all.
Timebound
Rysa Walker - 2012
But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and Kate’s genetic ability to time-travel makes her the only one who can stop him. Risking everything, she travels to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the killing and the chain of events that follows.Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost, however—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does she have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?
Oasis
Dima Zales - 2016
It's meant to be a paradise, a place where we are all content. Vulgarity, violence, insanity, and other ills are but a distant memory, and even death no longer plagues us.I was once content too, but now I'm different. Now I hear a voice in my head, and she tells me things no imaginary friend should know. Her name is Phoe, and she is my delusion.Or is she?Note: This book contains some strong language. We felt it was important for the censorship theme of the novel. If such words offend you, you might not enjoy this book.
Year One
Nora Roberts - 2017
The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed--and more than half of the world's population was decimated.Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river--or in the ones you know and love the most.As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.The end has come. The beginning comes next.
The Last Tribe
Brad Manuel - 2015
Not only do you struggle to find food, water, and shelter, you deal with the sadness and loss of everyone you know, and everything you have. Fourteen year old Greg Dixon is living that nightmare. Attending boarding school outside of Boston, he is separated from his family when a pandemic strikes. His classmates and teachers are dead, rotting in a dormitory turned morgue steps from his room. The nights are getting colder, and his food has run out. The last message from his father is get away from the city, and meet at his grandparent’s town in remote New Hampshire. Knowing the impending New England winter could be the final nail in his coffin, he packs what little food he can find, and sets off on his one hundred mile walk north with the unwavering belief that his family is alive and will join him. As the fast moving and deadly disease strips away family and friends, Greg’s father, John, is trapped in South Carolina. Roadblocks, a panic stricken population, and winter make it impossible for him to get to his son. John and his three brothers appear to be immune, but they are scattered across a locked down United States, forced to wait for the end of humanity before travelling to the mountains of New Hampshire. Spring arrives, and the Dixons make their way north to find young Greg. They meet others along the way, and slowly form the last tribe of humanity from the few people still alive in the northeast.
The Gemini Effect
Chuck Grossart - 2012
By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens.
The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.