Book picks similar to
The Warm Machine by Seth Rain


science-fiction-and-fantasy
sci-fi
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fiction

Star Forged


Justin Sloan - 2018
    But superpowers have changed the equation. Gunnery Sergeant Trent Helms wanted to be among the first Marines through the gateway to the stars. But as they say, no plan survives first contact. There was definitely no plan to become super-powered and discover the deadliest threat ever known. Back on Earth, Intel Agent Shrina Collins will do whatever it takes to see the threat extinguished, but discovers a government conspiracy that changes everything. Now it's up to these two to save the universe, or watch as it unravels. Earth’s first journey through a gateway to the stars unlocks a great evil, but equally great potential. Fans of Stargate and Dragonriders of Pern will love this first book in the Ascension Gate series.

Torch Song


Shelley Singer - 2014
     It’s a strange world that’s left—composed of tiny city-states, like Redwood, Sierra, and Rocky—run with a variety of futuristic machines and broken down ones. Fancy new cars float as well as roll, but the Internet’s now so glitchy you can't even blog properly—newspapers have come back! So many machines are so broken-down that a fixer in this world isn't someone who rigs elections or cleans up after murders—it’s a person who can repair both an elevator and an ancient toilet. But roving bands of bandits, godders, causies, breeders, khakis, and toxies threaten to destroy what’s just been fixed. A POST-APOCALYPTIC GUNSLINGER KICKS ASS Anywhere there are people—however few—there’ll be power plays, and Rica’s current job at the Blackjack Casino is to run interference between the warring clans of Tahoe, in tiny Sierra. But then Rocky gets ambitious. And that means war. On the one hand, Sierra’s ready; everybody’s got plenty of fancy laser weapons. On the other, the term “everybody” in this world, applies more to the kinds of numbers usually found in neighborhood gangs than opposing armies. Singer’s built an intriguing half-world resembling a medieval society equipped—and sometimes ill-equipped—with technology. In Rica she’s created a fascinating, complex character, who meets more like her in Sierra (all with the fashionable striped hair of the day). WHO WILL LIKE IT: Fans of post-apocalyptic thrillers and dystopian fiction. Think LEGEND for adults.

A New Prospect


Wayne Zurl - 2011
    But things change, and after retiring to Tennessee, he gets that feeling. Jenkins becomes a cop again and is thrown headlong into a murder investigation and a steaming kettle of fish, down-home style. In true Jenkins style, Sam turns common police practice on its ear to insure an innocent man doesn’t fall prey to an imperfect system and the guilty party receives appropriate justice.

Nomad


Matthew Mather - 2015
    Ben Rollins, head of Harvard's exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter, Jessica, who's vacationing in Italy with his wife. "Something's coming," he tells them. "A hundred times the mass of the sun. We can't see it, don't know what it is yet, but they're calling it Nomad--and in just months, the Earth may be destroyed."But what is it? And how did they miss detecting it until now? In a frantic race against time, Dr. Rollins must unravel Nomad's secrets. A mysterious clue surfaces in his old research papers from the end of the Cold War, more than thirty years earlier...The world erupts into chaos as the end approaches--and Ben discovers that his wife and daughter are trapped in Europe. The key to humanity's survival rests in the final answers Dr. Rollins pieces together, in the midst of his desperate scramble across continents to find his family before Nomad swallows the planet.MORE ABOUT NOMADA story of family and redemption set amid a brand new category of cataclysm--all the more plausible and terrifying as the science behind it is vetted by a team of world-class astrophysicists from CERN, SETI, the Keck Observatory and more. It even has its own simulation video, included at the end of the book.

Infection


J.T. Sawyer - 2017
    When a CIA bioweapons ship goes dark, operative Will Reisner and his team are sent to the South China Sea to investigate. As their mission unfolds, a deadly parasitic virus takes hold in cities around the globe, turning its victims into worm-riddled creatures bent on infecting others to increase their numbers, linked by a mysterious mental connection. After barely making it out alive, Reisner reluctantly joins forces with epidemiologist Selene Munroe, who has been trying to discover the origins of the virus to prevent humanity from being completely consumed by the horrific fiend that has been unleashed upon the world. Emergence is a bold reinvention of the well-worn zombie theme that will have you gripping the edge of your seat.

Caldwell's Homestead


Millie Copper - 2019
    They have tried to plan for everything, but they never imagined this would happen. Recently, personal tragedy nearly devastated Mollie and Jake, leaving them struggling to rebuild their relationship while they consider selling the farm.  Now, as disaster strikes, Mollie is away on business, leaving Jake and ten-year-old Malcolm to prepare for the worst. Daughter Katie, soon to start her final year of college and planning a mission trip afterward, is over a thousand miles from home. The older children, and their spouses, live within an easy drive—under normal times. In this first installment of the Havoc in Wyoming series, they'll soon find themselves in a chaotic new world, where nothing is normal or easy, it's downright dangerous. Will the Caldwells’ planning, provisions, and faith be enough? Or have the recent changes in their relationship been detrimental to the family's survival? The Havoc in Wyoming series has been described as “Cozy Apocalypse” and contains no profanity; gratuitous sex scenes; or gruesome, overly detailed death scenes. While set in an imagined future, the people of Bakerville face real-life obstacles, created by this new world and brought with them from their old world.

The Sands of Osiris


Steven J. Shelley - 2015
     Starving and locked in a war with hostile aliens, the Terran Empire needs fresh real estate or humanity will face extinction. Jaeger Orleans is sent by the mysterious Farseer Cartel to steal a blueprint for a sustainable human colony on the ice world Solitude. A chance for humans to leave a long history of mistakes behind and begin again. Sent to a brutal desert prison for withholding the information from the Terran Corps, Jaeger is in a race against time to find Solitude and lead humanity to a brighter future.

FERTS


Grace Hudson - 2015
    Resources are scarce. The population is dwindling in the Forkstream Territories. Pinnacle Officer Wilcox has created FERTS amidst the chaos, a facility designed to protect the female population from raiding hordes. Beth 259201, a newly-demoted Epsilon Internee, suspects that there is something more that lurks beneath the carefully constructed order of the facility. She has a gift, one that could brand her a defective. A novice fighter, she must use her intellect to survive. Her own life, and the lives of many more may be at risk. Will she succumb to the plans in store for her or will she conceal her secret long enough to discover her own path? FERTS is a post-apocalyptic dystopian thriller. Reader discretion is advised.

Until the End of the World


Sarah Lyons Fleming - 2013
    After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too. This is difficult enough, but Cassie’s tag along ex-boyfriend and her friend’s bratty sister have a knack for making everything, even the apocalypse, more unpleasant. When the two attract a threat as deadly as the undead to their safe haven, Cassie’s forced to see how far she’ll go to protect those she loves. And it’s a lot farther than she’d anticipated. This, coupled with Adrian’s distant voice on Safe Zone Radio and, of course, the living dead, threaten to put Cassie right back into the funk she just dragged herself out of. Survival’s great and all, especially when you have leather armor, good friends and home-brewed beer, but there’s something Cassie must do besides survive: tell Adrian she still loves him. And to do that, Cassie has to find faith that she’s stronger than she thinks, she’s still a crack shot and true love never dies.

After It Happened: Omnibus Books 3-4


Devon C. Ford - 2016
     Set in the UK in the immediate aftermath of a mysterious illness which swept the country and left millions dead, the series follows the trials facing a reluctant hero, Dan, and the group he forms around him. They must battle the elements, find sufficient supplies and equipment to survive, and protect themselves against the most destructive force on the planet: other people.

Al Clark


Jonathan G. Meyer - 2014
    Something unexpected.A man suffering from amnesia awakens to a new life, with more questions than answers, to begin a journey of discovery. It is the beginning of a quest that will take him to places he could not have imagined, manage things he would not have thought possible, and learn the true value of friendship - true friends capable of helping him to save the ship, and solve the disturbing puzzle that is...AL CLARK.

The Sharded Boy


L. Darby Gibbs - 2017
    Pain runs a close second.Jahl must cope with both if he hopes to fulfil his dream of becoming a master wielder.He teams up with the best friend that abandoned him and the girl who ridiculed him. Rouen has a secret to keep and needs Jahl to make it happen. Donya needs Jahl to teach her how to wield, never mind that it could get them killed.And he needs them both if he's to survive the danger he refuses to believe awaits him.It's a relationship that will force them to face both the cruelties of love and the miracles of friendship.When a stranger hires Jahl for a job only a master wielder can perform, it seems the perfect first step to take him to the destiny he is certain is within his grasp.Will the cost of being recognized as a wielder of magic be worth the loss of those he loves most?Read this classic tale of adversity and becoming an adult in a world of magic.

The Pages of Time (The Pages of Time, #1)


Damian Knight - 2015
    Can Sam and his friends somehow defeat the sinister forces that want to use his powers for their own ends? Can they manage to save Sam’s family from violent deaths that are already in the past – and maybe also win the girl he loves – by turning back the pages of time?

Collapse


Mark Lukens - 2019
    The governments of the world and the media tried to suppress it, but little by little the truth got out. The economy had been in a free-fall, banks closed, protests turned into riots, people began hoarding and panicking. And then on a Friday morning, the collapse came.After the government office where Ray Daniels works shuts down, he just wants to get home to his wife and kids. On his arduous journey home, Ray gets a phone call from Craig, his supervisor, inviting him and his family to his home where the answers to the collapse and the Ripper Plague are waiting for him, but the call breaks up and Ray only hears the word Avalon.When Ray gets home to his family, the TV stations have been replaced with a loop of the president of the United States declaring martial law. The electricity and water are shut off soon after that. They hole up in their bedroom for the night - they have no weapons, little food, and no information about why everything collapsed so quickly.After Ray's neighbor, Helen, holds a secret meeting to try to fight back against martial law, she asks Ray to help her blind daughter Emma, promising that Emma can help him and his family find the way to Avalon. But what is Avalon, and what does Emma know about it?Hours later, after soldiers in gas masks take Helen away, Ray has no choice but to flee with his family. Society has crumbled within the last twenty-four hours. Hordes of flesh-eating infected are loose on the streets. The police and military are doing their best to fight back, but they are losing the battle now. The collapse is here, and Ray wants the answers that Craig has, but he must keep his family alive first.

Dusk of Humanity


M.K. Dawn - 2018
    Now a prominent surgeon with an exceptional career in her future, life has turned out exactly as she expected. Until a government summons arrives with an order to report to Fort Hood for a top-secret weekend retreat.Major Lee Archer’s reassignment as head of military operations at The Bunker felt more like a prison sentence than a promotion. To make matters worse, he’s been assigned to babysitting detail, as a group of the country’s most brilliant young minds come together to test the vitality of the cutting-edge fallout shelter he commands.But the retreat was nothing more than a ploy. One devised to safeguard the future of humanity, as a catastrophic event renders the world above uninhabitable.Or so they’ve been led to believe.Those in charge have a secret. One so horrifying they would do anything to keep it concealed. Because what lurks beyond The Bunker is deadlier than anyone could have ever imagined.And it’s only a matter of time before it finds a way in.