Book picks similar to
Magnitude by Dean M. Cole


sci-fi
audiobooks
science-fiction
adult

After the Sky


Milo James Fowler - 2020
     The world isn't how they left it. When the bunker airlocks release them after twenty years in hibernation, the survivors find a silent, barren world outside. But they are not alone. There is a presence here, alive in the dust—spirits of the earth, benevolent and malicious as they interact with the human remnant. Milton is haunted by a violent past he's unable to escape, despite the superhuman speed the spirits give him. Not interested in bearing the next generation, Daiyna is determined to destroy the flesh-eating mutants lurking in the dark, pierced by her night-vision. Luther is a man of conviction who believes the Creator has offered humankind a second chance, yet he's uncertain they deserve it—and he's perplexed by the talons that flex out of his fingers. Willard is a brilliant engineer-turned-soldier who refuses to leave his bunker, afraid of becoming infected and willing to destroy any obstacle in his way. As their lives collide, the mysteries of this strange new world start unraveling, culminating in the ultimate life-or-death decision one survivor will make for them all. Don't miss this Post Apocalyptic Adventure with a Paranormal Fantasy twist! It's perfect for fans of Stephen King, T.W. Piperbrook, and The Walking Dead.

First Strike


Scott Moon - 2020
    It's a choice.The United Galactic Government is mired in a decade-long war for control of a key planet. Weakened by overextension and political intrigue, they could lose everything.When a child of privilege gives up everything to enlist and fight for what is right, he learns what it means to become part of a team. He encounters refugees, aliens he never expected to empathize with, and the loss of comrades. In the end he must develop the courage to stand up, not only to aliens and governments, but his own family.

Devil Calls the Tune


Chris Maddox - 2020
    When his father was called to duty and his mother made an invalid by a plague, Niko learned to survive by his wits. He stole what he needed to stay alive and fought to keep what he stole. Until he got arrested. On the eve of his majority birthday, Niko got laid off from his job and found out the son of the local crime lord had been selling his mom drugs and forcing her to “entertain” his friends. Facing jail time—and almost certain death—for beating the crime lord’s son nearly to death, Niko is forced to join the military to get off world. The terms of his enlistment are such that he can’t quit, so he hopes to fly under the radar and serve his time in a do-nothing job. That’s his plan, anyway. But plans have a way of getting disrupted, and when the Devil is calling the tune, sometimes all you can do is sing along.

Yesterday's Gone: Season One


Sean Platt - 2011
     They thought they were alone. They were wrong. On October 15th, humanity went missing. A handful of scattered survivors wake to find the world empty of friends, family, and neighbors. Among them, a child searches for his family. A special agent turned enemy of the state survives a fiery plane crash with no way to reach his daughter. A serial killer discovers he’s no longer at the top of the food chain. Now these strangers must find the strength inside them to weather the new world. But they are not alone. In the absence of civilization, a new threat emerges. In the stillness, it waits and watches, preying on their weakness. Their only hope is to find more survivors, rise above their fear, and face the oncoming darkness. But can they unite before they too are lost? And can they all be trusted? Season One of Yesterday’s Gone by Sean Platt and David W. Wright is a tense post-apocalyptic thriller that will leave you guessing to the end. Combining TV’s thrilling, episodic nature with the in-depth character only found in novels, Yesterday’s Gone is a new wave in fiction. If you like The Stand and LOST, you’ll love this series that combines tension, intrigue, and fear of the unknown. Get Yesterday’s Gone now and see who lives and who dies! (Warning: This book is intended for mature audiences and contains disturbing and potentially offensive material.)

Breakthrough


Michael C. Grumley - 2013
    Strange facts begin to emerge that lead naval investigator, John Clay, to a small group of marine biologists who are quietly on the verge of making history.With the help of a powerful computer system, Alison Shaw and her team are preparing to translate the first two-way conversation with the planet's second smartest species. But the team discovers much more from their dolphins than they ever expected when a secret object is revealed on the ocean floor. One that was never supposed to be found.Alison was sure she would never trust the military again. However, when an unknown group immediately becomes interested in her work, Alison realizes John Clay may be the only person she can trust. Together they must piece together a dangerous puzzle, and the most frightening piece, is the trembling in Antarctica.To make matters worse, someone from the inside is trying to stop them. Now time is running out...and our understanding of the world is about to change forever.

Strange Company


Nick Cole - 2021
    Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops - even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle - will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon - operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them - and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration.

Vagabond


Tim Rangnow - 2020
    Luna is torn between two allegiances, with each superpower controlling a dome on the home world's moon. In the asteroid belt, six mining colonies govern themselves. In the midst of it all is the Transport Guild.Erik Frost is the captain of a guild freighter. He took command when his father died four years ago, left with large debts and a rattling old ship badly in need of an overhaul. When he is offered a mysterious job with few details and a high payout, he can't resist the opportunity it represents. He and his crew head deep into the system for the asteroid belt to deliver their cargo, unprepared for the dangers they would soon face.They say some things are too good to be true, and this job could be one of them.

Planetside


Michael Mammay - 2018
    So when Colonel Carl Butler answers the call from an old and powerful friend, he knows it's something big—and he's not being told the whole story. A high councilor's son has gone MIA out of Cappa Base, the space station orbiting a battle-ravaged planet. The young lieutenant had been wounded and evacuated—but there's no record of him having ever arrived at hospital command. The colonel quickly finds Cappa Base to be a labyrinth of dead ends and sabotage: the hospital commander stonewalls him, the Special Ops leader won't come off the planet, witnesses go missing, radar data disappears, and that’s before he encounters the alien enemy. Butler has no choice but to drop down onto a hostile planet—because someone is using the war zone as a cover. The answers are there—Butler just has to make it back alive…

Times What They Are


D.L. Barnhart - 2015
    Panicked millions gridlock roads as Ray Bramlett escapes New York, barely ahead of a radioactive cloud. A thousand miles west, Karla Becker stares in horror at the televised images—sure the aftermath will bring worse. While Karla hunkers down at home, trusting her preparations, Ray seeks safety among his Tennessee friends. Each of their strategies buys time, but as social order collapses around them, both plans go awry. Now, survival means confronting a world teeming with sudden death and learning that no sanctuary remains safe forever.

Infected


Scott Sigler - 2008
    Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

The Merrimack Event (Shieldclads #1)


David A. Tatum - 2017
     After some meddling on the part of the Admiralty, many of the Academy's best are assigned to the oldest, smallest hulk in the Wargame, the unfortunately named corvette Chihuahua. Thanks to a genius engineer, an Army veteran loaned to the Navy for the war game, and an unconventional captain, they make a new discovery which turns her into the most valuable warship in the fleet: The first ever Shieldclad warship. The crew abruptly finds itself center stage in a real combat action, however, when Earth is attacked by an unknown foe, and a lone squadron of these once-mothballed ships is the Alliance's only hope to respond…

Galactic Forge


Alex Guerra - 2018
    He moves to investigate and to help any survivors, but the closer he gets the less control he has of his movements. An unknown force urges him to open the door of the mysterious craft, discovering the secret that lies within: a dead, alien pilot and a peculiar, otherworldly crystal. If that wasn’t enough, the crystal feels like it is alive. That’s when he hears a single word inside his mind: Run. An enemy vessel approaches overhead in pursuit of the downed ship, leaving Arthur little time to make his escape. Guided by this strange voice, Art is propelled through a hidden portal, arriving somewhere unknown On the other side of the galaxy, without a means of returning home, he has no choice but to move forward and help the crystal accomplish its mission: upgrade the ancient derelict ship, recruit new allies, and help the Galactic Conglomerate fight the Vael Empire. It may be destiny that’s called him, but it’s the choices he makes that will forge his future. Warning: This book contains profanity and violence. Read at your own risk.

Terminal Alliance


Jim C. Hines - 2017
    This would have worked out better for all involved if they hadn’t arrived after a mutated plague wiped out half the planet, turned the rest into shambling, near-unstoppable animals, and basically destroyed human civilization. You know—your standard apocalypse. The Krakau’s first impulse was to turn their ships around and go home. After all, it’s hard to establish diplomatic relations with mindless savages who eat your diplomats. Their second impulse was to try to fix us. A century later, human beings might not be what they once were, but at least they’re no longer trying to eat everyone. Mostly.Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos is surprisingly bright (for a human). As a Lieutenant on the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish, she’s in charge of the Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation team. When a bioweapon attack by an alien race wipes out the Krakau command crew and reverts the rest of the humans to their feral state, only Mops and her team are left with their minds intact.Escaping the attacking aliens—not to mention her shambling crewmates—is only the beginning. Sure, Mops and her assortment of space janitors and plumbers can clean the ship, but flying the damn thing is another matter. As they struggle to keep the Pufferfish functioning and find a cure for their crew, they stumble onto a conspiracy that could threaten the entire alliance.A conspiracy born from the truth of what happened on Earth all those years ago…

Jeff Wayne's The War of The Worlds: The Musical Drama


Jeff Wayne - 2018
    G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds established numerous conventions for the genre, including the threat of an invasive extraterrestrial species, space travel and intergalactic conflict, inspiring directors, gamers, producers and writers alike with its sobering story of struggle and survival. Marrying the suspense, drama and urgency of Wells’ original novel with Jeff Wayne’s rousing and flamboyant score, Audible’s new and exclusive dramatisation uses action, narration, original music and evocative sound design to immerse listeners in a world that’s as thrilling as it is desolate. Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Musical Drama stars Michael Sheen, Taron Egerton, Adrian Edmondson, Theo James and Anna-Marie Wayne. Also featuring: Rachel Atkins, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Josh Bond, Nicholas Boulton, Philip Bulcock, Jessica Dennis, Stephen Fletcher, Pete Gold, David Holt, Roger May, Harry Myers, Richard Reed, Mark Straker, Ben Whitehead and Sarah Whitehouse.

The Speed of Sound


Eric Bernt - 2018
    Resident Eddie Parks’s contribution is nothing less than extraordinary: an “echo box” that can re-create never-recorded sounds using acoustic archeology.All Eddie wants is to hear his late mother’s voice. But what he’s created is inadvertently posing a threat to national security.To Harmony House’s shadowy government backers and radical extremists, the echo box is the ultimate intelligence asset—an end to the very concept of secrecy. Now for Eddie and the compassionate Dr. Skylar Drummond, the true nature of the institution is becoming chillingly clear.As ruthless competing enemies close in on Eddie and his miraculous machine, Skylar risks all to take him on the run. Because once that prize is won, Eddie Parks will no longer be considered a “special person” but a dangerous redundancy. An inconvenient echo that must be silenced.