Book picks similar to
Gods of the Dead by Tracey Ward
zombies
horror
post-apocalyptic
dystopian
Arcadium
Sarah Gray - 2012
Mostly that means staying clear of all people, the healthy ones on the run and the infected ones hungry for human flesh. But when she meets a man that speaks no English and a defiant set of brothers, Florence will be forced to question her ways. Because there’s only so far you can go alone, right?Arcadium is a heart-stopping journey of hope across a ravaged urban land where survival always comes at a heavy price.
Dead Highways
Richard Brown - 2012
One week later, most of the world lay in a deep sleep.But not for long.Reprogrammed with a single purpose, the newly infected awaken and begin migrating across the country like soldiers on a mission, killing anything that crosses their path.For Jimmy, his mundane existence of working at his grandmother's used bookstore is upended by the end of the world. One minute he's reading science fiction and fantasy novels, wishing he were the hero of the story, the next he's traveling as part of a ragtag group of survivors, fighting to stay alive and searching for answers.Why did this happen?Where are the infected going?And what is guiding them?But on these dead highways Jimmy may discover something even greater—his place in the world. Even if everyone else is gone.
The Strain
Guillermo del Toro - 2009
All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.
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.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks - 2006
Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Plague Town
Dana Fredsti - 2012
A terrifying virus appears, quickly becoming a pandemic that leaves its victims, not dead, but far worse. Attacked by zombies, Ashley discovers that she is a 'Wild-Card' -- immune to the virus -- and she is recruited to fight back and try to control the outbreak. It's Buffy meets the Walking Dead in a rapid-fire zombie adventure!
Extinction Horizon
Nicholas Sansbury Smith - 2014
When a top secret Medical Corps research facility goes dark, Team Ghost is called in to face their deadliest enemy yet--a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters.After barely escaping with his life, Beckham returns to Fort Bragg in the midst of a new type of war. The virus is already spreading... As cities fall, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive long enough to find a cure. What she uncovers will change everything.Total extinction is just on the horizon, but will the cure be worse than the virus?
Ex-Heroes
Peter Clines - 2010
Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes, using their superhuman abilities to make Los Angeles a better place.Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Now, a year later, the heroes struggle to overcome their differences and recover from their own scars as they protect the thousands of survivors huddled in their film-studio-turned-fortress, the Mount.But the hungry ex-humans are not the only threat the survivors face. Across the city, another group has grown and gained power.
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.
Xombies
Walter Greatshell - 2004
The epidemic known as Agent X has contaminated all but the most isolated pockets of the country. A state of martial law has been declared. Stay inside. Barricade all windows. Lock all doors. The infected are considered to be psychotic and extremely dangerous. Trust no one. This is not a test."Agent X is unlike anything modern science has seen before -- a fast-spreading virus that turns the infected into raving maniacs on the hunt for earth's few remaining survivors...One of those survivors is Lulu, a seventeen-year-old girl spared by a rare medical condition. Immune to Agent X, and witness to her own mother's bestial degeneration, Lulu is on the run for the frozen north, the last place on earth rumored to be safe. But what's awaiting her is as unexpected, and as frightening, as what's followed her there...
Z-Minus I
Perrin Briar - 2014
The virus becomes us.But the process takes eight hours.If you only had eight hours left to live, what would you do?For Chris Smith, that decision has been made for him. He’s infected, and returns home to find the rest of his family undead or missing, save his youngest daughter Maisie. He’s never been much of a father, but can he make up for it now in the final few hours of his life and find somewhere safe for her to survive?Z-MINUS. Let the countdown begin.
Pandemic
A.G. Riddle - 2017
It may be the start of a scientific experiment that could alter the human race forever--and reveal a shocking truth about our future.Experience the groundbreaking novel that will change everything you think you know about pandemics--and how to survive one.“Reads like a superior collaboration between Dan Brown and Michael Crichton.”—The GuardianNow an Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller.A hundred miles north of Alaska, a US Coast Guard vessel discovers a sunken submarine at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. It has no national identification and doesn’t match the records of any known vessel. Deep within, researchers find evidence of a scientific experiment that will rewrite our basic understanding of the human race.In Atlanta, Dr. Peyton Shaw is awakened by the phone call she has dreaded for years. As the CDC’s leading epidemiologist, she’s among the first responders to outbreaks around the world. It’s a lonely and dangerous job, but it’s her life—and she’s good at it. This time, she may have met her match.In Kenya, an Ebola-like pathogen has infected two Americans. One lies at death’s door. With the clock ticking, Peyton assembles her team and joins personnel from the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the WHO. What they find in the remote village is beyond their worst fears. As she traces the origin of the pathogen, Peyton begins to believe that there is more to this outbreak—that it may be merely the opening act in a conspiracy with far reaching consequences.In Berlin, Desmond Hughes awakens in a hotel room with no memory of how he got there or who he is. On the floor, he finds a dead security guard from an international pharmaceutical company. His only clue leads him to Peyton Shaw—a woman who seems to know him, but refuses to tell him how. With the police searching the city for him, Desmond desperately tries to piece together what happened to him. To his shock and horror, he learns that he may be involved in causing the outbreak—and could hold the only key to stopping it.As the pathogen spreads around the world, Peyton and Desmond race to unravel the conspiracy behind the pandemic—and uncover secrets some want to keep buried. With time running out, they face an unimaginable decision.Buy now and begin the journey (or read for free in Kindle Unlimited).Selected Praise and Published Reviews“I finished the book fast because I just couldn’t wait...”—WIRED GeekDad on Departure“Riddle makes an effort to keep the focus on how his characters react to each other (including to their future selves) rather than to the technological marvels that reshaped their world.”—Publisher’s Weekly on Departure“Well-constructed and tightly-wound as a fine Swiss watch—Departure has non-stop action, an engaging plot and, of course, wheels within wheels.”—Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander on Departure About Pandemic
Pandemic: The Beginning
Christine Kersey - 2019
It doesn't take long for society to collapse, but when surviving neighbors band together, hope is restored.That hope is swiftly shattered when a rogue element forms, requiring food in exchange for security and medical services. The Bronsons refuse, but when the group takes over the neighborhood, they demand the Bronsons join or face deadly consequences. With their lives at stake, they must make a decision: give in or take a stand.
Rise Again
Ben Tripp - 2010
MASS HYSTERIA. SUDDEN DEATH. And a warning that would come all too late...Forest Peak, California. Fourth of July. Sheriff Danielle Adelman, a troubled war veteran, thinks she has all the problems she can handle in this all-American town after her kid sister runs away from home. But when a disease-stricken horde of panicked refugees fleeing the fall of Los Angeles swarms her small mountain community, Danny realizes her problems have only just begun - starting with what might very well be the end of the world. Danny thought she had seen humanity at its worst in war-torn Iraq, but nothing could prepare her for the remorseless struggle to survive in a dying world being overrun by the reanimated dead and men turned monster. Obsessed with finding her missing sister against all odds, Danny's epic and dangerous journey across the California desert will challenge her spirit... and bring her to the precipice of sanity itself...Filled with adventurous human drama - and shocking inhuman horror - Rise Again marks a vivid and powerful fiction debut.
Endurance
Ann Aguirre - 2012
Along the way, they must evade the Freaks, beings who feed on human flesh. Leaving behind the roles of Builder and Breeder which they were assigned at birth, they wander the underground tunnels, looking for safety yet afraid to go "topside" where legend has it that the light and water will burn their skin from their bones.Their journey takes them upward to an unimagined world of tinned food, comfortable furniture, and books. Away from their regimented society for the first time, and still facing imminent danger, Thimble and Stone acknowledge the forbidden attraction which both have denied for years.