Book picks similar to
Redaction by Linda Andrews
apocalyptic
post-apocalyptic
apocalypse
fiction
Red Hill
Jamie McGuire - 2013
Nathan has a wife, but can’t remember what it’s like to be in love; only his young daughter Zoe makes coming home worthwhile. Miranda’s biggest concern is whether her new VW Bug is big enough to carry her sister and their boyfriends on a weekend escape from college finals.When reports of a widespread, deadly “outbreak” begin to surface, these ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances and suddenly their fates are intertwined. Recognizing they can’t outrun the danger, Scarlet, Nathan, and Miranda desperately seek shelter at the same secluded ranch, Red Hill. Emotions run high while old and new relationships are tested in the face of a terrifying enemy—an enemy who no longer remembers what it’s like to be human.Set against the backdrop of a brilliantly realized apocalyptic world, love somehow finds a way to survive. But what happens when the one you’d die for becomes the one who could destroy you?Red Hill grabs you from page one and doesn’t let go until its stunning conclusion. This is #1 New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire at her unforgettable best.
After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia
Ellen DatlowMatthew Kressel - 2012
"New York Times "bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology. Introduction by Genevieve ValentineThe SegmentAfter the Cure by Carrie RyanValedictorian by N. K. JemisinVisiting Nelson by Katherine LangrishAll I Know of Freedom by Carol EmshwillerThe Other Elder by Beth RevisThe Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew KresselReunion by Susan Beth PfefferBlood Drive by Jeffrey FordReality Girl by Richard BowesHow Th’irth Wint Rong by Hapless Joey @ Homeskool.guv by Richard BowesRust with Wings by Steven GouldFaint Heart by Sarah Rees BrennanThe Easthound by Nalo HopkinsonGray by Jane YolenBefore by Carolyn DunnFake Plastic Trees by Caitlín R. KiernanYou Won’t Feel a Thing by Garth NixThe Marker by Cecil Castellucci
Since the Sirens
E.E. Isherwood - 2016
Who will save Grandma? What would you do if a mysterious plague began to devour your city and the dead started banging on your door?Fifteen-year-old Liam Peters is spending the summer with his great-grandmother (not by choice) when the authorities of St. Louis spin up the tornado sirens to announce a civic emergency. Police robocalls declare mass disturbances throughout the city, suggesting citizens try to escape to safer jurisdictions. Radio offers contradictory instructions: stay inside, hunker down, ride it out. The President tries to convey a message of hope to calm a scared populace, but the tone is interpreted as a goodbye. The mixed messaging sends society--already on the verge of panic--into a tailspin. When the President signs off, half the city hunkers down while the other half dashes for the interstate.Now Liam is faced with his first dilemma of an increasingly complicated morning. Should he stay with Grandma and attempt to defend her urban home against both the living and the dead, or should he try to get her out of the city to his parents' home in the suburbs? Nothing is ever as simple as it sounds when life and death are on the line.As an avid reader of zombie literature, Liam realizes you go into the zombie apocalypse with the army you have, not the one you want. He sees himself as an unlikely savior, with an unlikely ally, but he embarks on the hero's journey nonetheless. As the city implodes, they race against the clock to outpace desperate refugees, gang violence, criminal opportunists, overzealous military units, scared civilians, and a growing horde of bloodthirsty zombies. He does it while burdened with a woman who is unable to walk more than ten feet without help.As they chase the elusive vision of safety, Liam comes to appreciate why there are no atheists in foxholes.
Introducing the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series.
Book 1: Since the Sirens
Book 2: Siren Songs
Book 3: Stop the Sirens
Author's Notes: Since the Sirens can be read as a standalone story. It doesn't end with a cliffhanger. Books 2 and 3 are optional reading beyond this first volume. I hope you'll enjoy Liam and Grandma's journey enough to follow them further, but as an author and a reader of zombie books, I abhor misleading or otherwise trapping readers.This cover replaces original edition ASIN B018H82ZYU.
Ashfall
Mike Mullin - 2011
Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
The Last Orphans
N.W. Harris - 2014
In a span of mere hours, the entire adult population is decimated, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves and deal with the horrific aftermath of the freak occurrence. As one of the newly made elders in his small town, Shane finds himself taking on the role of caretaker for a large group of juvenile survivors. One who just happens to be Kelly Douglas—an out-of-his-league classmate—who, on any other day, would have never given Shane a second glance. Together, they begin their quest to find out why all of the adults were slaughtered. What they find is even more horrifying than anything they could have expected—the annihilation of the adults was only the beginning. Shane and his friends are not the unlucky survivors left to inherit this new, messed-up planet. No, they are its next victims. There is an unknown power out there, and it won’t stop until every person in the world is dead. A spine-tingling adventure that will have you gasping for breath all the way until the last page, The Last Orphans is the first book in an all-new apocalyptic series.
Ashes
Ilsa J. Bick - 2011
. .An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling post-apocalyptic novel about a world that could become ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.
Deep Into the Game
Saul W. Tanpepper - 2012
and 10,000 Undead.Everyone loves Survivalist, a live-action, virtual reality show based on Arc Entertainment's The Game, where cybernetically controlled zombies do battle in a video arcade in the middle of a Long Island wasteland. It's to die for.If you're rich enough, you can buy your way in. If you're desperate enough, you can volunteer to become one of the Undead Players. Jessie Daniels and her gang of computer hackers plan to break their way in.Welcome to GAMELAND. Access Restricted.A reckless, end-of-summer plan leads Jessie and her friends onto Long Island hoping to catch a glimpse of the infected victims of a decades-old outbreak. But while breaking in might be easy, getting back out is a hell of a killer. It doesn't take long before they realize they're part of The Game.Not recommended for readers under age 15.
Free Falling
Susan Kiernan-Lewis - 2001
What happens within hours of settling in to their rural, rustic little cottage in a far-flung spot on the coast of Ireland is an international incident that leaves the family stranded and dependent on themselves for their survival. Facing starvation, as well as looters and opportunists, they learn the hard way the important things in life. Can a family skilled only in modern day suburbia and corporate workplaces learn to survive when the world is flung back a hundred years? When there is no internet, no telephones, no electricity and no cars? And when every person near them is desperate to survive at any cost?
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife
Meg Elison - 2014
When she awoke, it was dead.In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.After all, if humanity is to be reborn, someone must be its guide.
Life As We Knew It
Susan Beth Pfeffer - 2006
How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.
World Made by Hand
James Howard Kunstler - 2007
Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy. And the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren’t sure. As the heat of summer intensifies, the residents struggle with the new way of life in a world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields and rivers replenished with fish. A captivating, utterly realistic novel, World Made by Hand takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.
Burn the Dead: Quarantine
Steven Jenkins - 2014
Still, his life is routine until one day his infected wife, Anna, shows up in line for the incinerator, and Rob must cremate the love of his life. In a race against the clock, he must find his four-year-old son Sammy, who is stranded in a newly quarantined zone, teeming with the walking dead, and crawling with the Necro-Morbus virus. Does Rob have what it takes to fight the undead and put his broken family back together? Or will he also end up in the incinerator – burning with the rest of the dead?
SurviRal
Ken Benton - 2014
A Denver couple tries to escape the chaos of the city after a killer manmade virus causes the economic collapse of society.
What Survives of Us
Kathy Miner - 2014
Medallion Honoree and Winner of National Indie Excellence AwardNaomi sees her first corpse in a Colorado Springs grocery store, but it won’t be her last. With devastating speed, a plague sweeps first the city, then the state, then the world, leaving less than 1% of the population to go on. Naomi, a gentle and sheltered housewife, finds herself fighting for survival in a world populated by desperate people, where might-makes-right, and mercy and compassion are in short supply. Fellow survivors Jack, a youth minister from Woodland Park; Grace, a 17-year-old high school student from Limon; and Naomi’s daughter Piper, a student at the University of Northern Colorado, all find themselves searching for a safe path forward…because it’s not just the world that has changed. The plague that decimates the human race also pushes mankind into evolutionary change. Those who survive are different, profoundly so, in ways they are just beginning to comprehend. As Naomi struggles to protect and reunite what’s left of her family, she must also learn to understand and accept the changes in herself. In this strange new world, her survival, and the survival of those she loves, depends on it.
Swan Song
Robert R. McCammon - 1987
He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan—and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world, and their souls. In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity....