Book picks similar to
Grid Down #1 by Roger Hayden


e-books
mystery-thriller
adventure-survival
fiction-apocalyptic

Alone


T.R. Sullivan - 2011
    He is a normal average man, married with two kids. When his wife and children leave for a visit to his in laws in England, Ralph finds himself alone at home. He goes about his daily chores and with his faithful dog Jason at his side, Ralph soon discovers that he is not only alone at home, but he is truly alone. Everyone on the face of the Earth has vanished. With no explanation, Ralph and Jason struggle to survive in an empty world. As power fails and the phones go dead, all hope of contacting his missing family is gone. With no outside communication and no idea what has caused the worldwide disappearances, their outlook is grim. With no power, water or phones, Ralph abandons their home and searches for some place to live that will allow him to provide for the future, whatever the future might bring. As Ralph and Jason face new challenges, the two grow closer together and come to depend on each other for their very survival.Ralph tries to adapt to the loss of everyday conveniences as he and Jason move into an old farm house and proceed to make it their home. Ralph spends part of the time building his own power generating plant and relying on spring water. Together they collect farm animals from the surrounding area and move them to the farm. The animals provide food and help to ease the loneliness. As time passes they settle into their new home. Planting crops for food and then guarding those crops, they struggle to become self sufficient. With no men to stop them, wildlife fills the land and Ralph and Jason have new worries as predators also multiply.Ralph prepares the farm for protection and the pair defend themselves against nature running wild. With an explosion of smaller animals, their food supply is threatened but just as quickly the small animals disappear and their worries quickly turn to the large number of predators that are now in the area. With no men around, the animals become bolder and bolder. They are forced to fight to protect each other and the small farm they now consider home.When nature reaches equilibrium, Ralph and Jason spend each day providing for their needs and trying to cope with loneliness. Each day brings a different struggle and Ralph learns to adapt to each new circumstance. Trying to salvage books and materials before they are lost, Ralph and Jason make numerous dangerous trips into the towns and cities until they are forced to stop. Finally all modern technology fails and mankind retreats several hundred years.As the years roll by, they settle into the routine of their new lives. The lack of human company threatens Ralph’s sanity and his sorrow sometimes overwhelms him. Thoughts of his wife and children are never far from his mind and their loss weighs heavily on him. Finally the last man on Earth, an aged and stooped figure waits for the final end.

The Reset


Daniel Powell - 2014
    The destruction is total—the landscape scrubbed bare by the fires of the Reset. The sun rarely penetrates the daily ash storms, and the last of the Earth’s plants and animals are slowly dying out.And yet, there are survivors. Benjamin Stone is one of them, and he’s searching for the only person who can share his pain, another who was biologically altered at birth to become a weapon capable of bringing the world to its knees. Outside of the few supplies that sustain him in his search for a new life, he has nothing.Nothing but a will to survive and the desire to find someplace safe—someplace better. The Reset is a story of perseverance. It examines a future in which fragmentation and devolution have decimated society, and in which terrorism represents the final desperate attempt at shuffling the deck. With thematic elements similar to Stephen King’s The Stand and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, it’s a post-apocalyptic story about the survivors of humanity’s cruelest intentions, and their essential impulse to rebuild.

The Pulse Super Boxset: EMP Post Apocalyptic Fiction


Alexandria Clarke - 2018
    When they arrive, Georgie discovers that a group of survivalists have already erected a camp there, and her father is nowhere to be found. As she adjusts to her new normal, she has trouble adhering to the survivalists’ rules. Can she fit in at the camp and find out what happened to her father? Static: An EMP Thriller The thin thread holding the civilized world together has been severed. Millions of citizens have been thrust into the unknown, breeding fear into the minds and souls of those seeking to survive. Wren Burton, an architect from Chicago, has been engulfed by the chaotic aftermath of an EMP blast. Her family is injured. The enemy is unknown. And help is nowhere to be found. Surviving the Collapse What happens when all means of transportation and communication suddenly vanish? What happens when you can’t call for help? What happens when the only person you can rely on is yourself? Captain Kate Hillman is about to discover those answers after an EMP sends New York City, and it’s nine million residents, back into the stone age.

All the Little Children


Jo Furniss - 2017
    Overnight, all communication with the outside world is lost.Knowing something terrible has happened, Marlene suspects that the isolation of the remote campsite is all that’s protecting her family. But the arrival of a lost boy reveals they are not alone in the woods, and as the unfolding disaster ravages the land, more youngsters seek refuge under her wing. The lives of her own children aren’t the only ones at stake.When their sanctuary is threatened, Marlene faces the mother of all dilemmas: Should she save her own kids or try to save them all?

Winter's Edge


Mike Sheridan - 2016
    Seven years after a global war has devastated mankind, the apparatus of the old security state has rebuilt itself into an even greater monster: the Strata State. But this time there's a difference--The Outzone. A choice too dangerous for most to consider. Not Frank Brogan. When three Outzone bandits cross into New Haven and murder his wife and daughter, Lieutenant Frank Brogan quits his specially-trained police unit to hunt them down. Leaving the safety of the Strata State, Brogan enters the Outzone--a quasi-sovereign tract of land ceded from federal jurisdiction--and travels to its de facto capital, Winter's Edge, where he picks up the bandits' trail. In a violent city controlled by rival gangs, he needs to use all his hard-won skills as a police officer and war veteran to survive. It isn't long before Brogan's quest takes him out of the city and deeper into the lawless territory. Can he survive encounters with the nomadic tribes that roam the Outzone's mountains and plains to finally confront the men who murdered his family? For a limited time, readers can receive a FREE full length novel, OUTZONE RAIDER by signing up to the mailing list (details at the end of the book)

The Walk


Lee Goldberg - 2004
    Marty Slack, a TV network executive, crawls out from under his Mercedes, parked outside what once was a downtown Los Angeles warehouse, the location for a new TV show. Downtown LA is in ruins. The sky is thick with black smoke. His cell phone is dead. The freeways are rubble. The airport is demolished. Buildings lay across streets like fallen trees. It will be days before help can arrive.Marty has been expecting this day all his life. He's prepared. In his car are a pair of sturdy walking shoes and a backpack of food, water, and supplies. He knows there is only one thing he can do ... that he must do: get home to his wife Beth, go back to their gated community on the far edge of the San Fernando Valley.All he has to do is walk. But he will quickly learn that it's not that easy. His dangerous, unpredictable journey home will take him through the different worlds of what was once Los Angeles. Wildfires rage out of control. Flood waters burst through collapsed dams. Natural gas explosions consume neighborhoods. Sinkholes swallow entire buildings. After-shocks rip apart the ground. Looters rampage through the streets.There's no power. No running water. No order.Marty Slack thinks he's prepared. He's wrong. Nothing can prepare him for this ordeal, a quest for his family and for his soul, a journey that will test the limits of his endurance and his humanity, a trek from the man he was to the man he can be ... if he can survive The Walk.

Resurrection


Michael J. Totten - 2014
     Annie Starling is missing her memory of the last eight weeks—the most devastating in history. It started in Russia and went global in a matter of days, the most virulent virus the world has ever known. It’s stripping its victims of every last thing that makes them human. And that’s just the beginning. The other survivors are no less dangerous than the infected. She meets Lane, who stops at nothing to assert power and control over everybody who’s left; Kyle, who dreams of building a new world upon the ruins of the old; Hughes, who lost the ability to feel after burying his family; and Parker, who threatens to tear himself and his companions apart. And when her memories finally return, Annie discovers a terrifying secret that could change everything—but she can’t tell a soul what it is.

#zombie


Al K. Line - 2014
    She loses almost everything with that fateful keystroke.The largest Web hack ever performed has devastating repercussions as it all goes horribly wrong. Designed to compromise the world's connected devices, the zombie botnet delivers subliminal data packets via social media and more - in an afternoon most of the world is either infected or eaten.Now it is a fight for survival for Ven and her baby. Kyle, her one and only friend, and her faithful tubby Labrador Boscoe, help navigate the apocalyptic nightmare that is now their world.The problem is Ven has never used a gun in her life, has no idea how to kill a zombie, and finds it hard to leave the house without doing her make-up.Let's just say it gets interesting, and leave you to find out the rest, in this totally unique zombie novel series that will leave you too scared to ever go on Twitter again.

Origins


Kristen Middleton - 2012
    Seventeen year old Cassandra Wild thought living in the chaos of her mother’s home daycare and dealing with her developing feelings for Bryce, her new Martial Arts’ instructor, was a struggle, until the night her world turned upside down.When an untested vaccine kills more than just a rampant flu virus, Cassie learns how to survive in a world where the dead walk, and the living…run!

The Eden Plague


David VanDyke - 2012
    Who is the man he kills, the woman he shoots, and what is the Eden Plague? Fleeing the shadowy Company, Daniel turns to fellow soldiers. He fights back, seeks the woman, and wants answers. A secret threatens world stability and a conspiracy could change everything.

Run


Blake Crouch - 2011
    Brutal. Seemingly unconnected. A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike. A mass of school shootings. Prison riots of unprecedented brutality. Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.4 D A Y S A G OThe murders increased ten-fold…3 D A Y S A G OThe President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace…2 D A Y S A G OThe killers began to mobilize…Y E S T E R D A YAll the power went out…T O N I G H TThey’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more. You only have time to….R U NThis 80,000-word novel also contains a bonus interview with Blake, and excerpts from his other work.

Grace Lost


M. Lauryl Lewis - 2012
    They are joined by two other survivors, Gus and Emilie. Infected, Zoe must also face the realization that she has developed a telepathic link to the living dead that fills her mind with darkness and evil. Facing unimaginable horrors and unthinkable tragedies, the group must fight both the living and the dead. Zoe and Boggs manage to fall in love while surrounded by death and despair. Before long, it becomes clear that the living dead do not play by usual zombie rules.

Contamination Boxed Set


T.W. Piperbrook - 2013
    In this new world, there will be no last meal, no dying wish. The only reward left is to survive another day...

New World


Stephen Birch - 2013
    The UK is now lawless and the power is off. The survivors are left to fight over the remaining supplies of food and water. Nick Smith is a man with a tough past. He was a fugitive when the virus hit. He survived by living off the land and by staying constantly on the move. Up until then he had avoided all contact with other people. Following the pandemic he reluctantly saves a young boy from a vicious gang and his life is turned upside down. Nick and the young boy then cross paths with Beth and her two daughters at an abandoned motorway service station. Nick is then drawn further into a situation that he has been avoiding for years.Beth and her daughters have been forced to leave the safety of their house. They are on their way to the coast and they are looking for something that no longer exists. A safe home in this harsh New World.

Until Morning Comes Boxed Set: Until Morning Comes, In Too Deep, The Way Back


J.T. Sawyer - 2015
    Approximately 530 pages total. Until Morning Comes, Volume 1 Secret Service Agent Carlie Simmons began her day surrounded by trusted colleagues in an inter-agency shooting competition in Tucson. It ended with a staggering body count as the world around her unraveled from a deadly virus. With her mission to extract the President’s daughter from the University of Arizona gone awry, she must choose between her sworn duties and her moral obligations to others as the city is overtaken by roving packs of flesh-eating mutants. If she and her small group are to survive the night and find a way out of the ravaged city, she will have to summon all of her training, mental prowess, and tactical abilities. In Too Deep, Volume 2 After narrowly escaping from the undead hordes in Tucson with the president’s daughter and her small band of survivors, Secret Service Agent Carlie Simmons is finally headed to safety in New Mexico. As new information emerges on the global pandemic, she and her team of operators have to leave their secure military facility to track down the origins of the virus before more people die. Crossing the country and international waters while plagued by the growing menace of flesh-eating zombies, Carlie finds herself in a race against time on a mission that exposes a secret experiment borne from the Cold War. But the greatest danger may not come from the emerging legions of putrescent creatures as tension within her group threatens to undermine her leadership. The Way Back, Volume 3 Carlie, along with Shane, Jared, and the rest of her eclectic group endure a nightmarish struggle to survive in the Caribbean on a grueling trek that will test their fortitude, battling zombies and hostile bands of humans along the way. Eliza Huntington, the president’s daughter, has her own harrowing journey to make after Air Force One goes down in Idaho and she is forced to adapt in ways she never imagined. Eventually the fates of both parties intertwine in an explosive battle where tactics and firepower may not be enough to defeat the unspeakable horrors that await them. About the Author: JT Sawyer is the pen name for the author who makes his living teaching survival courses for the military special operations community, Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals, FAA, and other federal agencies throughout the US. He has over 25 years of experience testing long-term survival skills in the desert, mountains, and forest. JT also served as a technical consultant for the film Into the Wild.