Book picks similar to
Stranger Danger by Kevin Strange


horror
bizarro
strangehouse-books
apocalyptic

Mason's War: A Purge of Babylon Story


Sam Sisavath - 2016
    EVEN THE BAD GUYS. Mason has always been good at surviving—adaptable, opportunistic, and, when necessary, ruthless. He’s thrived when so many have fallen, but no one stays on top forever. After a string of failures, Mason finds himself in a small Texas town under someone else’s command. Fine. He’s had to fight his way up the ladder before, and he can do it again. But even Mason can’t foresee the trouble that befalls him when he crosses paths with a sharpshooting teenage girl. For a guy who has never given a damn about anyone but himself, it’s a whole new world—one that even someone as bad as Mason might not survive. Is there such a thing as redemption in a post-Purge world? Mason is about to find out.

Wool


Hugh Howey - 2011
    They've lived there so long, there are only legends about people living anywhere else. Such a life requires rules. Strict rules. There are things that must not be discussed. Like going outside. Never mention you might like going outside.Or you'll get what you wish for.

The Summer Dragon


Todd Lockwood - 2016
    As she comes of age, she anticipates a dragon of her own to add to the stable of breeding parents. Her peaceful life is shattered when the Summer Dragon—one of the rare and mythical High Dragons—makes an appearance in her quiet valley. Political factions vie for control of the implied message, threatening her aspirations, her aerie, her entire way of life.The bond between dragons and their riders is deep and life-long, and Maia’s desire for a dragon of her own to train, ride, fly, and love drives her to take a risk that puts her life at stake. She is swept into an adventure that pits her against the deathless Horrors, thralls of the enemy, and a faceless creature drawn from her fear. In her fight to preserve everything she knows and loves, she exposes a conspiracy, unearths an ancient civilization, and challenges her understanding of her world—and of herself.

Night of the Assholes


Kevin L. Donihe - 2010
    . . From Wonderland Award Winner Kevin L. Donihe, comes a hilarious tribute to Night of the Living Dead A plague of assholes is infecting the countryside. Normal everyday people are transforming into jerks, snobs, dicks, and douchebags. And they all have only one purpose: to make your life a living hell. Today is the worst day of Barbara's life. The assholes are everywhere. They're picking fights, causing accidents, and even killing people. But she must remain calm. If you raise your temper to an asshole you'll become one of them. After losing her brother to the asshole onslaught, Barbara flees for her life. She finds safety in a desolate farmhouse with six other survivors. Cut off from the world and surrounded by a sea of assholes, they must figure out a way to last through the night. But more and more of those annoying bastards are gathering outside, preparing for the coming of something much worse. . .

The Other: Encounters With The Cthulhu Mythos Book One


Troy Young - 2020
    But in recent times, alien interference has been on the rise. Why? What mysterious forces are causing an increase in these encounters, and what ultimately will be humanity’s fate? Governments around the globe are working in secret to uncover and unravel the taint of cosmic horror that infects the planet. Three investigators employed by a shadowy government agency encounter entities fueled by the malevolent energy of something known as “The Other.” As they peel back the layers obscuring the unknown horrors that inhabit the vast universe, the investigators enter a futile struggle against inhumanity, insanity and despair.T his collection of linked short stories pulls the reader into a modern take on the world of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The book contains the following stories: It Came From The Sea: the remains of a mysterious creature is washed ashore on a small Cape Breton village, forever changing the lives of all who see it. It Slumbers Beneath The Ice: an ancient entity of cosmic evil lies trapped in the ice of the Canadian Arctic. A mysterious cult seeks to free it from its prison, an event the investigators rush to prevent. It Lives In The Woods: A cultist summons an entity from the Dreamlands and unleashes it on this world with deadly consequences. It Hides In The Village: Small rural towns are breeding grounds for Mythos activity, where a dedicated group of followers assists The Black Pharoah in his plans to spread discord and chaos. It Lurks In The Basement: An investigator is recovering from her encounters with The Other when she learns of an entity of unspeakable evil imprisoned in the basement of a home in her neighbourhood. It Ends Where It Began: All of the investigators are brought together and return to the blighted Cape Breton village where their odyssey began and learn of the diabolical plan of a malign deity and one of the Mythos’ most active antagonists. The Happenings of December 13, 2012: The story of the investigator’s mysterious handler, and how The Other first drew him into its web of terror. This is the first book in a trilogy.

The Rain


Virginia Bergin - 2014
    Crowded in Zach's kitchen, Ruby and the rest of the partygoers laugh at Zach's parents' frenzied push to get them all inside as it starts to drizzle. But then the radio comes on with the warning, "It's in the rain! It's fatal, it's contagious, and there's no cure."Two weeks later, Ruby is alone. Anyone who's been touched by rain or washed their hands with tap water is dead. The only drinkable water is quickly running out. Ruby's only chance for survival is a treacherous hike across the country to find her father-if he's even still alive.

Bird Box


Josh Malerman - 2014
    One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.

Dead City


Joe McKinney - 2006
    Within hours, the plague has spread throughout most of Texas and shows no signs of slowing down.San Antonio police officer Eddie Hudson finds himself in the middle of the outbreak, along with a few other survivors. Eddie does his best to fight off the zombie horde and locate his wife and son, who he believes still are safe and haven’t been infected by the virus.

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.

The Fireman


Joe Hill - 2016
    Stay cool.No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

The Dreamers


Karen Thompson Walker - 2019
    She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics who carry her away, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. Then a second girl falls asleep, and then another, and panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. As the number of cases multiplies, classes are canceled, and stores begin to run out of supplies. A quarantine is established. The National Guard is summoned. Mei, an outsider in the cliquish hierarchy of dorm life, finds herself thrust together with an eccentric, idealistic classmate. Two visiting professors try to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. A father succumbs to the illness, leaving his daughters to fend for themselves. And at the hospital, a new life grows within a college girl, unbeknownst to her—even as she sleeps. A psychiatrist, summoned from Los Angeles, attempts to make sense of the illness as it spreads through the town. Those infected are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, more than has ever been recorded. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?

The First Days


Rhiannon Frater - 2008
    Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together. During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot. A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization. It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love…anything is possible at the end of the world.

The World Over


Cassiopeia Fletcher - 2021
    Now, the last US Government stronghold has sent a military recon-team from Camp David to the bombed out city of Seattle, but the mission turns deadly when a horde of horrifying, mutant creatures are released onto the streets.Oliver Marcus and Trisha Pike, the only survivors of their nine-man team, are rescued by a group of scavengers led by their superhuman leader, River Kingston.Driven by the need to find her lost husband, River is drawn in by Mycroft, the invisible puppet master behind New Texas, who promises her answers in exchange for favors. But as the world continues to warp and change around her, River becomes more and more wrapped up in the secrets and lies of post-apocalyptic politics that will ultimately determine the difference between life and death for the people she promised to protect.Because even with humanity dangling by a thread, people still like to have power. And they still like to abuse it.

Blackwing


Ed McDonald - 2017
    When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow and a mysterious noblewoman must investigate a long dead sorcerer's legacy. But there is a conspiracy within the citadel: traitors, flesh-eaters and the ghosts of the wastelands seek to destroy them, but if they cannot solve the ancient wizard's paradox, the Deep Kings will walk the earth again, and all will be lost.The war with the Eastern Empire ended in stalemate some eighty years ago, thanks to Nall's 'Engine', a wizard-crafted weapon so powerful even the Deep Kings feared it. The strike of the Engine created the Misery - a wasteland full of ghosts and corrupted magic that now forms a No Mans Land along the frontier. But when Galharrow investigates a frontier fortress, he discovers complacency bordering on treason: then the walls are stormed, and the Engine fails to launch. Galharrow only escapes because of the preternatural magical power of the noblewoman he was supposed to be protecting. Together, they race to the capital to unmask the traitors and restore the republic's defences. Far across the Misery a vast army is on the move, as the Empire prepares to call the republic's bluff.

The Last


Michael John Grist - 2015
    1 man.When the zombie apocalypse hits America, not a soul is left alive.Except Amo. He's a comic book artist. He's a video game world builder. He's just a regular guy living in New York city, with only his wits, creativity and basic decency to guide him.He's alone against 7 billion zombies.Will he survive?'Robinson Crusoe' meets the zombie apocalypse like you've never seen it before, packed with adventure, gore and a mind-blowing twist.