Book picks similar to
Walk The Sky by Robert Swartwood
horror
western
weird-west
zombies
Valley of the Lesser Evil
Carl Dane - 2018
Bareknuckle fighter, gunman, and itinerant marshal Josiah Hawke is up against a stacked deck: He’s been called in to investigate the murder of an old friend and lawman in a town that’s suddenly and inexplicably been overrun by thugs and goons. As he gets closer to the truth, the outlaw gang draws on seemingly unlimited resources to up the ante, and Hawke faces a series of increasingly determined and deadly adversaries who want him dead. But Hawke, a former college professor who became addicted to the rush of combat a decade earlier during the Civil War, brings a very special set of skills to the table – trickery, deception, and battlefield smarts he acquired in a secret unit conducting raids and sabotage behind enemy lines. And he teams up with a formidable Tennessee mountain man named Tom Carmody, a giant woodsman who can read tracks like anyone else reads a newspaper. Together, this Old West odd couple battles hired shootists, a gang of hired gunmen, and raiding Comanche war parties – and in their spare time occupies themselves by creatively getting on each other’s nerves. At the end lies the shocking solution to the mystery and a final confrontation with one of the West’s deadliest hired guns – along with the realization that behind the puzzle lurks an unspeakable secret that has been hushed in the shadows of the Valley of the Lesser Evil. VISIT WWW.RAGINGBULLPUBLISHING.COM AND DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE WESTERN STARTER LIBRARY
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.
In the Dark of the Night
John Saul - 2006
But for the Brewster family it will be this year's holiday retreat, and for the kids Eric and Marci it's the perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring.Which is how Eric and his teenage friends discover a curious collection of discarded objects stowed in a hidden room in the carriage house. The bladeless hacksaws, shade-less lamps, tables with missing legs, a headless axe handle - these unremarkable items add up to a pile of junk. Yet someone once took the trouble to list each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger, thus provoking a great mystery that is now whispering, coaxing, demanding to be solved. The more the boys devote themselves to piecing together the puzzle, the more their fascination deepens into obsession. Soon their days are consumed with this weird collection, while their nights become plagued by ever more ghastly nightmares.And finally when a horrifying discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth about a twisted legacy with a malevolent life of its own.
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.
Die Once More
Amy Plum - 2015
He's spent the last century flirting his way through Paris and, most recently, falling in love with his best friend's girlfriend. Loyalty and heartbreak have led him to choose a new life in NYC.Separated from his friends and his home, Jules is adrift in this dangerous new world, facing unknown enemies . . . until he meets a revenant named Ava. Though the battle for France has been won, an epic war between good and evil has just begun in the Big Apple, and Ava needs Jules's help to uncover the key to an American victory. Jules finds himself in the same position he crossed an ocean to escape: at risk of losing his immortal existence as well as his heart.
The Purge of Babylon
Sam Sisavath - 2013
That was all it took. Creatures that once lived in the shadows, hidden from humankind, have risen, spreading like a plague across the globe over the course of a single night. Their numbers growing exponentially through infection, these seemingly unkillable creatures have swallowed up whole cities and collapsed unprepared governments. Survivors call it The Purge. Against all odds, a disparate group of survivors has emerged from that blood-soaked night that devastated the planet and reduced humanity to an endangered species. Among the survivors are two ex-Army Rangers, a businesswoman, and a third-year medical student. But surviving The Purge was one thing – staying alive is another matter entirely. Hope exists in the countryside, in the form of a self-sustaining underground facility designed to withstand any calamity. But in order to reach its safety, the survivors must travel hundreds of treacherous miles, with the night – and the creatures that dwell within it – always at their backs. The rules are simple: stay out of the dark, load up on silver bullets, and whatever you do, stay alive. The road to salvation has begun …
The Half-Made World
Felix Gilman - 2010
What exists has been carved out amidst a war between two rival factions: the Line, paving the world with industry and claiming its residents as slaves; and the Gun, a cult of terror and violence that cripples the population with fear. The only hope at stopping them has seemingly disappeared--the Red Republic that once battled the Gun and the Line, and almost won. Now they're just a myth, a bedtime story parents tell their children, of hope. To the west lies a vast, uncharted world, inhabited only by the legends of the immortal and powerful Hill People, who live at one with the earth and its elements. Liv Alverhyusen, a doctor of the new science of psychology, travels to the edge of the made world to a spiritually protected mental institution in order to study the minds of those broken by the Gun and the Line. In its rooms lies an old general of the Red Republic, a man whose shattered mind just may hold the secret to stopping the Gun and the Line. And either side will do anything to understand how.
Among Monsters
Jamie McGuire - 2014
Jenna had promised her mother that if the worst happened during her dad’s weekend, they would meet at Red Hill Ranch. When she finds seven words spray-painted on her dad’s wall the morning after a deadly outbreak, she makes a promise to herself: to get to the ranch with her seven-year-old sister, Halle, and to get them both there alive. Among Monsters is the companion novella to Red Hill, both exploring from different perspectives what many broken families experience every other weekend: What if your children aren't with you when the world ends? What would you do to get to them? What would they go through to get to you? For Jenna, seeing her mother again is worth everything. Determined to keep her promise, she is faced with experiences and decisions that force her to leave her childhood behind.
The Whispers of the Fallen
J.D. Netto - 2012
Netto is a fast-paced, heart pounding, and truly breathtaking read.” Sasha Alsberg, New York Times Bestselling AuthorEver since the dawn of days, rumors about the Diary of Lucifer echoed throughout Elysium. Hidden from all human knowledge, the Diary was kept a secret, locked away in the small village of Agalmath.Isaac and Demetre find themselves in a dangerous journey as they uncover the truth about the Diary and those who guarded it for all these years. However, for Isaac and Demetre, danger lies at every step, hidden in the most unexpected places.Hunted by the Nephilins and the Fallen Stars, they must find others who will join them in the battle against the coming darkness.REVIEWS
"I am not normally a fan of this type of book, but I was intrigued and decided to give it a try. I absolutely loved it!"Shannon W. Goodreads Reviewer ★★★★★"This book surprised me in a good way. I didn't expect it to have as much scary moments, but man does Netto know how to write a scene!"Spenser B. Goodreads Reviewer ★★★★★"This. Book. Is. Awesome ! Since last year I haven't found many books which made me say that!"Clemence - Goodreads Reviewer ★★★★★
Gehenna
Jason Brant - 2012
Infamous outlaw Mad Dog McCall, stuck in the city jail, must fight for his life to escape. The lonely, intelligent, and snarky Karen must make horrific sacrifices to survive the night against the growing army of the dead.Together they set upon a journey of biblical proportions, fighting against the living and the infected, hoping against hope to find a safe haven in the middle of Hell.The Old West can't fathom the zombie horde that is about to consume it.
99 Brief Scenes From The End Of The World
T.W. Grim - 2012
It detailed our culture, accumulated mathematical knowledge, and the finer points of human physiology. Now, years later, they have finally received a reply... The Western Hemisphere is plunged into chaos, as exposure to the alien radio signal transforms millions of ordinary citizens into savage lunatics, their re-programmed minds relentlessly driving them to spread mayhem and death. From the southernmost point of Chile to the farthest reaches of Northern Canada, the day dawns upon a desperate struggle for survival. Fleeing from raging fires, disastrous havoc, and the murderous rampaging of the infected, the survivors must try to overcome the odds and survive to see tomorrow - but, with a mentally unstable President contemplating full-scale nuclear war on the East, will there even be a tomorrow? Originally published as a condensed serial on Reddit.com, in the SubReddit Library of Shadows, 99 Brief Scenes From the End of The World is a taut, adrenaline-fueled excursion into the darkest depths of the human id. It takes the reader from the embattled streets of suburbia to a besieged church in a Texan border town; to top-secret government facilities, where powerful men play a game of political chess, using people as pawns. Will the alien transmission succeed in destroying us all - or does salvation lie within the extraordinary mind of a catatonic little girl?
Mister B. Gone
Clive Barker - 2007
of the title is Jakabob Botch, a demon whose ghastly past could make even the most merciless sociopath whimper in sympathy. Born in the deepest regions of hell, the spawn of an abusive drunkard and his whorish wife, Jakabob escapes to the world above after suffering fiendish torture. Once topside, he lands conveniently in 15th-century Mainz, the home of printing inventor Johannes Gutenberg. However, Mister B. isn't interested in merely observing history; like any other self-respecting diabolical being, he's just searching for a new demonic angle. A ghoulishly good fright fest.
The Most Uncommon Cold I: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Jeffrey Littorno - 2013
Her neck was still bent awkwardly to the left. I was struggling to make sense of what I was seeing when she spoke. “Wha…what…hap… happened t…to me?” She stuttered and slurred, but her words could be understood. Her eyes were still glassy as she slowly turned her head to look at me. I took me a few seconds to respond. Replying to someone who was just a moment earlier to all appearances dead has a way of taking your breath away. Eventually, I managed to say, “Well, I don’t really know, I...uh...came in and there was a man in...airport coveralls named James and...” “I f-feel cold,” she muttered slowly as if she had not heard me. Sluggishly and with difficulty, she raised herself at the waist. She looked down at her bloody body surveying the damage. Until this point, I had not noticed that her right shoulder looked as if a bite had torn away a chunk of the flesh and her left cheek had four parallel deep scratches as if fingernails had ripped down the side of her face. I couldn’t see other wounds, but blood covered most of her light green uniform making it look black. “You shouldn’t move!” I yelled. “Don’t move! I’ll go find a doctor!” I was standing a few feet from her, but somehow she managed to twist around a reach my leg. I felt her hand grab hard into the skin of my calf. “No, s-s-stay here,” she hissed as I yanked my leg free and backed away. “You need a doctor!” I cried out as I spun around to leave. When I reached the doorway, I looked back at her. She was still struggling to stand even as she slid her body toward me. A trail of smeared blood stayed on the white tile floor behind her. “Stay,” she hissed again, but I was already out the door.Kevin Turner is having a very bad day. People around him aredying... but they are not staying dead. Even in a world that seems to have gone crazy, the reporter is determined make sense of it all. Now he just has to stay alive long enough to get the facts.
Z-WORLD
B.V. Larson - 2010
Bizarre monsters of blended flesh shamble in the streets. The world has shifted. Guns don't always work anymore, and the dead don't always die. Corpses lie everywhere--and many of them are still dangerous...Gannon is one of the last living humans in Redmoor. Most of the other residents have shifted into something else. "They are coming, Gannon. The flying ones."Do you want to have nightmares? Z-WORLD is a novel of Fantasy and Horror by bestselling author B. V. Larson.
Bacchanal
Veronica Henry - 2021
But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.