Book picks similar to
Don't Eat Cat by Jess Walter


fiction
short-stories
zombies
horror

Extreme Makeover


Dan Wells - 2016
    As more and more anomalies crop up in testing, Lyle realizes that the lotion's formula has somehow gone horribly wrong. It is actively overwriting the DNA of anyone who uses it, turning them into physical clones of someone else. Lyle wants to destroy the formula, but NewYew thinks it might be the greatest beauty product ever designed--and the world's governments think it's the greatest weapon.New York Times bestselling author Dan Wells brings us a gripping corporate satire about a health and beauty company that could destroy the world.

Brave New Worlds


John Joseph AdamsNeil Gaiman - 2010
    Brave New Worlds brings together the best dystopian fiction of the last 30 years, demonstrating the diversity that flourishes in this compelling subgenre. This landmark tome contains stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, M. Rickert, Paolo Bacigalupi, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and many others.Table of ContentsIntroduction / John Joseph Adams --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Red card / S.L. Gilbow --Ten with a flag / Joseph Paul Haines --Ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula K. Le. Guin --Evidence of love in a case of abandonment / M. Rickert --The Funeral / Kate Wilhelm --O happy day! / Geoff Ryman --Pervert / Charles Coleman Finlay --From homogeneous to honey / Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot --Billennium / J.G. Ballard --Amaryllis / Carrie Vaughn --Pop squad / Paolo Bacigalupi --Auspicious eggs / James Morrow --Peter Skilling / Alex Irvine --The Pedestrian / Ray Bradbury --Things that make me weak and strange get engineered away / Cory Doctorow --Pearl diver / Caitlin R. Kiernan --Dead space for the unexpected / Geoff Ryman --"Repent harlequin!", said the Ticktockman / Harlan Ellison --Is this your day to join the revolution? / Genevieve Valentine --Independence day / Sarah Langan --Lunatics / Kim Stanley Robinson --Sacrament / Matt Williamson --Minority report / Philip K. Dick --Just do it / Heather Lindsley --Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. --Caught in the organ draft / Robert Silverberg --Geriatric ward / Orson Scott Card --Arties aren't stupid / Jeremiah Tolbert --Jordan's waterhammer / Joe Mastroianni --Of a sweet slow dance in the wake of temporary dogs / Adam-Troy Castro --Resistance / Tobias S. Buckell --Civilization / Vylar Kaftan.

After the Apocalypse


Maureen F. McHugh - 2011
    These stories are today.Following up on her first collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh explores the catastrophes, small and large, of twenty-first century life—and what follows after. What happens after the bird flu pandemic? Are our computers smarter than we are? What does the global economy mean for two young girls in China? Are we really who we say we are? And how will we survive the coming zombie apocalypse?

Perspectives


Bryan James - 2011
    These are some of those stories. This collection of six short stories from a world ravaged by the LZR-1143 virus tell the tale of six different people, all of whom fell victim, in different ways, to the deadly plague. From the pilot of a commercial aircraft, overwhelmed in midair, to the lonely soldier stranded high above a world of the undead, the six characters each face their own fears and mortality in different ways. This 20,000 word short-story collection features a unique selection of characters from the original zombie novel by Bryan James, LZR-1143: Infection, and from the recently released sequel, LZR-1143: Evolution. Each character appears only fleetingly in the longer novels, but each has their own unique thread in the LZR-1143 storyline, all of which are exposed in these short excerpts from their final hours alive. The collection includes The Pilot, The Boy, The Inmate, The Fry Cook, The Subway Passenger, and The Sniper. In The Pilot, a commercial aviator sees his last flight end in a way he never could have imagined. In The Boy, a family trip is cut short, and a lonely homecoming is not at all as he anticipated. We see the surprising genesis and true identity of a traveling companion in The Inmate, while The Fry Cook reveals the final moments of a teenage fast food worker. In The Subway Passenger, we learn that in the case of zombie apocalypse, you’d probably rather be aboveground. And in The Sniper, the surprising truth that there are some fates that cannot be fought, even with a fifty caliber rifle.

The Postmortal


Drew Magary - 2011
    Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.Witty, eerie, and full of humanity, The Postmortal is an unforgettable thriller that envisions a pre-apocalyptic world so real that it is completely terrifying.

The Bone Clocks


David Mitchell - 2014
    But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

Ark


Veronica Roth - 2019
    Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond.Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.Veronica Roth’s Ark is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Vigilance


Robert Jackson Bennett - 2019
    2030. John McDean executive produces "Vigilance," a reality game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a "game environment," and the survivors get a cash prize.The TV audience is not the only one that's watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it's like to be on the other side of the camera.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Magic Gifts


Ilona Andrews - 2011
    Of course, dates between the Beast Lord and Kate Daniels don’t always go as planned. Undead run amok, heads are chopped off, lawyers are deployed with extreme prejudice, and drunk vikings call people out.Novella is after Magic Slays, same time as Andrea in Gunmetal Magic, both intersect.Note: This novella can be found at the end of the Kindle edition of Gunmetal Magic.

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 Scarlet Plague


Jack London - 1912
    It has been 60 years since the great Red Death wiped out mankind, and the handful of survivors from all walks of life have established their own civilization and their own hierarchy in a savage world. Art, science, and all learning has been lost, and the young descendants of the healthy know nothing of the world that was—nothing but myths and make-believe. The old man is the only one who can convey the wonders of that bygone age, and the horrors of the plague that brought about its end. What future lies in store for the remnants of mankind can only be surmised—their ignorance, barbarity, and ruthlessness the only hopes they have?'

On the Beach


Nevil Shute - 1957
    Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.

Infinite


Jeremy Robinson - 2017
    With Earth no longer habitable and the Mars colony slowly failing, they are humanity's best hope.After ten years in a failed cryogenic bed--body asleep, mind awake--William Chanokh's torture comes to an end as the fog clears, the hatch opens, and his friend and fellow hacker, Tom, greets him...by stabbing a screwdriver into his heart. This is the first time William dies.It is not the last.When he wakes from death, William discovers that all but one crew member--Capria Dixon--is either dead at Tom's hands, or escaped to the surface of Kepler 452b. This dire situation is made worse when Tom attacks again--and is killed. Driven mad by a rare reaction to extended cryo-sleep, Tom hacked the Galahad's navigation system and locked the ship on a faster-than-light journey through the universe, destination: nowhere. Ever.Mysteriously immortal, William is taken on a journey with no end, where he encounters solitary desperation, strange and violent lifeforms, a forbidden love, and the nature of reality itself....HE DISCOVERS THE INFINITE.Jeremy Robinson, the master of fast-paced and highly original stories seamlessly blending elements of horror, science fiction, and thrillers, tackles his most ambitious subject matter to date: reality itself. An amalgam of the works of J.J. Abrams and Ridley Scott, Infinite is a bold science fiction novel exploring the vastness of space and a man's desire to exist, find love, and alter the course of his life.

Arcadia


Iain Pears - 2015
    He finds an unlikely confidante in Rosie, an inquisitive young neighbor who, while chasing after Lytten's cat one day, stumbles through a doorway in his cellar and into a stunning and unfamiliar bucolic landscape—remarkably like the fantasy world Lytten is writing about. There she meets a young boy named Jay who is about to embark on a journey that will change both their lives. Elsewhere, in a distopian society where progress is controlled by a corrupt ruling elite, the brilliant scientist Angela Meerson has discovered the potential of a powerful new machine. When the authorities come knocking, she will make an important decision—one that will reverberate through all these different lives and worlds.

Afterlife


Marcus Sakey - 2017
    He wakes without a scratch. The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people — until he sees they’re carrying machetes.Welcome to the afterlife.Claire McCoy stands over the body of Will Brody. As head of an FBI task force, she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. A terrorist has claimed eighteen lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love… with Will Brody. But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect — and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.From the author of the million-copy bestselling Brilliance Trilogy comes a mind-bending thriller that explores our most haunting and fundamental question: What if death is just the beginning?