Book picks similar to
Renewal by J.F. Perkins


post-apocalyptic
sci-fi
dystopian
science-fiction

The Dead Lands


Benjamin Percy - 2015
    A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary-the remains of St. Louis-a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders. Then a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls. She reports on the outside world: west of the Cascades, rain falls, crops grow, civilization thrives. But there is danger too: the rising power of an army that pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon. Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.

Warday


Whitley Strieber - 1984
    But Warday destroyed much of civilization.Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, old friends and writers, take a dangerous odyssey across the former United States, sometimes hopeful that a new, peaceful world can be built over the old, sometimes despairing over the immense losses and embittered people they meet.In an eerie blend of fact and imagination, Strieber (author of "The Wolfen" and "The Hunger") and Kunetka (author of "City of Fire: Los Alamos and The Atomic Age", "1943-1945" and "Oppenheimer: The Years of Risk") cut through the doublespeak of military bureaucracy and the rhetoric of the 1980's peace movement to portray America after Warday.

CyberStorm


Matthew Mather - 2013
    As the world and cyberworlds come crashing down, bending perception and reality, a monster snowstorm cuts New York off from the world, becoming a wintry tomb where no one can be trusted, and nothing is what it seems...CyberStorm is a techno-thriller set in present-day New York City that will appeal to fans of Michael Chichton and Tom Clancy as well as devotees of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. It is an exploration of the human condition as the cyberworld collides with our own, a compelling portrait of a possible future that is all too terrifyingly real.

The Hauntings of Playing God


Chris Dietzel - 2014
    All that remains is an old woman and a gymnasium full of unresponsive bodies. Each day, another storm approaches, threatening to destroy the building they call home. Each night, a series of nightmares leaves the woman screaming for help. Alone and overwhelmed, will the final member of the human race be thought of as a caretaker or as a monster? THE HAUNTINGS OF PLAYING GOD is a story about the possibilities each life holds. It is also a lesson about the importance of believing in something greater than yourself.A Great De-evolution Story.

Apocalypse


Kyle West - 2012
    An invasion of monsters. A desperate fight for survival...Alex Keener has lived all of his sixteen years in Bunker 108. He's walked the same metal halls, seen the same faces, has followed the same rules. All that changes when a viral outbreak forces him to flee the safety of his bunker.Outside, he discovers a barren world twisted by the impact of the meteor Ragnarok thirty years ago. Alone, he must wander a brutal landscape, where every breath is a fight for survival. Monsters haunt the planet's surface, and nothing of the old world remains.Can Alex survive this hellish wasteland, or will he become its newest victim?

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead


Max Brooks - 2003
    Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack 1. Organize before they rise! 2. They feel no fear, why should you?3. Use your head: cut off theirs.4. Blades don’t need reloading.5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it. 7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!9. No place is safe, only safer. 10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on. Don’t be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset—life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it. The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through trusted, proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead. It is a book that can save your life.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse


Victor Gischler - 2008
    Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse begins nine years later, when he emerges into a bizarre landscape filled with hollow reminders of an America that no longer exists. The highways are lined with abandoned automobiles; electricity is generated by indentured servants pedaling stationary bicycles. What little civilization remains revolves around Joey Armageddon's Sassy A-Go-Go strip clubs, where the beer is cold, the lap dancers are hot, and the bouncers are armed with M16s. Accompanied by his cowboy sidekick Buffalo Bill, the gorgeous stripper Sheila, and the mountain man Ted, Mortimer journeys to the lost city of Atlanta -- and a showdown that might determine the fate of humanity.

Mordacious


Sarah Lyons Fleming - 2016
    But when the two are trapped in a hospital during the last gasp of a dying city, alone time is no longer an option. A nurse’s offer of sanctuary promises Sylvie the supplies she needs to survive the zombies–it’s the coexisting with people that might do her in. Eric Forrest will do whatever it takes to get into the dead city for his sister, including ending up dead himself. He’s used to taking risks, but with every mile he travels death looks likelier and likelier, and finding his sister may be his only prospect for survival—if he can make it home. Sylvie doesn’t need more than food, water and shelter. Eric wants only to find his sister. But sometimes what we think we need isn’t what we need at all, and what we find is more than we expected.

Riddley Walker


Russell Hoban - 1980
    As Riddley steps outside the confines of his small world, he finds himself caught up in intrigue and a frantic quest for power, desperately trying to make sense of things.

A Boy and His Dog


Harlan Ellison - 1969
      In an alternate world in which John F. Kennedy survived and scientific breakthroughs in animal research and telepathy allow for advanced communication with animal companions, fifteen-year-old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, scavenge the wastelands of a war-torn United States, survivors of a nuclear World War III between the Americans and the Soviets. While Blood guides Vic toward women—to be used for sex—Vic ensures that Blood has food, but the symbiotic relationship is put at risk when the pair meets Quilla June Holmes, who lures the boy to an underground civilization. A piece of shocking, dystopic science fiction, A Boy and His Dog questions the boundaries and nature of love while crafting a vision of a dark future guaranteed to leave chills.   Also included here is “Ahbhu: The Passing of One Man’s Inspiration and Best Friend,” a personal essay by author Harlan Ellison, which lovingly recounts the life of his canine companion, Ahbhu, the true-life basis for Blood. Ellison recalls rescuing Ahbhu from the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter and gives a brief chronicle of life with his furry friend, whom he stresses was both “a person” and “impossible to anthropomorphize.” The nostalgic in memoriam frames the author’s relationship with animals while casting a personal light on the inspiration for the novella with which it is paired.   Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novella and a Hugo Award finalist, A Boy and His Dog was adapted into a cult classic film and fully solidifies Ellison as a master of his craft. This volume combines a dark, dystopian future of animal telepathy, sex, and postapocalyptic underworlds with a real-life account of the author’s muse for the feisty but loyal Blood. Indispensible reading material for any fan of Ellison or dark science fiction, animal lovers will also delight over the relationship between Vic and Blood.

The Rift


Walter Jon Williams - 1999
    They won't stop barking. . . . And then the earth shrugs—8.9 on the Richter scale in the world's biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster . . . but no one listened. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin as America's heartland falls into the nightmare known as the Rift—a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, including a teenager separated from his mother, an African-American engineer searching for his daughter, a TV preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real, and a sheriff cum Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the midst of disaster.It can happen. And sooner or later, it will.

Gray: Part I


Lou Cadle - 2015
    It rose high and fast, like a time-lapse movie of the birth of a thunderhead. But it was no rain cloud. Wholly black, it reached up and loomed over her, blocking out the sun. Somehow she knew it was Death coming at her. Pre-med student Coral is on a vacation in Idaho when something terrible happens. The black cloud is followed by a wildfire and searing heat that lasts for days. She survives deep in a cave but emerges days later to find the world transformed, a world of blackened trees, an ash-filled sky, and no living creatures except her. So begins her desperate journey: to find water, and food, and other survivors...and the answer to the mystery of what happened.

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.

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.

The Islands at the End of the World


Austin Aslan - 2014
    And so am I ...Sixteen-year-old Leilani loves surfing and her home in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. But she's an outsider - half white, half Hawaiian, and an epileptic.While Lei and her father are on a visit to Oahu, a global disaster strikes. Technology and power fail, Hawaii is cut off from the world, and the islands revert to traditional ways of survival. As Lei and her dad embark on a nightmarish journey across islands to reach home and family, she learns that her epilepsy and her deep connection to Hawaii could be keys to ending the crisis before it becomes worse than anyone can imagine.A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.