Book picks similar to
Breakdown by Bruno Miller
post-apocalyptic
fiction
apocalypse
dystopia
Brushfire Plague
R.P. Ruggiero - 2012
As he organizes his neighbors for self-defense and strives to save those around him, he soon discovers the first clues about the origin of the Brushfire Plague that is killing untold millions around the world. In his pursuit to learn the truth, Cooper must combat looters, organized gangs, and those protecting the Brushfire Plague's secrets. When his son falls ill, his search to uncover the plague's origin and a possible cure transforms into a race against time. Ultimately, Cooper faces a paralyzing choice between exposing what he has learned with potentially shattering consequences, or abetting a horrible secret and giving his nation a chance to recover and rebuild.Surviving the Plague was just the beginning...
Unleashed
Dirk Patton - 2013
Nuclear bombs destroy cities and the widespread release of nerve gas sends the majority of the surviving population into a murderous rage. Rescuing a woman who survived the attacks he must lead her to safety as Atlanta burns, raging infected roam unchecked and society disintegrates into savagery.
Seabound
Jordan Rivet - 2014
1,003 survivors make their home on a souped-up cruise ship called the Catalina. After sixteen years, the strain begins to show in a floating world of distrust and shifting allegiances. Esther is a young mechanic who wants to prove herself, and she’s willing to take risks in the name of progress. But when the fresh water tanks explode, endangering the lives of everyone aboard the Catalina – it’s all Esther’s fault. With only a little water left, the crew of the Catalina must use its last fuel to sail for help. They head to an unknown seabound metropolis called the Galaxy Flotilla. The inhabitants of the Galaxy are keen to parade their lives of luxury, but what do the saviors really want in return for their warm welcome? And what is really going on below decks? When disaster strikes again, Esther must fight to save the lives of her friends aboard the Catalina before it’s too late. Find out how far Esther is willing to go to save her home in Seabound, the fast-paced first novel of the Seabound Chronicles.
The Last One
Alexandra Oliva - 2016
She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it human-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes. But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing. Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
This Plague of Days, Season 1
Robert Chazz Chute - 2013
While governments lie to their citizens to quarantine victims and isolate cities, the inexorable mind virus brings civilization as we know it to an end. Sutr-X sweeps away all we knew, but the plague doesn't stop there. As the virus mutates to become Sutr-Z, Britain falls as the zombies rise.The war for the future has begun and the greater numbers are on the side of the infected. Terrorists created the plague that made ordinary civilians into rabid bio-weapons. The Ungrateful Living and the rabid cannibals all share one thing in common: they are just like you.
Wanderers
Chuck Wendig - 2019
She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
After the Ending
Lindsey Sparks (Fairleigh) - 2013
They may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed them... Grad student Dani O'Connor won't let a cross-country move end her closest friendship. But when a mysterious virus consumes the world and Dani, herself, falls violently ill, she fears she'll never see her loved ones again. After her fever finally breaks, she barely recognizes the devastated world around her. Everyone is dead. Dani is all alone. Or so she thinks... As a bartender, Zoe is used to dealing with hotheads and dirtbags, but nothing could have prepared her for the twisted thoughts of her fellow survivors. Her family is gone, and anyone left alive in the world is either sick, crazy, or changed...like her. As her newfound super senses gain strength, Zoe must learn to control them before she loses herself to madness completely. Perilous terrain spans the distance between them, and deranged survivors lurk in dark corners everywhere. Can Dani and Zoe overcome deadly attacks and unseen dangers in order to find each other? Or will they lose their way--and their lives--along the journey? After The Ending is the first book in the evocative, superpowered post-apocalyptic adventure, The Ending Series. If you like unbreakable friendships, gritty dystopian settings, and a touch of romance, then you'll love Lindsey Pogue and Lindsey Fairleigh's heart-wrenching tale. Buy After The Ending to embark on a supernatural survival story today! THE ENDING SERIES After The Ending Into The Fire Out Of The Ashes Before The Dawn The Ending Beginnings: A Collection of Stories World Before: A Collection of Stories
Dying to Live
Kim Paffenroth - 2007
Unable to find a moral or sane reason for the horror that surrounds him, he is overwhelmed by violence and insignificance.After wandering for months, Jonah's lonely existence dramatically changes when he discovers a group of survivors. Living in a museum-turned-compound, they are led jointly by Jack, an ever-practical and efficient military man, and Milton, a mysterious, quizzical prophet who holds a strange power over the dead. Both leaders share Jonah's anguish over the brutality of their world, as well as his hope for its beauty. Together with others, they build a community that reestablishes an island of order and humanity surrounded by relentless ghouls.But this newfound peace is short-lived, as Jonah and his band of refugees clash with another group of survivors who remind them that the undead are not the only—nor the most grotesque—horrors they must face.
Apocalypticon
Clayton Smith - 2014
Unfortunately, that "normal" includes collapsing skyscrapers, bands of bloodthirsty maniacs, and a dwindling cache of survival supplies. After watching his family, friends, and most of the non-sadistic elements of society crumble around him, Patrick decides it's time to cross one last item off his bucket list. He’s going to Disney World. This hilarious, heartfelt, gut-wrenching odyssey through post-apocalyptic America is a pilgrimage peppered with peril, as fellow survivors Patrick and Ben encounter a slew of odd characters, from zombie politicians and deranged survivalists to a milky-eyed oracle who doesn't have a lot of good news. Plus, it looks like Patrick may be hiding the real reason for their mission to the Magic Kingdom...
The End is Nigh
John Joseph AdamsNancy Kress - 2014
Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.
Feral
P.J. Post - 2017
He surfs the backwash of the westward migration across a dead America; a war-torn desolation devoid of electricity, infrastructure and civilization. It has become a strange and unrecognizable land, rife with the worst of humanity. And his is a life without hope, equally dark and solitary. Until he meets Feral.Once was boy, selfish and directionless. Now is love.Now is reason.Now is vengeance.She is his vow, his purpose, and to save her, he'll murder the world.Palimpsest is an ongoing SerialReading Order:FeralOf One SkeinCoins for Charon Young ParisiansCarnival of Sighs*Coming of a Witch*
London
Frank Tayell - 2013
Within days the infection had spread to every corner of the world. Nowhere is safe from the undead...Bill watched from his window as London was evacuated. His leg broken, he is unable to join the exodus. Turning to his friends in the government, he waits and hopes for rescue. As the days turn into weeks, realising inaction will lead only to starvation and death, his thoughts turn to escape.Forced to leave the safety of his home he ventures out into the undead wasteland that once was England, where he will discover a horrific secret.This is the first volume of his journal.
The Defiant: Grid Down
John W. Vance - 2015
Then that day came… When Nicholas McNeil, a father and dedicated husband, turned out the lights in his suburban home Sunday night, they would never turn on again. During the early Monday morning hours, a spectacular and well coordinated attack destroys the grid and brings the United States to its knees. Nicholas was a man who had heeded the warnings to a degree, but most did not. With a society unprepared and a government overwhelmed, panic turns to chaos and soon violence. Fighting for what resources are still available, Nicholas and his family also find themselves fighting to survive as society turns on itself.
Breakers
Edward W. Robertson - 2012
In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter.When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity, running water, or neighbors, Walt begins an existential walk to LA, where Vanessa had planned to move when she left him. He expects to die along the way.Months later, a massive vessel appears above Santa Monica Bay. Walt is attacked by a crablike monstrosity in a mountain stream. The virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.
Alas, Babylon
Pat Frank - 1959
When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and women of all ages and races—found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.This classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, includes an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.