Book picks similar to
The Great Collapse by Jeff W. Horton


sci-fi
science-fiction
post-apocalyptic
fiction

PODs


Michelle K. Pickett - 2013
    Chosen to live, while others meet a swift and painful death from an incurable virus so lethal, a person is dead within days of symptoms emerging. In the POD system, a series of underground habitats built by the government, she waits with the other chosen for the deadly virus to claim those above. Separated from family and friends, it's in the PODs she meets David. And while true love might not conquer all, it's a balm for the broken soul. After a year, scientists believe the population has died, and without living hosts, so has the virus. That's the theory, anyway. But when the PODs are opened, survivors find the surface holds a vicious secret. The virus mutated, infecting those left top-side and creating... monsters. Eva and David hide from the infected in the abandoned PODs. Together they try to build a life--a new beginning. But the infected follow and are relentless in their attacks. Leaving Eva and David to fight for survival, and pray for a cure.

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.

Taking on the Dead


Annie Walls - 2012
    It's the only way to survive. The only way not to draw the living dead. Helping a small group of people, she learns the new world might not be what she assumes. Venturing out of her refuge and comfort zone, she meets Rudy, who helps her find a greater purpose. She realizes that the world has moved on without her. Only it's not what she expects. Her knowledge of the living dead grows and only makes her more curious as humanity continues to hang on by a thread. While on her search for answers she finds comfort in new friendships and love, but her past seems as if it will haunt her forever. Kansas takes it upon herself to help other survivors, which would be easy if the famished were the only obstacles.

The Line Between


Tosca Lee - 2019
    For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.

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.

Ashes of Twilight


Kassy Tayler - 2012
    Humanity would be saved by the most groundbreaking technology of the time. But after nearly 200 years of life beneath the dome, society has become complacent and the coal is running out. Plus there are those who wonder, is there life outside the dome or is the world still consumed by fire? When one of Wren's friends escapes the confines of the dome, he is burned alive and put on display as a warning to those seeking to disrupt the dome's way of life. But Alex's final words are haunting. "The sky is blue."What happens next is a whirlwind of adventure, romance, conspiracy and the struggle to stay alive in a world where nothing is as it seems. Wren unwittingly becomes a catalyst for a revolution that destroys the dome and the only way to survive might be to embrace what the entire society has feared their entire existence.Ashes of Twilight is the first book in a trilogy by Kassy Tayler.

First Shift: Legacy


Hugh Howey - 2012
    A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event.At almost the same moment in humanity’s broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened.

Dream Caster


Najeev Raj Nadarajah - 2012
    In his flight for safety, Weaver stumbles upon a refuge of survivors hidden among the remains of a ruined city once known as Toronto. In the midst of building a new life, Weaver discovers he can do something strange: cast dreams into reality. Convinced it’s just an anomaly, he ignores it. That is until he learns of the mysterious man who waged war against his world — a man who calls himself the Dream Eater and harnesses the ability to animate nightmares into existence. The peaceful life Weaver hoped for begins to unravel when those of his new home are besieged by the Dream Eater and their lives placed in jeopardy. Weaver must learn to master his accursed ability before his new home is eradicated by the Dream Eater and human existence is pushed to the brink of extinction.

Terra


Gretchen Powell - 2012
    A young girl struggling to survive. A lost boy with a powerful secret.A discovery that will change everything.In the distant wake of a plague that has decimated the Earth's population, humanity is split in two: The rich and powerful live in skycities that float overhead, while those who remain on the ground have gathered in settlements strewn across a dying planet. Eighteen-year-old Terra Rhodon is a terrestrial--a denizen of the barren groundworld--who makes her living as a scav. Long abandoned by her father, her caregivers gone, Terra supports herself and her younger brother, Mica, by scouring the earth for discarded scraps and metals to recycle for profit. One day, while on a routine scavenging run, she discovers something that shocks her home settlement of Genesis X-16. When the value of her discovery is revealed, Terra's world is turned upside down.Terra suddenly finds herself asking questions no one will answer. Her search for the truth leads her to Adam--a beguiling skydweller unlike any she has ever met. But Adam has secrets and a quest of his own, and with him by her side, the world Terra thought she knew begins to unravel. Soon her discoveries unearth a terrifying conspiracy that has the potential to shatter everything--a revelation that will test the bonds of loyalty, family, and love.

World of Shell and Bone


Adriana Ryan - 2012
    Food and water are scarce, and people suffering from radiation-caused mutations--the Nukeheads--are the new class of homeless. Vika has just one purpose: to produce healthy progeny using a Husband assigned by the Match Clinic. Unhealthy children are carted away to Asylums to be experimented on, just as Vika's little sister Ceres was, eight years ago. Parents incapable of producing healthy progeny are put to death in gas chambers.When she's assigned a Husband shortly after her twentieth birthday, Vika expects him to be complacent and obedient. But Shale Underwood has a secret. He is a member of the Radicals, the terrorist group intent on overthrowing the government. And Shale has information about Ceres.As she learns more about the Rads's plan, Vika finds herself drawn to Shale in ways she'd never imagined. When freedom calls in the way of a healthy pregnancy, will she betray her government and risk death for Shale and Ceres?

Empty Bodies


Zach Bohannon - 2015
     Moments later, the fallen rise, and the survivors become the hunted.***WARNING*** Empty Bodies is meant for mature audiences only. It features foul language and graphic descriptions of violence and death. Please purchase at your own discretion.

Seeking Safety


T.L. Payne - 2020
     A super EMP took care of the rest. While a cyber-attack crippled half the nation’s power grid, enemies of the United Stateslaunched a super EMP over the midwest sending the nation back to the stone age.For Raine Caldwell and her neighbors, it couldn't have come at a worse time.Deep into the coldest midwest winter on record, the nation is plunged into frigid darkness.With emergency services crippled by the lack of transportation and streets snarled with stalledcars, a spark ignites and the city of St. Louis is engulfed in flames. Chaos grips the city as societyspirals out of control and violence fills the streets.With her building surrounded by fire, Raine and her neighbors are forced to flee on foot ontothe snow covered streets seeking safety.Seeking Safety is a gripping tale of an ordinary group of people as they fight to survive after an EMP plunges the nation into frigid darkness.Would you have what it takes to survive the cold, dark, dangerous streets and make it to safety?Seeking Safety is the first book in T. L. Payne's heart-stopping post-apocalyptic EMP survival series, Gateway to Chaos. Look for Seeking Refuge: Gateway to Chaos Book Two coming soon! OTHER BOOKS BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR T.L. PAYNE Turbulent: Days of Want Series, Book OneHunted: Days of Want Series, Book TwoTurmoil: Days of Want Series, Book ThreeUprising: Days of Want Series, Book FourUpheaval: Days of Want Series, Book FiveSudden Chaos: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Short Story

The Mother Code


Carole Stivers - 2020
    When a deadly non-viral agent intended for biowarfare spreads out of control, scientists must scramble to ensure the survival of the human race. They turn to their last resort, a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots--to be incubated, birthed, and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human order--an intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own right--the Mother Code. 

Kai is born in America's desert southwest, his only companion his robot Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and motivations of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. But as children like Kai come of age, their Mothers transform too--in ways that were never predicted. When government survivors decide that the Mothers must be destroyed, Kai must make a choice. Will he break the bond he shares with Rho-Z? Or will he fight to save the only parent he has ever known?In a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human--and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.

36 Hours


Bobby Akart - 2016
    . .for a catastrophic event of epic proportions . . .with no idea where to start . . .or how, or when?This is a true story, it just hasn't happened yet.A new dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction series from six-time best-selling author Bobby Akart (The Boston Brahmin series and the Prepping for Tomorrow series).The characters depicted in The Blackout Series are fictional. The events, however, are based upon fact.This is not the story of preppers with stockpiles of food, weapons, and a hidden bunker. This is the story of Colton Ryman, his stay-at-home wife, Madison, and their teenage daughter, Alex. In 36 Hours, the Ryman family and the rest of the world will be thrust into the darkness of a post-apocalyptic world.A catastrophic solar flare, an EMP--a threat from above to America's soft underbelly below--is hurtling toward our planet.The Rymans have never heard of preppers and have no concept of what prepping entails. But they're learning, while they run out of time. Their faith will be tested, their freedom will be threatened, but their family will survive.An EMP, naturally generated from our sun in the form of a solar flare, has happened before, and it will happen again, in only 36 Hours.This is a story about how our sun, the planet's source of life, can also devastate our modern world. It's a story about panic, chaos, and the final straws that shattered an already thin veneer of civility. It is a warning to us all ...never underestimate the depravity of man.What would you do when the clock strikes zero?Midnight is forever.Note: This book does not contain strong language. It is intended to entertain and inform audiences of all ages, including teen and young adults. Although some scenes depict the realistic threat our nation faces from a devastating solar flare, and the societal collapse which will result in the aftermath, it does not contain graphic scenes typical of other books in the post-apocalyptic genre.

Lights Out


David Crawford - 2005
    This remarkable piece of fan fiction is shared daily on forums such as AR15.com, Backwoods Home, Frugal Squirrels and The Survival Podcast Forum. The novel examines how normal Americans might cope with a true national disaster shutting down the nations electrical grid and follows the downward spiral created by such an event.