Book picks similar to
Five Suns Saga I by Jim Heskett


post-apocalyptic
thriller
series-complete
0_postapocalytic

Under a Tell-Tale Sky


R.E. McDermott - 2015
     When the lights go out, seemingly for good, Hughes quickly finds being stranded far from home on a ship with working generators and a cargo of ten million gallons of irreplaceable fuel isn’t exactly a low profile position. Faced with rising crew discontent, and surrounded by worsening violence ashore, things can’t get much worse — until they do. As the remains of the federal government become increasingly corrupt and self-serving, Hughes joins a ragtag band of sailors, farmers, preppers ex-Coast Guardsmen, and dissident soldiers in an effort to re-unite his crew with their families and use remaining resources to rebuild a devastated society. Along the way they face a desperate and starving population, rampant violence from street gangs and escaped convicts, and powerful warlords created as an unintended consequence of the federal government’s ill-advised use of mercenaries.

SoulMatch (Short Story)


Drew Avera - 2014
    In the midst of a civil war, May reflects on the love of his life, a love that may be lost.

Alignment


H.G. Suren - 2015
    A sunless and moonless sky is covered with an enormous barrier that prevents any view of the heavens.And silence, pervasive and absolute, reigns. Nothing stirs. The air is oppressive and there is no wind, not even the softest breeze.As far as the five friends can tell, there isn’t another living thing on earth other than them, neither animal nor plant. What happened to life on Earth while they slept? Are they all that's left, these five closest of friends? Is humanity really gone? Are they really still on Earth or have they been transported elsewhere -- another planet, heaven, hell, pawns in a sophisticated computer game? Is it all just their imagination?Aram believes they aren't dead. He believes if there is a way into the Silent World, then there must be a way out. He must convince his friends to stay focused and put up a worthy fight to find their way back to the reality they once knew. He can't give up, because somewhere out there, beyond their frightening new world, is a new-born son waiting for his Daddy's return.The debut novel from H.G. Suren, Alignment: The Silent City, is a novel comparable to The Mist by Stephan King and Pines by Blake Crouch.

Artificial Evil


Colin F. Barnes - 2012
    Gerry Cardle reluctantly runs the Death Lottery. It's a job he despises, yet one which keeps his name off the list. Until one day, despite his agreement with The Family, his name is inexplicably drawn next.With his world crashing down around him and with just seven days left to live, Gerry realises that the system has been breached by a malicious artificial intelligence. In order to save his life and preserve the safety of those within the city, he must do the unthinkable: flee to the abandoned wastelands outside the dome. Bitter, resolute, and with nothing left to lose, Gerry will have to do whatever it takes to survive--even if it means sacrificing his freedom, and possibly worse--his life.

The Atlantis Gene


A.G. Riddle - 2013
    They will set off a race to unravel the deepest secrets of human existence--and an event that could change humanity forever.

Everywhere But No Place


Mark Foster - 2011
    Prisons all over the European Union are bursting at the seams. Hans Schleiman, a criminal psychologist, has developed a new system for rehabilitating prisoners. He proposes that they be housed in virtual reality units where they spend the entirety of their sentence. Schleiman has developed software that aids the Subject’s rehabilitation and he has built a new breed of supercomputer to oversee the process - the Hosts. The UK is the first country to try the scheme and Denver is one of the first of a hundred Subjects to be inserted into the Schleiman Tanks after being mixed up in an armed robbery. His pleas of self-defence are ignored and he is sentenced to twenty-five years in the Schleiman Tank.Denver wakes up in a lush, green World — alone, and with no idea where he is or what this World might hold.Elsewhere, on the outskirts of Glasgow City State, Haze, one-time hacker, wakes up in the bowels of a run-down estate. He is blind and destitute after a disastrous job five years before left him eyeless and on the run from the most dangerous men in the country. Haze is given an ultimatum — he either carries out one last job, for which he will have his eyesight restored as payment, or he will be killed. It is Haze’s task to break into the virtual World that Denver inhabits and retrieve a piece of information that could affect all their lives.What no-one could prepare for is the very nature of the Host itself, a creature so advanced that not even the people who created it know what it is capable of.Thrust together, Denver and Haze attempt the impossible, to steal the thoughts of a machine so advanced, so strange, that its very mind is a nightmare. So it is that Haze’s one last job suddenly turns into a fight for survival. Neither of them can guess what will finally happen when they confront the Host at the heart of its mind, where reality ceases to exist.It is everywhere but no place . . .

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife


Meg Elison - 2014
    When she awoke, it was dead.In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.After all, if humanity is to be reborn, someone must be its guide.

This is Not a Test


Courtney Summers - 2012
    Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won't stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn't sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she's failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she's forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group's fate is determined less and less by what's happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

Wick


Michael Bunker - 2012
    Six years ago, he moved to New York City after his wife and daughters were killed in a horrible automobile accident, and now, the day after Hurricane Sandy devastates the city and the tri-state area, Clay sets out on foot to escape both the city, and the prison of his old life there. What Clay discovers on his epic walk to freedom, will change everything... for everyone... forever.W1CK is a stand-alone pre-apocalyptic thriller that sets the stage for the apocalyptic social, economic, and structural collapse of Western Civilization that leads us, 20 years later, into the events of Michael Bunker's thriller - The Last Pilgrims.The Cold War is about to get Hot, and sometimes just saying 'NO' is a revolutionary act...

Rise of the Governor


Robert Kirkman - 2011
    Set in the world created by Robert Kirkman, this standalone trilogy is fast-paced, action-packed storytelling about the lengths some men will go to survive. With new characters, new storylines and with the same in-depth character-based plotting that has made the television series such an immediate hit, this trilogy of novels is sure to be a hit with those who love zombies and those who have loved the TV series and comic books.In the Walking Dead universe, there is no greater villain than The Governor. The despot who runs the walled-off town of Woodbury, he has his own sick sense of justice: whether it’s forcing prisoners to battle zombies in an arena for the townspeople’s amusement, or chopping off the appendages of those who cross him. The Governor was voted “Villain of the Year” by Wizard magazine the year he debuted, and his story arc was the most controversial in the history of the Walking Dead comic book series. Now, for the first time, fans of The Walking Dead will discover how The Governor became the man he is, and what drove him to such extremes.

Survive (Live Free or Die #1)


Shawn Underhill - 2017
     Set against the backdrop of the isolated forests north of New Hampshire's White Mountains, while camping on family land, Tom and Lori Thornton (and their dog, Buck) find themselves in a sudden SHTF scenario. No cellular service. Dangerous roads. Limited supplies. And far more questions than answers. After the shocking murder of Tom's uncle by a band of looters, the couple's already faltering marriage reaches the breaking point amid the chaos. Trust and loyalties are challenged, old friendships are put to the test, and while immediate answers and solutions elude them, they must rely on raw instincts in order to survive.

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.

Nature's End


Whitley Strieber - 1986
    Immense numbers of people swarm the globe. In countless, astonishing ways, technology has triumphed-but at a staggering cost. Starvation is rampant. City dwellers gasp for breath under blackened skies. And tottering on the brink of environmental collapse, the world may be ending....It is a future that could well be ours. In their second shocking and fascinating portrait of America's possible destiny, Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka have again written a breathless thriller, a book that gives us an important warning and ultimately a message of hope.

Gateway


Brian Dorsey - 2014
    A promotion, an engagement to a beautiful (and powerful) woman, and the restoration of his family's honor. But this newfound prestige comes with a price, and Stone is soon ordered to carry out a fool's mission by a commander who is unfit to lead. Amidst the decimation of his battalion, his eyes are opened to the truth via a most unlikely source, a woman, from the same people who are his sworn enemies. As he struggles to understand the nature of the war his home planet has been waging for so many generations, Stone must accept that his fate is his responsibility alone. He is willing to die for his country; is he willing to kill for it too?

Impetus


Scott M. Sullivan - 2014
    With no clean running water, power, or forms of communication, the Earth went backward, taking with it almost everything they held dear. Survivors like Mick were forced to do the best they could with what they had. Because in the post-Impact world, alternatives were a luxury that no one could afford.Now a deadly virus threatens those who were unfortunate enough to survive.With the clock ticking down on their lives, Mick will navigate the deceitful webs spun by those that oppose his drive for salvation. And along his quest to prevent another catastrophe, Mick will rediscover what it truly means to be human. ***Impetus does away with the genre's tendency to dwell solely on the catastrophe, to instead examine the very-real human experience and condition behind a world-changing disaster.