Book picks similar to
Angel of the City by R.J. Leahy


dystopian
n-next
far-future
science-fiction

Pinhole


Matthew Kagle - 2013
    An Amazon best seller for over a year. Humanity began as primitive lungfishes, crawling out from the depths of the sea to escape predators. Humanity will end as sparkles of light, streaming across the empty voids of the universe searching for meaning. Pinhole is about the time travelers who live between what we once were and might someday become. Cassandra knows the future brings her doom but is helpless to stop it. Lionel executes murderers before they can kill but wonders who the real victims are. Dolores is ensnared in a cult that uses a machine to link their minds and bodies. Joseph strives to escape an eight-year loop he's been trapped in his whole life. Daphne searches for a murderer who kills by giving his victims cancer, but she may be the next target. Moving through time and space, their lives are intertwined, unwittingly tethered together by the same technology they use to change the world.

The Sickness: Monte's Story (Rise of the Plague Series)


Jeannie Rae - 2012
    An insidious sickness has cursed her hometown of Port Steward. Strangers, neighbors, friends and even her own family have fallen victim to the sickness. Monte soon discovers that a bite from someone with the sickness is how the gruesome disease is spread. Once infected with the sickness, it transforms normal people into ravenous monsters with a craving for flesh. Monte struggles to make her way to safety in a town thriving with disease. As loneliness and paranoia set in, she finds that her newfound freedom from an abusive father is not all she’d hoped for. While faced with the near certain chance of defeat, Monte is unbending in her quest to stay alive, making grim decisions that test her humanity. With a tremendous will for survival, will Monte make it to salvation or fall victim, like so many others, of the sickness?The Sickness: Monte's Story is closely related to an upcoming full-length novel in the Rise of the Plague Series. Monte's Story is a first-hand account of a girl who encounters the plague the morning after the outbreak. Be on the look out early 2013 for the novel to find out the origins of the outbreak and to find out how it all began.

Reign of Blood


Alexia Purdy - 2012
    Vampires and hybrids have overrun my world, once vibrant with life, but now a graveyard of death shrouded in shadows. I fight to survive; I fight for my mother and brother. The journey is full of turns that I am quite unprepared for. And I'm just hoping to make it to the next Vegas sunrise..."In a post-apocalyptic world, a viral epidemic has wiped out most of the earth’s population, leaving behind few humans but untold numbers of mutated vampires. April is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in the remains of Las Vegas one year after the outbreak. She has become a ferocious vampire killer and after her family is abducted, she goes searching for them. What she finds is a new breed of vampire, unlike any she has seen before. Unsure of whom she can trust, she discovers that her view of the world is not as black and white as she once thought, and she's willing to bend the rules to rescue her family. But in trying to save them, she may only succeed in bringing her fragile world crashing down around her.

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.

When the Past Came Calling


Larry S. Kaplan - 2014
    But when an unexpected phone call interrupts the personal injury lawyer’s midafternoon slump, he is surprised to hear from Michael Eisenberg—a former debate partner who went on to become the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. But Michael isn’t just calling to chat. He’s working with the FBI on a high-stakes case: investigating the disappearance of a revolutionary government scientist—one whose bio-evolutionary research could turn Darwinism on its ear, and pose a threat to national security. The main suspect? Cult leader Philip Montgomery, who happens to have a strong connection to David’s past. If David hopes to help crack the case, the attorney has to delve into a sea of old memories, revisiting people and places left behind long ago. One such person is former best friend Benny Friedman, who has clearly gone off the deep end. Obsessed with the JFK assassination, he insists he has evidence that Oswald wasn’t acting alone. But as David’s old memories continue to surface, a startling deception comes to light—uncovering the truth in a most unexpected way.

Vigil: Vampire Apocalypse


Craig Saunders - 2012
    The age of the vampire has begun.Few survived the fall of man. Those who remain to witness the darkening of the world live by the gun or live in fear. There is no middle ground.The cities lay in ruin after the last war and vampires have inherited the blasted remnants. And yet some will not cower in the night. They fight because there is nothing left to them. They fight without hope of peace or victory. In a war with no end, in a land without succour, what chance do the survivors have? The war was lost as soon as it was begun. But there is still the past...and perhaps, a future.And through it all, one man stands vigil.***contains bonus material***Sneak previews of Richard Rhys Jones' Division of the Damned and A Stranger's Grave, from Craig Saunders.About the Author:Craig Saunders lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and three children, who he pretends to listen to while making up stories in his head.He has published more than two dozen short stories, and is the author of many novels including Rain (Twisted Library Press), Spiggot (Grand Mal Press), and forthcoming, The Love of the Dead (Evil Jester Press) and A Stranger's Grave (Grand Mal Press).

Survival Aptitude Test: Sound


Mike Sheriff - 2016
    . . For the denizens of Daqin Guojin, this horrific thought is a harsh reality. The Cycle of Extinctions has erased Earth’s food sources, and life 700 years later harbors little sympathy for the planet’s last species. But a doomed boy and girl offer humanity a seed of hope.Daoren and Heqet stand an even chance of celebrating their 20th birthdays. Like every 19-year-old prospect for denizenship, they must soon sit the Survival Aptitude Test. Only the smartest pass. The rest are harvested for grooll, the city-state’s sole food source and barter currency.If Daoren’s intellect can outpace his anxiety, he might earn the first perfect score in history and be named ruler. Heqet knows Daoren can’t do it without her—even if he’d be the last person to ask for help. But when tragedy strikes all-too-close to home, the pair make a shocking discovery that binds their fate and crushes all hope.A murky cabal has been manipulating S.A.T. scores for the dull-witted children of the ruling caste, amassing a fortune in grooll and triggering a severe food shortage. Worse, they plan to protect their wealth by ensuring Daoren’s test ends with his culling, not his coronation.Survival Aptitude Test: Sound is the first book in Mike Sheriff’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi series, The Extinction Odyssey. Fans of classic dystopian tales like Soylent Green and Logan’s Run should enjoy this modern twist on humanity’s last gasp. Grab Survival Aptitude Test: Sound and test your nerves today!

Colonize


S.G. Seabourne - 2019
    No explanation, no field guide, and no rules.
 And human beings aren’t the only new arrivals. 
 Morgan’s never been a team player, and she never imagined facing disaster with a bunch of confused, terrified teenagers. To live she’ll have to make allies—human and otherwise. Because Morgan has no intention of settling down and starting anew somewhere else. Whoever brought her here can bring her back. But first, she must survive.

Predators of Darkness: Aftermath: Book One of the Darkness Series


Leonard D. Hilley II - 2007
    Believing themselves to be the only survivors, they station themselves inside the center until food supplies near depletion. Thinking the fallout has lessened, they emerge three years later to discover strange creatures patrolling the streets in search of human flesh and blood. The creatures possess the ability to shift their genomes and alter their appearances by realigning their genetic sequences. Daniel Hutchinson soon discovers mysteries more frightening than the shifters. The tip of Pittsburgh has been fenced off. Low-flying helicopters observe the streets. He ponders the question: Were the shifters released as simply part of a military experiment with humans being their prey?

The Lazarus Impact


Vincent Todarello - 2013
    The US power grid fails due to the impact of a large meteorite. The dust plume causes severe illness and death as it blows east across America. As a result the government quarantines the entire northeast. Military personnel wearing gas masks patrol the edges of the affected area, preventing anyone from crossing. But when the dead start coming back to life and eating the living, the US braces itself for a full-on zombie outbreak that no military barricade can keep contained.The Lazarus Impact is a fast paced, high intensity, peri-apocalyptic zombie action thriller that traces the stories of eight unique and diverse characters as they travel through the madness, trying to head west past the quarantine to safety... or so they think. Wolf, an extreme survivalist television personality, is the first one on the scene when the meteors hit, filming the damage. Dr. Vogel, a former infectious disease lab rat turned physician, is on a mission to get to the CDC to give them samples of what he thinks might be the basis for a cure. Willy, an old, hardened, Vietnam War veteran suffering from PTSD, witnesses the outbreak as it ramps up in intensity at the hospital where he works as a janitor. Sheryl, a suburban housewife, learns of the dust when she gets a call from a neighbor that her boys are sick on the football field. Marcus, a reformed prison inmate with a violent past, escapes with a band of unscrupulous marauders during a riot. Michael and Amy, a bickering couple from NYC, struggle to get out of Manhattan despite the bridges and tunnels being barricaded and locked down. And Brandon, an awkward teenager with an obsession for horror comics and video games, hides out in his parents Cold War era bunker until he runs out of fuel.When their paths intersect they must help and rely on each other for survival. The plan is to move west, past the quarantine, and make their way to a secure compound where people have been preparing for doomsday for decades. But the nightmares they face on the way west are only a shadow of the dangers they may encounter on the other side of the quarantine, where the American people have taken up arms to defend their new but porous borders. Will any survive the journey? Is it even worth it?

Concealed in the Shadows


Gabrielle Arrowsmith - 2012
    She can finally apply for guardianship of her sister Evvie, her only family and entire world. Sydney holds a sliver of hope that they will be lawfully reunited, and that light will return to her desolate life, but she is prepared to defy authority and risk everything to escape Miles County so that she and Evvie can live full lives together.Escaping will be difficult and dangerous. Citizens are bound to their county by sophisticated chip implants that deliver shocks to anyone who crosses the county's electric barrier. Sydney is very clever, but her trickery is limited against the all-seeing eyes of county technology. It seems impossible to escape into the forgotten forests and cities of the past, but Sydney is determined to find a way if she is denied guardianship of her sister. For years she has longed to break free from the government's experimental Petri Dish and the hallowed drones that inhabit it.What Sydney doesn't know is that the county has a particular interest in her. Her place in this complex dystopia is about to change. Deceit, fear and warfare will come to characterize her life, yet her love for Evvie will always prevail. She must protect her sister, but at what cost?

Eden


David Holley - 2012
    Through their trials, the Lockhearts begin to uncover the girl’s ability in spite of her best efforts to keep it hidden. But even as Mia proves to be an invaluable ally, her gift comes at an unbearable cost. Each step brings them closer to salvation– and to unraveling the mystery of their abandonment. But just when they think they are saved, they realize that they have never been farther from home.Eden is a bold, heart-pounding page-turner, told through the seamlessly shifting perspectives of the eccentric band of survivors. As the thriller unfolds, so do the survivors’ inextricable links to one another in a plot rife with twists and turns, till the very end.

Reap


Casey L. Bond - 2014
    From five enormous, technologically-advanced cities, the Greaters rule over the Lessers. In the Lesser village of Orchard, things are not as perfect as Abby Kelley thinks they are. When the apple harvest draws near and the Greater’s engineered fruits become too much for one village to handle alone, reinforcements from neighboring villages are called upon. Having to choose between her best friend, whom she has no romantic feelings for, and mysterious newcomer Crew, Abby finds herself in the middle of a harvest that she had no intention of becoming a part of. She becomes involved in a situation that threatens the strict rule of the Greaters, and just might give the Lessers hope for a better tomorrow. But, can she help the Lessers without losing Crew? And if she chooses Crew, will she lose her best friend?

Pilgrimage: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story


Tom Abrahams - 2015
    AN EXPLOSIVE DISASTER. A DESPERATE STRUGGLE TO GET HOME. PILGRIMAGE is a stand-alone post-apocalyptic story of survival. It was previously published as three separate novellas: Crossing, Refuge, and Advent. High School teacher James Rockwell is vacationing in Maine with his family, when an earth-changing explosion sends them on a race for their lives. Their first step is escaping an island in the midst of a tsunami, and it only gets more dangerous from there. Can they find their way home as civilization crumbles around them? And if they do, what horrors will they find? It's a bullet-train of a thriller riding on the edge of the rails to the last page.

The Beale Treasure


R.J. Hendricks II - 2017
    But when he arrives in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the spring of 1885, what he discovers there is far worse than he expected. His partner, who sent for him, has been murdered while in pursuit of a dangerous bounty. And the killer isn’t done yet. Vito is fighting against time, the townspeople of Lynchburg, and a sheriff seemingly determined to cover up every detail about the crime. However, he must follow the trail his dead partner left behind, and uncover the truth lurking in the shadows of this small town. Then he meets Ellie, a fiery woman in search of the storied Beale Treasure, and everything changes. Inspired by true events, The Beale Treasure: A Frank Vito Bounty Hunter Series, is a gun-blasting Western, full of grit and spirit, that will keep your heart racing right up until the stunning conclusion.