Book picks similar to
The Dystopia Spell by Brian Olsen


fantasy
dystopia
science-fiction
sci-fi

Savage Run: Book I


E.J. Squires - 2014
    J. Squires: In this action-packed, suspense-filled novel, E. J. Squires takes us through a wild ride that explores how far one would go to gain one’s freedom. With narrow escapes, heart-aching losses, and an unexpected romance, you are in for a read you won’t be able to put down.17-yr. old slave Laborer, Heidi Cruise, will do anything to escape a future of servitude to a master she will be powerless to—even disguise herself as a guy and register for the government funded “Savage Run,” a grueling, male-only, three-phase obstacle course program in which the survivors are granted their freedom. But the second she instigates her plan, things start to unravel and she quickly learns that not only are the obstacles dangerous—they’re deadly. Not only that: while fending for her life, one exhausting round after another, Heidi must keep her gender a secret and ward off other participants who are out to get her. Before long, Nicholas, an intriguing young registrar, discovers that Heidi is a girl. Nicholas has his own secrets, and being a rebel in his own right, he lets Heidi continue without revealing her gender. Soon, Heidi starts to develop feelings for Nicholas, but she’s terrified of exploring them; he is a Master, she a Laborer, and in this hierarchical society, one can never be too careful. However, with a sudden turn of events, everything is jeopardized, and Heidi is forced to choose between her own safety, her freedom, and the ones she loves.

Santuario


G.B. Gordon - 2012
    They’ve been living in poverty under the tyrannical regime of their own elite familias for the last two-hundred years, ever since their generation ship landed on the planet and found it already populated by earlier Earth settlers, the Skanians, who banished them to the inhospitable south.Increasingly shamed by the decisions of their ancestors, the Skanians seek to open their borders. But dissent exists on both sides, and in the midst of this explosive political situation, a dead body appears on the island.Bengt, a Skanian investigator, is shipped to Santuario to lead the murder investigation—which, he quickly realizes, the local teniente wants nothing to do with. As far as Bengt is concerned, things can’t get worse than the brutal climate, his own memories, and a growing attraction to a partner who will barely say two words to him. But then he and Alex run afoul of the local familias, and the problems with their investigation and their budding relationship seem like nothing compared to just getting out of this whole mess alive.

Ravenous


Erica Stevens - 2012
    But in some strange way, ice was the end; or maybe it was the beginning of something more.Bethany is stunned and horrified when she finds herself suddenly alone in a world that was alive only moments before. Terrified, she flees into the streets of her town, looking for answers, and desperate to reach her family. Panicked, she is nearly captured by the monsters hunting her until Cade steps in to rescue her. Dark and distant, most people in school are wary of Cade, yet oddly fascinated by him. They had once been close as children, but it has been years since Bethany has had any real contact with Cade. As their situation becomes even more perilous, Bethany struggles to come to terms with her past, her terrifying new reality, and her growing love for a boy that is powerful, mysterious, and perhaps even more frightening than the aliens hunting them. Aliens that want more than their lives, they also want their blood.

The Island: Part One


Michael Stark - 2012
    At first, reports trickled across the wire in small segments relegated to the final seconds of the broadcast news. Lost among stories of failing economies and political bickering, few noticed what proved to be the birth pangs of a monster. Within months, the disease dominated the news as thousands died and infection rates soared.William Hill knew his chances of avoiding the virus sat squarely between slim and none. With experts predicting a global pandemic, his choices boiled down to not if, but where he would die. While the rest of the world built barricades and set up distribution points for food, he chose a simpler end. The island had been one of the last and best times with his father. He couldn’t think of a better place to spend his final days.He wanted sun and sand, fresh fish on the grill and cool nights by the campfire. He wanted feel-good days filled with oldies on the radio, days when he could hoist the sails and run before the wind. He didn’t set out to make enemies, but he did. He didn’t plan on becoming humanity’s last hope for survival, or watching over an old woman and an eerie little boy either.To William Hill, the island seemed as good a place as any to die.He just didn’t realize how good.

Messages


John Michael Hileman - 2011
    And as much as David Chance would like to hide from them, he can't. Words keep leaping off objects around him, forming messages in his mind. But how is this possible? Has his brain suddenly taken an evolutionary leap forward, or are the mysterious messages proof of divine intervention?Driven to answer a question he'd long ago abandoned, and stalked by the killer he's trying to stop, David risks everything to follow the messages to a dirty bomb set to go off in the heart of Boston. But can he trust the author of the messages to protect him from a terrorist who seems to know his every move.

Rune Universe


Hugo Huesca - 2016
    Connecting to the game servers...   Faceless Corporations. Neon lights that hide rampant crime underneath. The year is 2041. Cole Dorsett is a Script Kiddie, a thief of information with a chip against the system.Rune Universe is a game with a billion worlds. With great interstellar alliances, unending adventure, spaceshipsthat dance around black holes. And it hides a secret the CIA would love to crack. A secret many are willing to kill for.Inside Rune Universe, Cole will stumble upon real, mortal danger. To avenge a fallen friend, he must risk it all. And make a decision that will change the face of the world... forever.

Seven Unholy Days


Jerry Hatchett - 2013
    Written in a staccato style that will leave readers breathless and flipping pages long into the night, Hatchett's...novel, SEVEN UNHOLY DAYS, is a thriller not to be missed!" NYT & international bestselling author James RollinsMatt Decker is a celebrity geek, designer of the nation’s futuristic new power grid and a hero for lowering electric bills across the land. He’s a talk show favorite, rich, and living the American dream. Until the power fails, everywhere, throwing the techno-dependent United States into chaos.Decker’s “impenetrable” systems have been breached in the worst way, and it’s just the beginning. The country is under attack from Abraham Hart, an eccentric and unstable man with nearly unlimited resources, a man who believes himself to be a bizarre hybrid of Christ and Antichrist. Hart delivers a new attack each day as he works his way through his own personal version of Revelation’s famed seven seals, and he makes it personal between him and Decker.

The Last Walk Out: A Tribal Space Opera


David Helton - 2014
     The catastrophic Abunga virus has wiped out everyone on Earth except for a few scattered souls with natural immunity. Other humans escaped this Apocalypse by fleeing to other parts of the Solar System, populating and exploiting its moons and planets. A thousand years on, those now living on these distant outposts still can't return but secretly confine and observe the survivors as a combination of social experiment and nostalgic entertainment. Their former home is now a ‘holopark’, a new Eden, a Heaven on Earth. It’s a chance for the human race to start all over again. There, Gibbous Moon, a 70-year-old tribal story-teller and seer, is leaving his settlement on a solitary Last Walk Out. Except that he is not alone. Reluctantly he has to accept animal company in the shape of a determined dog he names Yellow. And then his daughter-in-law Paintbrush and her baby Skyman suddenly appear after their clan is brutally massacred by rivals on the reservation. Could it be possible that this small renegade band could now form an unlikely alliance, the basis of a real New Beginning? Praise for David Helton: "The Last Walk Out is a story that satisfies on many levels – compelling and adventurous, with engaging characters including strong and individualistic women, it investigates the wisdom and contradictions mankind has confronted across history." - Amazon Review David Helton was born in San Francisco, graduated from the University of Texas and has spent most of his working mainly as a freelance journalist and documentary scriptwriter. He has won or been nominated for several international awards and has written one other novel, King Jude. He now lives in England.

Victim Zero


Joshua Guess - 2013
    He's a brilliant biologist and geneticist, a leading researcher in the constant fight against disease and death. He works in secret on a miraculous organism with the potential to change the world.But he isn't the only one.Victim Zero is a story about life and loss, self-awareness and the hard choices between what is right and what is necessary. As the world spirals down and the dead begin to rise, Kell must learn the difference between surviving and living.Set in the world of Living With the Dead, Victim Zero tells the story of how The Fall began. From before the outbreak itself, during the crisis and beyond, this novel chronicles the journey of a man who holds the weight of the entire human race on his shoulders.

Relics: The Dawn


Nick Thacker - 2015
    An ex-President who can't remember anything from the past fifteen years. Semi-insane survivalists that live and exist off-the-grid. This is Relics. Myers is a Relic. Cast out of society by a computer program that's far more efficient at managing and regulating human life than any human ever could be. The System is running everyone's life. It's quickly becoming smarter than humans, and it no longer has any need for leaders like Myers. There's a technological singularity coming, and only Myers knows how to stop it. The problem? He doesn't remember anything from the past fifteen years. And now he's being hunted... "Relics is another gripping technothriller full of suspense and action from Nick Thacker, the author that brought you The Enigma Strain, the best-selling action/adventure and conspiracy thriller!"

Impersonator


Peter R. Stone - 2016
     In the past week, her twin brother – a forager – has uncharacteristically run away from home and work after the mysterious death of a teammate. Something has also scared her normally unflappable father half to death, and, their family is threatened with eviction. But her brother’s disappearance presents her with a long-sought after opportunity to escape Newhome, since only the foragers – all men – are allowed to leave the town. All she has to do is impersonate her brother long enough to make her escape while foraging out in the ruins. But she never counted on the kindness of Ryan Hill, a forager new to the team. Nor on barbaric Skel attacking the team the moment she makes her escape. She has to choose between making good on her escape or saving Ryan and the others. Twenty-two-year-old Ryan Hill made one mistake at his last place of employment, and that earned the wrath of his fellow workmates, and cost him all of his friends. Alone and dejected, he begins a new job as a forager, expecting more of the same. But then he meets Chelsea, masquerading as her brother Brandon. And though he falls for her ruse, he sees in her a kindred spirit. Could he(she) spark in him the beginning of a true, genuine friendship that looks past the faults of the other? * Impersonator is Book One in a new trilogy set in the world of Peter R Stone’s Forager Trilogy. Although it starts three years before the events in Forager, it is not a prequel. It will catch up to, carry on, and draw to a conclusion the Forager Trilogy storyline. It can be read independently of Forager.

Steel Lily


Megan Curd - 2013
    No, more than a commodity. Her existence is guarded at all costs.She’s a water Elementalist, the strongest of her dwindling kind. She creates steam to provide energy to fuel Dome Four: the only thing standing between humanity and an earth ravaged by World War III. No steam, no Dome. No Dome, no life.Or so she thinks.That is, until a mysterious man offers her a way out of having to donate steam. A way to escape the corrupt government of Dome Four. While the offer seems too good to be true, Avery is intrigued. But when she arrives to her new home, she realizes the grass isn’t any less dead on this side of the fence. Instead, the lies are just hidden better.…Which means digging deeper.When Avery enlists the help of her friends to uncover the truth, she learns that while some secrets are better left concealed, humankind was never meant to live in a cage. And when you can control the most sought after resource, you can learn to control anything…including the fate of your world.

Run


Patti Larsen - 2011
    His sister Lucy pulls herself together and cuts him free from a year of foster care. She promises to take care of him, that her new boss and her new life are what they both needed to start again. Until Reid is taken in the middle of the night, dumped in a wild stretch of forest far from home with no idea why he is there. Lost and afraid, he learns to run from the hunters who prowl the darkness, their only pleasure chasing down kids like him. And killing them.

The Novelty Maker


Sasha L. Miller - 2013
    Overwhelmed with work, and preferring to avoid people, Harlowe is not an easy person to know, and Cole values too much their hard-won friendship to ever risk it by telling Harlowe of his true feelings. Then Harlowe begins to receive letters from a secret admirer …

Sunset


Arshad Ahsanuddin - 2011
    When the terrorist known as Medusa threatens to kill millions with a stolen nuclear bomb, Nick Jameson makes a fateful decision. He reveals himself on global television as a Daywalker - a vampire with a soul. To save Los Angeles, Nick exposes not only his own gifts but three separate cultures based on millennia-old magic.By NightThe three metahuman races exist in careful balance, working to maintain a fragile peace. Nick and his fellow Daywalkers successfully master their natural bloodlust. The Sentinels, armed with both magic and steel, repress their warlike instincts. And even some Nightwalkers, normally their natural enemies, have deserted the Court of Shadows to join the triple alliance. Nick Jameson is deeply involved with two such Nightwalkers - handsome Lorcan and powerful Rory. Both men love Nick. But neither can protect the new Ambassador to Humanity from the events he has set in motion.By the SwordJeremy Harkness was lured into Medusa's service under false pretenses. A loner with no one and nothing to cling to, he was willing to die for his cause. But the night Medusa tried to obliterate Los Angeles, Jeremy met Nick Jameson, triggering the onset of his own psychic gifts. For Jeremy is the third race of metahuman, a Sentinel, born to kill the Nightwalkers with no quarter asked or offered. And neither Medusa nor the Court of Shadows will settle for peace when they can make war.Betrayal and treachery lurk around every corner on the road to coexistence, and at every turn, Nick must question who to trust among his metahuman allies, friends, and lovers—before their civilization is plunged into the depths of darkness and bloodshed. With millennia-old magic, emerging romance, and ever-shifting allegiances, this inventive series unveils a scintillating, homoerotic world of Nightwalkers, Daywalkers, Sentinels, and Humans, who battle for world dominance in the not-too-distant future.