Book picks similar to
Fighting Iron by Jake Bible


science-fiction
horror
post-apocalyptic
sci-fi

Origins


Kristen Middleton - 2012
    Seventeen year old Cassandra Wild thought living in the chaos of her mother’s home daycare and dealing with her developing feelings for Bryce, her new Martial Arts’ instructor, was a struggle, until the night her world turned upside down.When an untested vaccine kills more than just a rampant flu virus, Cassie learns how to survive in a world where the dead walk, and the living…run!

The Last Conversation


Paul Tremblay - 2019
    All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?Paul Tremblay’s The Last Conversationis part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

The Library at Mount Char


Scott Hawkins - 2015
    A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once.  That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.  Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation. As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own. But Carolyn has accounted for this. And Carolyn has a plan. The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human. Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.From the Hardcover edition.

The Living Dead


George A. Romero - 2020
    A pair of medical examiners find themselves facing a dead man who won’t stay dead.It spreads quickly. In a Midwestern trailer park, an African American teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family.On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic preaches the gospel of a new religion of death.At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting, not knowing if anyone is watching, while his undead colleagues try to devour him.In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.We think we know how this story ends.We. Are. Wrong.

Protectors


Michael Robertson - 2018
    He needs more freedom than is given to the average citizen in Edin. He needs to win the next protectors' apprenticeship. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. And what is a life, no matter how safe, without love? Spike Johnson has enjoyed the freedom and safety of a youth living in Edin. The diseased hordes outside the city’s walls might as well be on the other side of the planet. He spends as much time as he can with his best friend, and the girl he loves, Matilda. But all of that’s about to change. Tomorrow, Spike turns eighteen. In two days' time, he has to go on national service and fight in the war against the diseased for six months. Only half the cadets come back alive. But he needs to do more than survive. Matilda is due to go on national service at the same time. Faced with the prospect of losing her life and her love, she also has to leave behind a little brother who needs her. A lot can go wrong in the six months she’ll be away for. For the average citizen, national service marks the end of freedom. For those who survive, their life becomes one confined to their home district. They work in their district, live in their district, and fall in love with someone from their district. Matilda is from a different district to Spike. Falling for someone from another district is the pursuit of protectors, politicians, and fools. Spike isn’t a fool and has no desire of becoming a politician. His only route to freedom is to win the next protectors’ apprenticeship. With just one cadet from every national service cycle being picked for the program, Spike is going to have to be better than all of those around him to stand a chance. Without it, he can't be with Matilda. Without Matilda, he has nothing. And with Matilda needing to get back to her brother as soon as she can, she can't increase their chances of success by fighting for the apprenticeship too. The battle for Spike's and Matilda's future happiness rests squarely on his shoulders. But before they get to that, they both need to make sure they survive ... Protectors is the first gripping book in the Beyond These Walls post-apocalyptic series. If you like breath-taking action with high-stakes, and characters who risk everything for freedom, then you’ll love Michael Robertson’s thrilling novel!!!

Feral


James Demonaco - 2017
     Allie Hilts was still in high school when a fire at a top-secret research facility released an air-borne pathogen that quickly spread to every male on the planet, killing most. Allie witnessed every man she ever knew be consumed by fearsome symptoms: scorching fevers and internal bleeding, madness and uncontrollable violence. The world crumbled around her. No man was spared, and the few survivors were irrevocably changed. They became disturbingly strong, aggressive, and ferocious. Feral. Three years later, Allie has joined a group of hardened survivors in an isolated, walled-in encampment. Outside the guarded walls the ferals roam free, and hunt. Allie has been noticing troubling patterns in the ferals' movements, and a disturbing number of new faces in the wild. Something catastrophic is brewing on the horizon, and time is running out. The ferals are coming, and there is no stopping them. With Feral, writer/director James DeMonaco and acclaimed novelist Brian Evenson have created a challenging and entertaining novel of timely horror and exhilarating suspense."

Shade's Children


Garth Nix - 1997
    On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machine like creature whose sole purpose is to kill.The mysterious Shade — once a man, but now more like the machines he fights — recruits the few children fortunate enough to escape. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlords' power — and the key to their downfall. But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become ...

Reaper's Run


David VanDyke - 2013
    But the breakthrough that heals her war injuries is exactly what the government desperately wants to hide - by any means necessary. Hunted, she must cross an America wracked by strife, to try to find a family who may already be dead.Reaper's Run is an origins story and apocalyptic novel, the beginning of one warrior's journey from tactical cop to freedom fighter and beyond. It leads the reader into the acclaimed Plague Wars science fiction series.This book contains a bonus post-apocalyptic novella by prolific author Ryan King.The Plague Wars Series:- The Eden Plague- Reaper's Run- The Demon Plagues- The Reaper Plague- The Orion Plague- Comes the Destroyer - Plague Wars #5, forthcoming Summer 2013Stellar Conquest Series:- Planetary Assault - contains First Conquest: Stellar Conquest Book 1- Desolator: Book 2- Tactics of Conquest: Book 3 (Fall 2013)PG-13 for language, violence and adult situations (non-explicit)See more from this author at davidvandykeauthor.comThis book is free of Digital Rights Management (DRM)

The Gemini Effect


Chuck Grossart - 2012
    By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens. The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.

The Tide


Anthony J. Melchiorri - 2015
    He’s taken them to all corners of the earth to protect the United States from biological and chemical warfare. When his CIA handler, Meredith Webb, gives him a mission to investigate a disturbing lead on a laboratory based out of an abandoned oil rig, they discover the most terrifying threat to mankind they’ve ever faced—a genetically engineered biological weapon called the Oni Agent. Back in the United States, Meredith discovers a frightening connection between the CIA and the Oni Agent. But her investigations are short-lived when the Agent spreads and brings mankind to its knees. Cities burn as it turns humans into warped creatures hell-bent on destruction. Dominic and Meredith vow to do everything they can to combat the Agent and find a cure. But will their efforts be enough to turn the tide—or is humanity’s fate already sealed?

Trouble with Lichen


John Wyndham - 1960
    Francis, realising the implications for the world of an ever-youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution.As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth . . . Trouble With Lichen is a scintillating story of the power wielded by science in our lives and asks how much trust should we place in those we appoint to be its guardians?

One Second After


William R. Forstchen - 2009
    Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real ... a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages ... A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe, and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future ... and our end.

The Shock


Scott Nicholson - 2012
    While the remaining humans are struggling to adapt and survive, they notice that some among them have...changed.Rachel Wheeler finds herself alone in the city, where violent survivors known as "Zapheads" roam the streets, killing and destroying. Her only hope is to reach the mountains, where her grandfather, a legendary survivalist, established a compound in preparation for Doomsday.Other survivors are fleeing the city, but Zapheads aren't the only danger. Rogue bands of military soldiers want to impose their own order in the crumbling ruins of civilization. When Rachel discovers a 10-year-old boy, she vows to care for him even at the risk of her own life.And the Zapheads are evolving, developing communal skills even as they lay waste to the society they will eventually replace.

Raising Stony Mayhall


Daryl Gregory - 2011
    Wrapped in the woman’s arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse. But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda — and he begins to move.The family hides the child — whom they name Stony — rather than turn him over to authorities that would destroy him. Against all scientific reason, the undead boy begins to grow. For years his adoptive mother and sisters manage to keep his existence a secret — until one terrifying night when Stony is forced to run and he learns that he is not the only living dead boy left in the world.

The Return Man


V.M. Zito - 2012
    The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness, known by survivors as the Evacuated States. It is here that Henry Marco makes his living. Hired by grieving relatives, he tracks down the dead and delivers peace.Now Homeland Security wants Marco for a mission unlike any other. He must return to California, where the apocalypse began. Where a secret is hidden. And where his own tragic past waits to punish him again.But in the wastelands of America, you never know who - or what - is watching you.