Book picks similar to
Sub Zero by Matthew James


horror
dnf
science-fiction
creature-feature

Underneath


Robbie Dorman - 2019
    Underneath the skin. Mary Jensen, a trained medic, needs a new start and she’s getting one at Research Station Tau, in remote Antarctica. Called in as an emergency replacement, Mary soon finds out Tau’s mission: to find a lost elementary particle, deep down in the ice.Dr. Ian Schuller, the station lead, thinks the particle is the key to humanity’s evolution. As they drill into the ice, complications arise and Mary starts to worry about his sanity. As he pushes harder and harder for results, the group begins to fracture.And then the hallucinations start.Something is in the ice, and it is changing them.Now Mary must survive, and face what’s underneath.

The Extinct - A Novel of Prehistoric Terror


Shigeru Brody - 2019
     On the verge of entering adulthood, restless college student Eric Holden is told the heartbreaking news: his father has been killed in India. A mysterious guide who was with his father in his last moments tells Eric that the murderer is an unknown animal, one that is responsible for dozens of deaths in the region. He asks Eric to join him in the hunt for the beast and to find out what really happened to his father. Eric agrees and joins the team of hunters sent to find the creature. In a remote, forgotten region of the continent, he encounters the full darkness and violence of nature; and the tables are turned quickly as the mysterious beast is not what it seems. Soon, the hunters will become the hunted...

The Silence


Tim Lebbon - 2015
    Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed... Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death.Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family's only chance of survival. To leave their home, to shun others, to find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

They Came with the Rain


Christopher Coleman - 2020
    And rain wasn't in the forecast.Then one June night, a day after the opening of a massive sinkhole at the town's edge, torrential rain descends on Garmella.The rain brings relief to the town, but that's not all that comes with the rain.By morning, an ancient evil has consumed the town. An evil responsible for countless deaths and disappearances over the centuries.Now, Ramon Thomas, sheriff of Garmella, and his deputy Allie, as well as a small group of survivors, must confront the evil before it spreads beyond Garmella to the rest of the world, threatening the destruction of civilization.

The Anomaly


Michael Rutger - 2018
    And, for once, he may have actually found what he seeks. Then the trip takes a nasty turn, and the cave begins turning against them in mysterious ways.Nolan's story becomes one of survival against seemingly impossible odds. The only way out is to answer a series of intriguing questions: What is this strange cave? How has it remained hidden for so long? And what secret does it conceal that made its last visitors attempt to seal it forever?

Primordial Island


Rick Poldark - 2019
    Poseidon Tech tracks the wreckage to an uncharted island and dispatches a curious salvage team—two paleontologists, a biologist specializing in animal behavior, a botanist, and a nefarious big game hunter. Escorted by a heavily-armed security team, they cut through the jungle and quickly find themselves in a terrifying fight for survival, running a deadly gauntlet of prehistoric predators. In their quest for the flight recorder, they uncover the mystery of the island’s existence and discover an arcane force that will tip the balance of power on the primordial island. Things are not as they seem as they race against time to survive the island’s man-eating dinosaurs and make it back home in one piece.

The Institute


Stephen King - 2019
    The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

The Black


Paul Elard Cooley - 2014
    But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre


Max Brooks - 2020
    . . until now.But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing—and too earth-shattering in its implications—to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death. Yet it is also far more than that. Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us—and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity. Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it—and like none you’ve ever read before.

Insects


John Koloen - 2015
     A deadly carnivorous insect. A group of scientists trapped in the remote rainforest. One horror filled night. Entomologist Howard Duncan has a generous grant and a wealthy lover. Now he's on the verge of a find in the Brazilian rainforest that will reenergize his career: the rarely sighted reptilus blaberus, an insect like no other. But something has changed - nature has started producing an antidote to the fungal infection that previously held the insect population in check. Skeletons provide Duncan and his team with an ominous first clue about the potential consequences. And as the hunters become the hunted, the team must fight for their lives if they want to survive the terror-filled night.

Earthcore


Scott Sigler - 2001
    A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world's record, three-mile-deep mine shaft. EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company's driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure.But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting ...and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out first-hand why this treasure has never been unearthed.

Island Red


Matt Serafini - 2016
    It has over 300 teeth in 25 rows to trap its prey. It has very rarely been found in depths above 160 feet, meaning the frilled shark has never posed a threat to humans. Until now. The residents of Crystal Key, Florida didn’t think there was anything to worry about. A missing girl with a troubled past was easy to dismiss, but that was only the beginning. When fishermen disappear and two girls are attacked on open water, everyone assumes the culprit is a predator stalking their piece of the Atlantic. But as an offseason hurricane descends, and communications with the mainland are severed, Crystal Key is about to discover that terror doesn’t only come from below. ISLAND RED Hold your breath. Until it’s time to scream.

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek


Rhett McLaughlin - 2019
    Beneath the town’s cheerful façade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to the Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a history of putting unruly youths back on the straight and narrow—a record so impeccable that almost everyone is willing to ignore the suspicious deaths that have occurred there over the past decade.At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told: that the students’ strange demises were all just tragic accidents, the unfortunate consequence of succumbing to vices like Marlboro Lights and Nirvana. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry—and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood as punishment—Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.Eager to rescue their friend, Rex and Leif pair up with recent NYU film school graduate Janine Blitstein to begin piecing together the unsettling truth of the school and its mysterious founder, Wayne Whitewood. What they find will leave them battling an evil beyond their wildest imaginations—one that will shake Bleak Creek to its core.

Dinosaur Lake


Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 1993
    Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it’s been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he’s about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin…people begin to go missing…then there’s some mysterious water creature that’s taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it’s not only growing in size, it’s aggressive and cunning…and very hungry. And it’s decided it likes human beings. To eat.And it can come up onto land.So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it…before it can kill again. ***

Beneath the Dark Ice


Greig Beck - 2009
    Accompanying the team is an assortment of researchers, including petrobiologist Aimee Weir. If the unidentified substance proves to be an energy source, every country in the world will want to know about it – some would even kill for it.Once inserted into the cave system, they don't find any survivors – not even a trace of their bodies. Primeval hieroglyphs hint at an ancient civilisation, and an ancient danger. Spectres of the dead haunt the tunnels. Within hours, one of the party will die.To bring his team out alive, Alex will need every one of his mysterious abilities beneath the dark ice.Listening Length: 9 hours and 53 minutes