Book picks similar to
Ice Fall by Michael Edelson
post-apocalyptic
thriller
apocalyptic
sci-fi
The World Gives Way
Marissa Levien - 2021
Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract--butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles.But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated--and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world--and embrace what's left before it's too late.A sweeping novel with a darkly glimmering heart, The World Gives Way is an unforgettable portrait of a world in freefall, and the fierce drive to live even at the end of it all.
The Book of M
Peng Shepherd - 2018
It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.
Invasion
Sean Platt - 2015
The countdown has begun.First visible only as blips on a telescope image, the discovery of objects approaching from Jupiter orbit immediately sets humanity on edge. NASA doesn't even bother to deny the alien ships' existence. The popular Astral space app (broadcasting from the far side of the moon and accessible by anyone with internet) has already shown the populace what is coming. So the news has turned from evasion to triage, urging calm and offering the few facts they have: The objects are enormous, perfectly round spheres numbering in the dozens, maybe hundreds. They are on an approach vector for Earth. And they will arrive in six days. Fear simmers.Meyer Dempsey - mogul, wealthy entrepreneur, arrogant and always in charge - is in New York, on the phone with his ex-wife in LA when the news breaks. He can hear tension in the voices of reporters and experts chronicling all that's known and unknown. But even while those supposedly in charge restrain their own panic, Meyer finds he recognizes bits and pieces of what the world is facing. He's seen this in dreams - in visions of another place. He knows where he and his family must go. He has prepared … though he never knew until now what he'd been preparing for. He knows only they cannot hesitate. They must run to their safe haven in the Colorado mountains. Now. Before society shatters into chaos, and it all falls apart. Fear rises.Meyer has been taking steps for months, and has made preparations: a trove of supplies, a van stocked for the worst, a Gulfstream waiting at a small airstrip in Jersey. But he hasn't yet been able to take the final and most important step: moving the family to Colorado, where every contingency is covered. The networks stay on-air longer than expected, creating a farce of calm. But those with means have already begun to scramble as Meyer gathers his wife Piper and his two teenage children and begins their race toward that compound, toward safety. There is no time for hesitation, regret, or pity. Soon, pundits begin to ask questions hard enough to tip those who've thus far stayed calm out of their complacency, inciting chaos: What do the beings inside the ships want? What will they do when they arrive? And what if the scientists are wrong, and the spheres aren't decelerating? Will they strike the planet, raising clouds of extinction dust? Will they knock the Earth off its axis? Is this a prelude to an alien invasion? An alien war? An alien apocalypse? The first domino in the birth of a new alien empire? Fear erupts.Panic, once it breaches the thin crust of civilized society, spreads like a virus. Meyer knows only one thing, and it's a truth that has perched atop his mind like a psychic obsession: When the ships arrive, his family must be at the Colorado compound or all will be lost. The space fleet in itself doesn't matter. The disintegration on the surviving news outlets does not matter. Reports that Las Vegas has been set ablaze do not matter. The fate of humanity, in Meyer's eyes, doesn't matter.All that matters is Piper. Trevor. Delilah. And Meyer's ex-wife Heather, coming to the same destination from the west - a woman who remains his best friend, and his secret lover. Rioting spills into the highways as time ticks away. Unrest boils in both city and hinterlands. But Meyer's obsession to reach Vail is single-minded, guided with the focus of a far-seeing nightmare. Gangs can ground his plane, threaten his vehicles, and steal his belongings. But nothing will stand between Meyer's family and their haven … and Meyer will kill his way to Colorado if he has to. This relentless, page-turning tale of apocalyptic dawn is the first in the alien invasion series by masters of story Truant and Platt, authors of The Beam, Robot Proletariat, the Dream Engine series, and many more.
The America Falls Series: Books 1-3
Scott Medbury - 2018
No Mazes. No Zombies. No games.
If you think North Korea and Russia are the greatest dangers to the United States - think again. After a surprise biological attack, America, the most powerful nation on Earth, quickly succumbs, with over 99.5% of the adult population killed. As society unravels and a ground invasion of his country begins, loner Isaac Race must form a connection with a ragtag group of survivors and elude not only the invaders, but other dangers and chaos unleashed in Post-America.These are the first three episodes of America Falls, a compelling, action-packed story about who we are and who we have to become in order to survive.What Amazon readers are saying: ★★★★★ "The characters are rich and believable, I was cheering, raging and crying as I read." ★★★★★ "The story kind of sneaks up on you and before you know it, the afternoon is gone." ★★★★★ "Compelling action! I could not stop reading this series... give me more, more, more! ★★★★★ " I LOVED IT ! I couldn't skip words or chapters or paragraphs, I was afraid I would miss something!!! Buy the box set and start a series you won’t want to put down!
Patient Zero
Jonathan Maberry - 2009
and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...
The End
G. Michael Hopf - 2013
This youthful idealism vanished one fateful day in a war torn city in Iraq. Ten years later, he is still struggling with the ghosts of his past but must now face a new reality thrust on him and his family. North America, Europe and the Far East have all suffered a devastating Super-EMP attack that has caused catastrophic damage to the power grids and all electrical devices. With nothing working from cars to phones and with the total collapse of the economic infrastructure, Gordon must fight for the limited and fast dwindling resources. He knows survival requires action and cooperation with his neighbors; but as daily life continues to break down so does all sense of civility within his community. With each passing day Gordon makes choices that would seem extreme in today's world but necessary in this new world.
Wanderers
Chuck Wendig - 2019
She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
The Last One
Alexandra Oliva - 2016
She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it human-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes. But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing. Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.
The Upheaval
Erica Stevens - 2013
time. Every single person felt the rumbling, and experienced the tremors that would forever alter the course of history. Most did not survive. These are the accounts of some of those that did. *Note* This book is the first compilation of a serial story, due to this fact it does not have a conclusion. *Due to language and graphic content this book is recommended for readers 17 and older. Edited by Kevin Mills Edited by Leslie Mitchell at G2 Freelance Editing.Cover art by www.EbookLaunch.com
Suffer the Children
Craig DiLouie - 2014
Soon, they return from the grave…and ask for blood. And with blood, they stop being dead. They continue to remain the children they once were...but only for a short time, as they need more blood to live. The average human body holds ten pints of blood, so the inevitable question for parents everywhere becomes: How far would you go to bring your child back?
London
Frank Tayell - 2013
Within days the infection had spread to every corner of the world. Nowhere is safe from the undead...Bill watched from his window as London was evacuated. His leg broken, he is unable to join the exodus. Turning to his friends in the government, he waits and hopes for rescue. As the days turn into weeks, realising inaction will lead only to starvation and death, his thoughts turn to escape.Forced to leave the safety of his home he ventures out into the undead wasteland that once was England, where he will discover a horrific secret.This is the first volume of his journal.
Splits
Chuck Grossart - 2015
The doors had opened, and something was coming through. Once the initial shock and confusion wore off, and those in charge realized what was happening, mankind seemed to coalesce like never before. National boundaries no longer mattered. Religion, race, color and creed seemed to pass away in a flash. Old enemies put their differences aside. The only thing that did matter was survival. As a species. Now, Kyle is on a mission to save what’s left of our world. Or die trying.
Cell
Stephen King - 2006
Without warning, carnage and chaos reigned. Ordinary people fell victim to the basest, most animalistic destruction.And the apocalypse began with the ring of a cell phone...
EMP Blackout Super Boxset
James Hunt - 2015
The fields of medicine, engineering, agriculture and countless others have benefited from the applied science of high tech microprocessors and their data processing capabilities. This technology helps power our homes, cars, laptops, and phones. It is involved in every aspect of our lives, but as powerful and complex as these systems are there is one device that can cripple everything and bring the world as we know it to a standstill: EMP. Mike Grant, a veteran welder for a Pittsburgh steel company, is at work when an EMP wrecks the entire country. With no transportation and no way to contact his loved ones, Mike has to combat the panic stricken city to find his father, reach his wife and children in the suburbs, and escape to their cabin in Ohio. This fast-paced, adrenaline filled thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat as we all find out what happens when the lights go out. The Pulse: September 21, 2020: America is worse off than it has ever been economically, but the worst is yet to come. On a seemingly normal Monday morning, a power outage occurs across the entire state of Georgia. A massive breakdown of vehicles and communications follows, sending towns and cities into chaos. The sweeping blackout is unlike anything ever seen, but that's not all. Without access to news, there is no information on the mysterious phenomenon. Rumors of a looming war spreads, creating further panic. Only one weapon could be capable of such stealth destruction: an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and on that Monday, the nightmarish cold war scenario becomes a chilling reality. Meanwhile, a group of preppers band together amidst the chaos to seek safety at a rural bug-out house. But getting there won’t be easy in this exciting thriller of a dark future where society is on the brink, and no one is safe.
The End is Nigh
John Joseph AdamsNancy Kress - 2014
Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.