Book picks similar to
Towers by Karl A. Fischer


bizarro
horror
science-fiction
monsters

Gutmouth


Gabino Iglesias - 2012
    An obnoxious, toothy, foul-mouthed, pig of a mouth. Luckily, his girlfriend doesn't seem to mind. Marie, the one-legged stripper and cyber-prostitute love of his life is very accepting of it. And then a little too accepting. What would you do if your girlfriend cheated on you with the voracious yapper under your belly button? If you live in Gutmouth's world-a bleak city where gruesome, spontaneous mutations are no big deal, klepto-roaches take anything not tied-down, drugs turn pain into pleasure, consumers are tortured for growing food, and your best friend is a misogynistic rat-man-you might do something crazy. And what if you got caught?

Until the End


Tracey Ward - 2013
    The Fever spreads and kills quickly, but the dead aren't staying dead.When her neighbor, Jordan, saves her from one of the infected, Alissa joins him in his plan to escape the city, the disease and the threat of a quarantine that will lock the living in with the undead.What she doesn't tell him is that she has an illness of her own, one that plays tricks with her mind and makes her a dangerous companion. But Jordan has a secret as well, one that compels him to keep Alissa, a veritable stranger, safe at all costs.As they fight for their lives and race for their freedom, they'll discover that what they truly need in order to survive is to stay together until the end.*The Quarantined Series is followed by the Survival Series, a spinoff trilogy of books chronicling life 10 years after the outbreak with a few familiar faces...

Fed


Mira Grant - 2012
    If you haven’t read FEED yet, don’t go any further. These books are fantastic as the many Newsflesh fans will tell you. You’ll want to enjoy every surprising twist and turn on what has been one wild ride for the Mason siblings.But if the crew of After the End Times are old friends of yours, then by all means continue and read FED or download a pdf.

Apocalypticon


Clayton Smith - 2014
    Unfortunately, that "normal" includes collapsing skyscrapers, bands of bloodthirsty maniacs, and a dwindling cache of survival supplies. After watching his family, friends, and most of the non-sadistic elements of society crumble around him, Patrick decides it's time to cross one last item off his bucket list. He’s going to Disney World. This hilarious, heartfelt, gut-wrenching odyssey through post-apocalyptic America is a pilgrimage peppered with peril, as fellow survivors Patrick and Ben encounter a slew of odd characters, from zombie politicians and deranged survivalists to a milky-eyed oracle who doesn't have a lot of good news. Plus, it looks like Patrick may be hiding the real reason for their mission to the Magic Kingdom...

Survival Colony Nine


Joshua David Bellin - 2014
    Querry is a member of Survival Colony Nine, one of the small, roving groups of people who outlived the wars and environmental catastrophes that destroyed the old world. The commander of Survival Colony Nine is his father, Laman Genn, who runs the camp with an iron will. He has to--because heat, dust, and starvation aren't the only threats in this ruined world. There are also the Skaldi. Monsters with the ability to infect and mimic human hosts, the Skaldi appeared on the planet shortly after the wars of destruction. No one knows where they came from or what they are. But if they're not stopped, it might mean the end of humanity. Six months ago, Querry had an encounter with the Skaldi--and now he can't remember anything that happened before then. If he can recall his past, he might be able to find the key to defeat the Skaldi. If he can't, he's their next victim.

The Things That Keep Us Here


Carla Buckley - 2010
    Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland.And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches.As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear.Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.

Luna


Garon Whited - 2007
    It's not as bad as we thought. From the very first line, "Luna" grabs the reader. Where most books start with a world in trouble and ride the story on into a happy ending or to the ultimate destruction, "Luna" starts with the end of the world. Things can only get better, right? With the world destroyed, the story centers on six survivors in the first lunar shuttle, on their way to shake down and tune up a robot-built underground tunnel complex on the Moon. They have to face a number of issues, not the least of which is the self-destruction of their homeworld and the survival of the species. Fortunately, any culture advanced enough to have a lunar colony and the capability to destroy its own civilization is likely to have people who are not on the planet at any given time. From these few survivors, the human race will have to either survive and grow, or wither away into nothing. They have to face many difficulties, ranging from purely scientific ones such as genetics, mechanics, chemistry, and nutrition, to the more complex difficulties of human nature, such as love, sex, and loneliness. The conflict between politics and military command also rears its ugly head, with uncertain results, aside from the obvious: War. Told from the point of view of Max, the officer in charge of the mechanical aspects of the lunar base, "Luna" takes us on a fast-paced tour of our own Moon, the LaGrange points, a number of habitable satellites, as well as the light and dark places in the human soul. Any science fiction reader will delight in the near-future possibilities of lunar colonization, along with the superb character development, snappy dialogue, and the dry humor that are so characteristic of Garon Whited's work.A gripping page-turner, Whited's "Luna" is more than a little reminiscent of Robert Heinlein, mixed with a dash of E.E. "Doc" Smith, and stirred with a sardonic sense of humor uniquely his own. Fans of Garon Whited's "Nightlord: Sunset" will want to add this one to the collection!

Cage of Souls


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2019
    Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, surviving on the debris of its long-dead progenitors, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new, is Stefan Advani, rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will treat with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

The Bionics


Alicia Michaels - 2012
    2016 Once Upon A Book Award Winner. It is the year 4006, and nuclear war has come to the United States. With tens of thousands killed and countless more injured or terminally ill from the blasts, there is no more “normal”…life will never be the same. For her part, Blythe Sol is reeling from the loss of her arm and an eye in one of the blasts – her dreams of following in her father’s footsteps and joining the military completely shattered. When she hears about the Restoration Project – a bionic government program that offers the sick and injured a second chance – she immediately enrolls. Made whole again, Blythe is filled with hope and a renewed sense of purpose. But when it becomes apparent that those outfitted with the robotic parts now possess super-human abilities, fear spreads across the nation. The Bionics are forced to go into hiding, outcast from all society. In desperation, they band together to form an underground rebellion, and Blythe finds herself caught in a confusing tug-of-war between two of her fellow soldiers—Gage Bronson, the mysterious new addition to the Resistance, and Dax Janner, her best friend. But with war on the horizon and a death sentence hanging over her, Blythe hardly has time to worry about her feelings… The Bionics Series is perfect for readers who enjoy futuristic science fiction, dystopian novels, science fiction romance, and genetic engineering science fiction. Filled with action and adventure, this series will appeal to fans of The Gender Game by Bella Forest and Secondborn by Amy A. Bartol. Novels inThe Bionics Series by Alicia Michaels: The Bionics The Resistance The Revolution (Available January 8, 2018)

Muscle Memory


Steve Lowe - 2010
    In its place is his wife's junk. Billy is now Tina, and Tina is dead. That's because Billy's dead. His lifeless body is still in bed and empty beer bottles and a container of antifreeze litter the kitchen counter. Over the next 24 hours, Billy and an odd assortment of neighbors, all experiencing their own bouts of body switcheroo, try to figure out what happened and why. Can they do it before the Feds find Billy's body? Was it aliens that caused this, or God, or the government? And did Edgar Winter really sleep with his sheep? Pro football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw has those answers in a story that asks, What Would Kirk Cameron Do?

Awake in the Night


John C. Wright - 2014
    Wright's four brilliant forays into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land. Widely considered to be the finest tribute to Hodgson ever written, this novella was previously published in 2004 in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection. The five-million year epic that begins with "Awake in the Night" continues in AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, which in addition to "Awake in the Night" contains "The Cry of the Night-Hound", "Silence of the Night", and "The Last of All Suns", which collectively tell the haunting tale of the Last Redoubt of Man and the end of the human race. John C. Wright has been described by reviewers as one of the most important and audacious authors in science fiction today. In a recent poll of more than 1,000 science fiction readers, he was chosen as the sixth-greatest living science fiction writer.

The Fun We've Had


Michael J. Seidlinger - 2014
    Who are they? They are him and her. They are you and me. They are rowing to salvage what remains of themselves. They are rowing to remember the fun we’ve had."Michael Seidlinger is a homegrown Calvino, a humanist, and wise and darkly whimsical. His invisible cities are the spires of the sea where we all sail our coffins in search of our stories."--Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville“Melding the static, high-concept premise of two humans floating alone on a coffin in a sea devoid of all else with stark and meditative prose, The Fun We've Had evokes a highly unexpected experience, somewhere between Beckett's most hopeless solipsists and the mysterious energy of a child's Choose Your Own Adventure-era dream.”--Blake Butler, author of There Is No Year and Three Hundred Million“It is obvious that Michael J Seidlinger had a great deal of fun writing The Fun We've Had. What more could a reader ask for?”--Michael Kimball, author of Big Ray“The best poets are writing poetry no matter what they are writing, creating entirely new and weird spaces. There is no doubt Seidlinger has made one of the weirdest spaces we will ever inhabit. In The Fun We’ve Had, every visible thing is a love of disturbing tremors, keeping ahead of our ever-curious eyes, hoping to savor every line. What a magnificent book.”--CAConrad, author of The Book of Frank"Seidlinger’s imagination is a sea unto itself, the reader riding these rollicking waves. This book will have you clutching pages as though they’re life vests. Fans of Calvino and Shelley Jackson will dig the slow submerge into this crazy romp."--Joshua Mohr, author of Damascus"Michael J Seidlinger writes with the kind of weird, wonderful, joyful abandon that reminds the reader that world is still the great unknown. In The Fun We’ve Had, he examines the long blank space between life and death, fills it with love and loss and boats made of coffins, with people clinging to life and using the weight of the past as ballast. This is a fun read, true; but it's also a true read, and that's what makes it so beautifully sad."--Amber Sparks, author of The Desert Places and May We Shed These Human Bodies“Ready for an analogy? Here goes: When you need to give a dog a pill, you don’t just jam it down his throat, you wrap that pill in something yummy, like, say, ham. Michael J Seidlinger understands that this principle extends to people and books. So he’s got this pill he wants you to swallow, right? That pill is the truth about love and death and strife and, more generally, the messy mysterious business of being human, and also of being nothingness. Pretty heavy, right? Big old horse pill. But then Seidlinger, no fool, wraps it in the yummy slow-smoked maple goodness of his humor. He obviously had a fine time writing this book, which is precisely the reason you’ll have a fine time reading it.”–Ron Currie Jr., author of Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles

Sea Raptor: A Deep Sea Thriller


John J. Rust - 2014
    Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.

Coldbrook


Tim Lebbon - 2012
    Its scientists had achieved the impossible: a gateway to a new world. Theirs was to be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, but they had no idea what they were about to unleash.With their breakthrough comes disease and now it is out and ravaging the human population. The only hope is a cure and the only cure is genetic resistance: an uninfected person amongst the billions dead.In the chaos of destruction there is only one person that can save the human race.But will they find her in time?

Breakers


Edward W. Robertson - 2012
    In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter.When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity, running water, or neighbors, Walt begins an existential walk to LA, where Vanessa had planned to move when she left him. He expects to die along the way.Months later, a massive vessel appears above Santa Monica Bay. Walt is attacked by a crablike monstrosity in a mountain stream. The virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.