Book picks similar to
Unraveling by David Kazzie


post-apocalyptic
fiction
science-fiction
apocalyptic

Nameless


Jessica Sorensen - 2016
    Most people aren't even allowed to have names.But I had a name once. I was Allura until the Wardens captured me.They told me I was a Nameless. That I was no one, and my sole purpose was to obey them. And, for a while, I believed them.I spent years living underground in the channels beneath the city, dreaming of being outside again. I never thought it would happen. That I'd die in the darkness of my cell.But then three guys show up in the channels and my fate suddenly changes.Blaise, Ryder, and Reece are part of a secret group working to take down the Wardens and help rescue the Nameless. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I might survive.But the outside world isn't like how I remember. The city has become even more dangerous, especially for the Nameless. To survive, I'll have to learn how to trust the guys and live in a world full of crime where almost everyone is hunting for me.

Nomad


Matthew Mather - 2015
    Ben Rollins, head of Harvard's exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter, Jessica, who's vacationing in Italy with his wife. "Something's coming," he tells them. "A hundred times the mass of the sun. We can't see it, don't know what it is yet, but they're calling it Nomad--and in just months, the Earth may be destroyed."But what is it? And how did they miss detecting it until now? In a frantic race against time, Dr. Rollins must unravel Nomad's secrets. A mysterious clue surfaces in his old research papers from the end of the Cold War, more than thirty years earlier...The world erupts into chaos as the end approaches--and Ben discovers that his wife and daughter are trapped in Europe. The key to humanity's survival rests in the final answers Dr. Rollins pieces together, in the midst of his desperate scramble across continents to find his family before Nomad swallows the planet.MORE ABOUT NOMADA story of family and redemption set amid a brand new category of cataclysm--all the more plausible and terrifying as the science behind it is vetted by a team of world-class astrophysicists from CERN, SETI, the Keck Observatory and more. It even has its own simulation video, included at the end of the book.

Driven


Eve Kenin - 2007
    She's spent her life on the run, one step ahead of the megalomaniac who hunts her. All she wants is to stay out of trouble and haul her load of grain to Gladow Station--but trouble finds her in the form of a sexy stranger called Wizard. He has the trucking pass she needs, and she has to drag him out of a brawl with the very people she's trying to hide from in order to get it. She may have rescued him, but Raina's not foolish enough to see Wizard as anything close to helpless. He's hard and honed and full of secrets--secrets that may destroy them both. As they race across the Waste, trying to outrun rival truckers, ice pirates, and the powerful man bent on their destruction, Raina's forced to admit that trouble's found her. And this time, there's nowhere left to run.

Soft Apocalypse


Will McIntosh - 2011
    This is how our world ends; with a whimper instead of a bang. New social structures and tribal connections spring up across America, as the previous social structures begin to dissolve. Locus Award finalist and John W. Campbell Memorial Award finalist Soft Apocalypse follows the journey across the Southeast of a tribe of formerly middle class Americans as they struggle to find a place for themselves and their children in a new, dangerous world that still carries the ghostly echoes of their previous lives.

The Wolves of Winter


Tyrell Johnson - 2018
    Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive.Lynn McBride has learned much since society collapsed in the face of nuclear war and the relentless spread of disease. As memories of her old life haunt her, she has been forced to forge ahead in the snow-covered Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap to survive.But her fragile existence is about to be shattered. Shadows of the world before have found her tiny community—most prominently in the enigmatic figure of Jax, who sets in motion a chain of events that will force Lynn to fulfill a destiny she never imagined.

The Last Librarian


Brandt Legg - 2015
     In the year 2098, there is no more war, no more hunger and no more pollution. The world is secure and Earth’s 2.9 billion people are healthy and happy. There is also only one remaining library that still houses physical books. In addition to the dusty volumes, the library holds many secrets. But the government has decided to shut it down and burn the contents. Unless an unlikely trio can save the books, humanity will lose more than just what is printed on those antique pages. With a single government ruling the entire planet, one currency, one language and no religion, the population is unified and enjoying the prosperity that comes with more than seven decades of peace. Free healthcare for all and guaranteed employment make the future a dream. But this future may only be safe if they can hide the past. The books must be saved . . . the impossible task is up to an angry author, a brazen revolutionary and the last librarian. When everything is perfect, the only thing left to fear is the truth.

Robopocalypse


Daniel H. Wilson - 2011
    Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication.In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans—a single mother disconcerted by her daughter's menacing "smart" toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a "pacification unit" go haywire—but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.When the Robot War ignites—at a moment known later as Zero Hour—humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us ... and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

77 Days in September


Ray Gorham - 2011
    Kyle Tait is settling in for his flight home to Montana when a single nuclear bomb is detonated 300 miles above the heart of America. The blast, an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP), destroys every electrical device in the country, and results in the crippling of the power grid, the shutting down of modern communications, and bringing to a halt most forms of transportation.Kyle narrowly escapes when his airplane crashes on take-off, only to find himself stranded 2,000 miles from home in a country that has been forced, from a technological standpoint, back to the 19th Century. Confused, hurt, scared, and alone, Kyle must make his way across a hostile continent to a family he’s not even sure has survived the effects of the attack. As Kyle forges his way home, his frightened family faces their own struggles for survival in a community trying to halt its slow spiral into chaos and anarchy. 77 Days in September follows Kyle and his wife, Jennifer, as they are stretched past their breaking point, but find in their devotion to each other the strength to persevere.

Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1)


Algor X. Dennison - 2015
    He can drop everything and run for his mountain retreat, or he can go back for the woman he's begun to care about. Carrie was never part of his plan, but without her his plan may lose its meaning. Before their journey is over, she will have a greater part to play than either of them suspected.Making their way out of a city in full societal meltdown and across the Colorado Rockies to the ranch where they hope to find refuge, McLean and Carrie's small band grapples with the dangers and obstacles of a world without order and a life in which the strength of individuals-- both physical and internal-- will define their ability to survive.

Genesis


Michaelbrent Collings - 2013
    Conversion is instant. Headshots just make them angry. And they’re getting smarter. Ken Strickland has made it through the first moments. But his family is still out there. Can he survive? Can he find them? Or will he become one more of the creatures that now rule our world?

Survival


Devon C. Ford - 2016
    By the time the country realised it was everywhere, nearly everyone died. Being one of the few left alive wasn't the freedom he would have expected. Banding together those he found along the way, he has to fight to keep them safe. To keep them alive. To survive.

Primal Shift: Part 1


Griffin Hayes - 2013
    But a thousand motorists suddenly abandon their cars on the Golden Gate Bridge and leap to their deaths in a roiling bay. Jets packed with families rain down from the skies above Salt Lake City International Airport, dotting the landscape with orange fireballs. Worse yet, New York City police launch a murderous rampage against those they swore to protect and serve. Law and order across the globe collapses in less than five minutes, plunging humanity into chaos.Something is affecting our minds, our sanity. Could it be a terrorist attack? The ultimate virus? Or an experiment gone horribly wrong?A handful of survivors claws its way out of the ashes of the old world, strangely unaffected by The Shift. Among them, a frantic mother desperate to find her son. A sailor hunting a soulless killer. A former CEO willing to kill for power over this new, feral wasteland.Together, they'll battle both the hordes of bloodthirsty cannibals who used to be their own families and neighbors, and a dark figure who commands these legions with his every twisted whim.Someone somewhere must know what happened, where to find safety. And whether those eerie lights shimmering in the skies overhead are an omen of something far worse than even this bleak living hell.

Not a Drop to Drink


Mindy McGinnis - 2013
    She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn't leave at all.Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand.But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it….With evocative, spare language and incredible drama, danger, and romance, debut author Mindy McGinnis depicts one girl’s journey in a barren world not so different than our own.

The Last Bastion of the Living


Rhiannon Frater - 2012
    Vanguard Maria Martinez has lived her entire life within the towering walls. Her only refuge from the overcrowded streets, rolling blackouts, and food shortages is in the arms of Officer Dwayne Reichardt. Then Maria is summoned to meet with a mysterious representative from the Science Warfare Division and is offered the opportunity to finally destroy the Inferi Scourge and reclaim the land and resources in the valley beyond the wall. If she succeeds, the city may be saved. But if she fails, humanity faces extinction…

The Darwin Elevator


Jason M. Hough - 2013
    The world has succumbed to an alien plague, with most of the population transformed into mindless, savage creatures. The planet’s refugees flock to Darwin, where a space elevator—created by the architects of this apocalypse, the Builders—emits a plague-suppressing aura.Skyler Luiken has a rare immunity to the plague. Backed by an international crew of fellow “immunes,” he leads missions into the dangerous wasteland beyond the aura’s edge to find the resources Darwin needs to stave off collapse. But when the Elevator starts to malfunction, Skyler is tapped—along with the brilliant scientist, Dr. Tania Sharma—to solve the mystery of the failing alien technology and save the ragged remnants of humanity.