Book picks similar to
Chimera by N.J. Tanger


science-fiction
sci-fi
young-adult
scifi

Arena One: Slaverunners


Morgan Rice - 2012
    2120. American has been decimated, wiped out from the second Civil War. In this post-apocalyptic world, survivors are far and few between. And most of those who do survive are members of the violent gangs, predators who live in the big cities. They patrol the countryside looking for slaves, for fresh victims to bring back into the city for their favorite death sport: Arena One. The death stadium where opponents are made to fight to the death, in the most barbaric of ways. There is only one rule to the arena: no one survives. Ever. Deep in the wilderness, high up in the Catskill Mountains, 17 year old Brooke Moore manages to survive, hiding out with her younger sister, Bree. They are careful to avoid the gangs of slaverunners who patrol the countryside. But one day, Brooke is not as careful as she can be, and Bree is captured. The slaverunners take her away, heading to the city, and to what will be a certain death. Brooke, a Marine’s daughter, was raised to be tough, to never back down from a fight. When her sister is taken, Brooke mobilizes, uses everything at her disposal to chase down the slaverunners and get her sister back. Along the way she runs into Ben, 17, another survivor like her, whose brother was taken. Together, they team up on their rescue mission. What follows is a post-apocalyptic, action-packed thriller, as the two of them pursue the slaverunners on the most dangerous ride of their lives, following them deep into the heart of New York. Along the way, if they are to survive, they will have to make some of the hardest choices and sacrifices of their lives, encountering obstacles neither of them had expected—including their unexpected feelings for each other. Will they rescue their siblings? Will they make it back? And will they, themselves, have to fight in the arena?

The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer


Laxmi Hariharan - 2012
    Criminals run the streets of Bombay. Jam-packed with the worst degenerates. The city is a shell of the pride and joy it used to be. Ruby knows something must be done, but it isn’t until her best friend is kidnapped by the despotic Dr. Braganza that she knows that she and she alone must save city, save her best friend, save the world from total destruction. Armed only with with Vikram, a cop-turned-rogue they are about to embark on a road they may never return from.

Talented


Sophie Davis - 2012
    Talia Lyons has one goal at the McDonough School for the Talented: learn to use her Talent as a Mental Manipulator to kill the man who murdered her parents.Block out pain. She'll deal with anything. The brutal physical demands. The emotional toll. Whatever it takes to reach her objective.Block out friendship. With only one year left in the program, though, seventeen-year-old Talia is suddenly finding it harder than ever to ignore the rest of her life.Block out love.Even worse, she can't seem to turn off her psychic connection to her first love...or quit thinking about her fascinating new teammate.Feel only vengeance.Ian Crane. The man who destroyed Talia's life. The one she's determined to eradicate.Now focus.It's time to kill.THE TALENTED SAGA is a #1 Bestselling Dystopian Romance series about the life of a girl with extraordinary psychic powers, and what happens when a heart is torn between love and rage...

A Long, Long Sleep


Anna Sheehan - 2011
    Locked away in slumber, the 16-year-old Rose slept straight through dark times that killed millions and utterly changed the world. Hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire, she is thrust alone into a dangerous future.

The Institute


Kayla Howarth - 2015
    Always looking over your shoulder. The source of your fear? The Institute.Allira Daniels will do anything to keep her Defective brother safe from the Institute. They claim to protect Defectives, but it’s human nature to fear the unknown. Defectives are dangerous, they possess abilities that no human should be able to. To Allira and the rest of her family, the Institute seems more like a prison than the safe-haven they promote themselves to be. Protecting Shilah from that fate is their number one priority.When Allira stumbles across a car crash involving two of her school classmates, she ignores all of her father’s warnings of laying low and not drawing attention to herself. By doing so, she may have just caught the eye of the Institute. She’s not Defective, but what seventeen-year-old girl has the ability to pull two teenage boys away from a fiery rubble and walk away without a scratch? It would definitely be seen as suspicious.Allira and her family need to make decisions. Do they stay, or do they flee again? Will they be coming for her? Will her whole family come under investigation? Will they discover Shilah and his ability to predict the future?Are you Defective? The Institute is coming for you.

The Remnant Keeper


Robert Scott-Norton - 2015
    Jack Winston is one of the best and hates it. Under the scrutiny of the world's most powerful corporation, Jack is as much a prisoner as those he helps send behind bars. But when his latest case arrives, Jack's world shatters as his wife is brutally murdered. Fuelled by vengeance, Jack vows to catch the murderer, but as the bodies pile up, Jack realises he's made a terrible mistake; he was never the hunter, only the hunted. The Remnant Keeper is the first book of Tombs Rising, part of The Tombs Legacy. If you're a fan of Torchwood, Stephen King, or The X-Files, then you'll love a series that combines all of their best traits in a fast-paced, captivating, thrilling adventure. Buy THE REMNANT KEEPER and take your first steps into a universe of darkness created by author Robert Scott-Norton.

The Last Dance


Martin L. Shoemaker - 2019
    The alleged mutineer is Captain Nicolau Aames, whose command of the massive Earth-Mars vessel Aldrin has come under fire. The vast System Initiative says he disobeyed orders, but his crew swears he’s in the right.En route to Mars, Park gathers testimony from the Aldrin’s diverse crew, painting a complex picture of Aames’s character: his heroism, his failures, even his personal passions. As the investigation unfolds, Park finds herself in the thrall of powerful interests, each pushing and pulling her in a fiery cosmic dance.Corruption, conflicting loyalties, and clashing accounts make it nearly impossible to see the truth in fifty million miles of darkness, and Park faces danger from every direction. All eyes are on her: one way or another, her findings will have astronomical implications for the Aldrin and the future of space travel.

Archangel One


Evan Currie - 2019
    In preparation for the inevitable next war, Commander Stephen Michaels is at the helm of the Archangel Squadron, and his orders are simple: go rogue.Disguised as mercenaries, Commander Michaels and the Archangels seek valuable intelligence on their imposing foe. Their mission takes them deep into uncharted territory, where they make inroads with the Empire, fiercely guarding their true identities and purpose. Fighting for the enemy goes against everything they stand for, but these are desperate times.As their deception increases, so does the risk. With the Empire’s deadliest secrets within reach, Commander Michaels and the Archangels accept a mission that will take them even deeper into the Imperial fold. They know all too well that one wrong step won’t just end their lives—it could end their entire civilization.

The Gender Game


Bella Forrest - 2016
    A toxic river divides nineteen-year-old Violet Bates's world by gender. Women rule the East. Men rule the West. Welcome to the lands of Matrus and Patrus. Ever since the disappearance of her beloved younger brother, Violet's life has been consumed by an anger she struggles to control. Already a prisoner to her own nation, now she has been sentenced to death for her crimes. But one decision could save her life. To enter the kingdom of Patrus, where men rule and women submit. Everything about the patriarchy is dangerous for a rebellious girl like Violet. She cannot break the rules if she wishes to stay alive. But abiding by rules has never been Violet's strong suit.When she's thrust into more danger than she could have ever predicted, Violet is forced to sacrifice many things in the forbidden kingdom ... including forbidden love. In a world divided by gender, only the strongest survive...

Into the Dark


J.A. Sutherland - 2014
    Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other women.

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.

Song of Edmon


Adam Burch - 2017
    The product of diametrically opposed races, Edmon hopes to live a quiet life pursuing the music of his mother’s people, but his Nightsider father cruelly forces him to continue in his bloody footsteps to ensure his legacy.Edmon’s defiance will cost him everything… and spark a revolution that will shake the foundations of Tao. His choice—to embrace the light or surrender to the darkness—will shape his own fate and that of his divided world.

Daisy's Run


Scott Baron - 2018
    They were still alive, after all, which was always a plus in her book. Now if only she could figure out who, or what, was endangering her return home, things would be just peachy. It had been one hell of a way to start the day––being rudely snapped from a deep cryo-sleep, and in the middle of a ship-wide crisis to boot––but Daisy was pleased to note that the ship had not decompressed, the crew hadn’t been blasted into space, and, most importantly, they hadn’t simply blown up. At least not yet. So, they had that going for them, but being stuck on a damaged ship in the inky depths of space as it limped toward Earth was not exactly the relaxing trip home she’d imagined. With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind. Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.

UnHappenings


Edward Aubry - 2015
    His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone.And then he meets Helen.Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel’s relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen’s life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along.

Broken Skies


Theresa Kay - 2014
    A disillusioned alien boy. They were never meant to meet…When Jax Mitchell’s twin is kidnapped by Earth's alien settlers, the E'rikon, she'll do anything to get him back—even form an alliance with a teenage E'rikon left behind by the same ship that took her brother.Jax agrees to act as a guide, and in return, the alien agrees to sneak her past the human-proof barrier surrounding the E'rikon city. Too bad it's not that simple. Jax soon finds that she's drawn to the alien boy with bright green hair and jewel-like scales on his back—and he's equally affected by her, the courageous redhead with haunted eyes. But she doesn't know the alien's true motives, and he has no idea that she is much more than she seems.With the aliens and the humans at odds, the connection forming between the two teens has consequences. What started off as a rescue mission sets in motion a chain of events that threatens not only the remaining humans and the growing alien society, but Earth itself.