Book picks similar to
Out of Gas by Randy Dyess


survival
fiction
apocalyptic
apocalypse

Highway: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival


John Q. Prepper - 2016
    For young Lexi Broadmoor and her brother Travis, the detonation not only took their father away, but their future as well. Now stranded on a highway far from home without any survival skills or someone to protect them, staying alive will depend on their wits, a single bug-out bag, and a map to a stranger's house. With the grid down and a nation quickly descending into chaos, they'll need to hurry, because the lawless are taking over. But a larger threat looms. A mysterious foe has set in motion a countdown to Armageddon; unknown to Lexi and Travis, they're part of the plan.

The Brink


Martyn J. Pass - 2016
    Humanity had barely survived The Panic 70 years earlier and now the slow death brought on by the collapse of society seems unavoidable, especially as it seems the worst is still to come. Accompanied by a strange hound he rescued from the labs deep beneath the Fort, Alan sets out to aid the survivors who struggle to hold back mankind's final hour, joining up with a handful of soldiers desperately trying to fan the embers of mankind into life once more. But Alan has a secret he's desperate to hide and which threatens to be revealed with every action he takes. Can his fear of discovery be overcome so that mankind can stand a chance of surviving? Or will humanity topple over the brink as he stands by and watches? Following on from Project - 16, The Brink tells the story of a man who faces a destiny he neither wants nor is prepared for and starts Alan Harding on a path to legend.

Brushfire Plague


R.P. Ruggiero - 2012
    As he organizes his neighbors for self-defense and strives to save those around him, he soon discovers the first clues about the origin of the Brushfire Plague that is killing untold millions around the world. In his pursuit to learn the truth, Cooper must combat looters, organized gangs, and those protecting the Brushfire Plague's secrets. When his son falls ill, his search to uncover the plague's origin and a possible cure transforms into a race against time. Ultimately, Cooper faces a paralyzing choice between exposing what he has learned with potentially shattering consequences, or abetting a horrible secret and giving his nation a chance to recover and rebuild.Surviving the Plague was just the beginning...

L.A. Dark


G.F. Gustav - 2013
    on a pleasant Sunday in the middle of May in the not-too-distant future, all things electronic die and the lights wink off. Everything stops.Jeremy Jamison, his Marina del Rey apartment mates Matt and Kade, along with friends Sarah and Karina, find themselves in the midst of a rapidly deteriorating world in west L.A. Power may not be restored for months or years, and they are surrounded by a mass of humanity that will soon be thirsty, hungry, desperate, and dying. Young, fit, but ill-prepared, their choice is stark: run or die. L.A. Dark is the first in a series that chronicles the desperate struggle of five young people to navigate the sixty-mile, post-apocalyptic urban jungle of the L.A. basin followed by over three hundred miles of bleak and searing Mojave desert to reach what Jeremy and friends hope will be the safety of southern Utah. This story is a realistic action-thriller based on a plausible future scenario in the wake of an electromagnetic pulse or EMP event.

DMQZ


Quinn Fleming - 2013
    The shores and waters of the East River are the "DMQZ," the uninhabited area that separates uninfected Manhattan from the slowly dying borough of Brooklyn.Jacob Hale is a Manhattan police officer rising in the ranks of the Safe Zone military government until a bank heist gone wrong lands him on suspension and under suspicion. On a quest to clear his good name, Hale finds himself drawn into a web of conspiracy, terrorism, and revolt - and into the orbit of a mysterious woman who may be the key to it all.

Flood


Kellee L. Greene - 2020
    Millions of people lost their lives but for those who remained, the fight for their lives had only just begun. No one could have been prepared for the disastrous events that followed The Reset. As those who remained worked to find a way to survive amid the destruction, others began a quest to take control of what was left. The race to survival is on, but in the end, will anyone win? Flood is the first book in the new page-turning, natural disaster survival series by Kellee L. Greene.

EMP: Equipping Modern Patriots: A Story of Survival


Jonathan Hollerman - 2013
    Can you imagine a world with no phones, no TV, no internet, and no way to access your bank account? Without the electric grid, there would be no lights, no heating or air conditioning in your house, no public water, and the sewer would likely back up into your home. Without modern vehicles or interstate trucking, the supermarkets would quickly run out of food and supplies. Unprepared, the government would be helpless to feed the masses and maintain order. Our humanity is questioned when survival of the fittest becomes reality. Jonathan Hollerman paints a vivid and disturbing picture of society falling apart after an Electromagnetic Pulse attack against our nation. This is not only a thrilling story, but offers practical life-saving advice for an imminent threat. If you enjoyed "Patriots" by James Wesley Rawles or "One Second After" by William Forstchen, then you will enjoy this story of survival.2nd Edition (Jan 8th, 2014) has been professionally edited.

After the Fall: Jason's Tale


David Nees - 2016
    With no food deliveries, no vehicles working, society begins to unravel.Starvation and death begin to reign and panic leads to violence. Marauding gangs roam the countryside, stealing, killing or worse and cities begin to wall themselves off from the danger outside.As society breaks down, Jason heads to the Appalachian Mountains to avoid the growing anarchy, hoping to wait out the chaos. The gangs threaten but loneliness becomes his biggest enemy as the solitude envelopes him.In a secluded mountain valley he finds a woman, Anne, and her two daughters struggling to survive. They are near starvation when Jason shows up.Violence soon follows him. Survival will mean fighting...and killing. The power hasn't returned, the country is still shattered and Jason and Anne must struggle for a new life in a dangerous world.If you like "One Second After" and other survival/post-apocalyptic stories, you will enjoy this personal story of trying to survive and thrive after an EMP attack.

Secession: The Storm


Joe Nobody - 2014
    Working a series of heinous crimes, Zach uncovers a dark, treacherous secret – a conspiracy that could alter America’s future and result in the secession of Texas. Co-authored by P.A. Troit and bestselling writer Joe Nobody, Secession explores a world where a hopelessly gridlocked government fuels an ever-deepening divide between right and left. The public’s frustration with the country’s direction forces desperate leaders on both sides of the political spectrum to consider splitting the union.Based on actual historic events, current economic realities, and a growing global trend, Secession immerses the reader in a lifelike scenario that could be America’s future.

Stranded No Where


E.A. Lake - 2016
    How am I going to survive?” The 21st-century world has been dropped back into the early 1800s. No one knew it was coming, no one was prepared, and still TEOTWAWKI happens. By himself on vacation in northern Michigan, Bob Reiniger determines he must survive. Even with no such survival skills. He will make new and strange friends, and protect his property and life. Even though he's not ready for it, he will do battle with those who want to take what's his away. Against all odds, Bob must survive the apocalypse. Even alone, in the middle of No Where. Stranded No Where is the first book in e a lake's newest series - The No Where Apocalypse. Read this book now, before the final Apocalypse arrives.

A Smaller Country


Phillip Tennison - 2015
    Nations cease to exist. Refugees flock to other lands in search of safety and security.What remains of the Australian Government moves its borders to the south and evacuates the survivors from the northern half of the continent. Australia becomes a smaller country.But some survivors are left behind. They face a perilous existence.One such survivor is John Timms, a former outback cop.Timms embarks on an odyssey that takes him across much of the north. Along the way he encounters other Australians as well as many of the newcomers. Timms finds that he must confront the darkness and violence of the new frontier.

As the Ash Fell


A.J. Powers - 2015
     It’s been seven years since the ash billowed into the atmosphere, triggering some of the harshest winters in recorded history. Populations are thinning. Food is scarce. Despair overwhelming. With no way to sustain order, societies collapsed, leaving people to fend for themselves. Clay and his sister Megan have taken a handful of orphaned children into their home—a home soaring sixteen stories into the sky. With roughly six short months a year to gather enough food and supplies to last the long, brutal winter, Clay must spend most of his time away from his family to scavenge, hunt, and barter. When Clay rescues a young woman named Kelsey from a group of Screamers, his life is catapulted into a new direction, forcing him to make decisions he never thought he would have to make. Now, with winter rolling in earlier than ever, Clay’s divided attention is putting him, and his family, at risk.

A World Slowed: The Jared Chronicles


Rick Tippins - 2019
    While many people hunker in their homes, waiting for government assistance, Jared quickly realizes he needs to take some sort of action if he intends to survive. Fending for himself proves far more difficult than he realized. When an old man, Bart, takes him in, Jared learns skills he is forced to use when hiding and scavenging are no longer options. Even before Jared acquires the skills to sustain his own life in this new world, he unexpectantly becomes the caretaker of a seven-year-old girl who is left all alone after her parents are tragically murdered. From the beginning to the end of this book, Jared is tested to his limits, escaping harm time and again only through his thoughtful approach to a new way of living. A World Slowed, stretches the Post-Apocalyptic genre in a slightly different direction as the story follows an unprepared Silicon Valley computer engineer, Jared, through his struggle to surviving in a world devoid of modern amenities connected to electricity. While many people hunker in their homes, waiting for government assistance, Jared quickly realizes he needs to take some sort of action if he intends to survive. Fending for himself proves far more difficult than he realized. When an old man, Bart, takes him in, Jared learns skills he is forced to use when hiding and scavenging are no longer options. Even before Jared acquires the skills to sustain his own life in this new world, he unexpectantly becomes the caretaker of a seven-year-old girl who is left all alone after her parents are tragically murdered. From the beginning to the end of this book, Jared is tested to his limits, escaping harm time and again only through his thoughtful approach to a new way of living. A World Slowed, stretches the Post-Apocalyptic genre in a slightly different direction as the story follows an unprepared Silicon Valley computer engineer, Jared, through his struggle to surviving in a world devoid of modern amenities connected to electricity. While many people hunker in their homes, waiting for government assistance, Jared quickly realizes he needs to take some sort of action if he intends to survive. Fending for himself proves far more difficult than he realized. When an old man, Bart, takes him in, Jared learns skills he is forced to use when hiding and scavenging are no longer options. Even before Jared acquires the skills to sustain his own life in this new world, he unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of a seven-year-old girl who is left all alone after her parents are tragically murdered. From the beginning to the end of this book, Jared is tested to his limits, escaping harm time and again only through his thoughtful approach to a new way of living.

FROM THE FIRE Omnibus (Episodes 1 Through 6)


Kent David Kelly - 2014
    Sophie Saint-Germain, wife and scientist and mother of one, was not among them. She lived for a time, and so her words endure. The reclamation of her terrifying story is a miracle in itself. Uncovered during the Shoshone Geyser Basin archaeological excavations of 2316, Sophie’s unearthed diary reveals the most secret confessions of the only known long-term female survivor of the Holocaust in central Colorado. Her diary reveals the truths behind our legends of the High Shelter, the White Fire, the Great Dying, the Coming of the One, and the Gray Rain Exodus, her horrifying journey into the wasteland made with the sole conviction that her daughter, Lacie, was still alive. For these are the first of words, chosen by the Woman of the Black Hawk: FROM THE FIRE / GIVE ME SHELTER / THAT I MIGHT ENDURE THE STORM, / GIVE ME THE STRENGTH / TO PRAY MY DAUGHTER WILL PREVAIL. From the Plague Land, from the Fire. This is the book of the woman who was, this is the codex of our ancestors’ revelation. An epic saga of post-apocalyptic fiction, FROM THE FIRE is the acclaimed second novel from Kent David Kelly. This unforgettable epic comprises 131,000 words, over 400 printed pages. From Wonderland Imprints, Only the Finest Works of Fantasy.

The Passenger


James N. Cook - 2013
    It is related and some of the characters were in the first book in the series, No Easy Hope. It is more of a supplemental reading to the series.During the Outbreak, like billions of others, a man finds himself infected with the Phage. Desperate to spare his family from watching him become a walking nightmare, he flees. Soon after, he is dead. Two years later, he wakes up. Not in the afterlife, but in his own body. Trapped, unable to control the monster that carries him, and forced to witness the horror of its existence. A hundred miles away, Sergeant Ethan Thompson thinks he has seen the worst the apocalypse has to offer. He is wrong. Following the trail of a dying madman, he will embark on a journey of vengeance that will test the limits of his sanity. Along the way, he will learn that there is no justice at the end of the world. There is only the living and the dead, and in between, there is The Passenger.