Book picks similar to
Without Rhythm by P.S. Power


fantasy
amazon2
ku-4-star
post-apocalyptic

Hunter


Mercedes Lackey - 2015
    Some were terrors ripped from our collective imaginations, remnants of every mythology across the world. And some were like nothing anyone had ever dreamed up, even in their worst nightmares.Monsters.Long ago, the barriers between our world and the Otherworld were ripped open, and it’s taken centuries to bring back civilization in the wake of the catastrophe. Now, the luckiest Cits live in enclosed communities, behind walls that keep them safe from the hideous creatures fighting to break through. Others are not so lucky.To Joyeaux Charmand, who has been a Hunter in her tight-knit mountain community since she was a child, every Cit without magic deserves her protection from dangerous Othersiders. Then she is called to Apex City, where the best Hunters are kept to protect the most important people.Joy soon realizes that the city’s powerful leaders care more about luring Cits into a false sense of security than protecting them. More and more monsters are getting through the barriers, and the close calls are becoming too frequent to ignore. Yet the Cits have no sense of how much danger they’re in—to them, Joy and her corps of fellow Hunters are just action stars they watch on TV.When an act of sabotage against Joy takes an unbearable toll, she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy in the city. There is something much worse than the usual monsters infiltrating Apex. And it may be too late to stop them…

Earth Blood


James Axler - 1993
    Mass starvation wipes out millions almost overnight. Society collapses, and those who survive must contend with renegade groups striving for naked power. A new currency comes into existence -- precious food, and the force of arms that helps get it at any cost.Returning from a deep space mission, the crew of the Aquila crash lands in the Nevada desert and finds that the world they knew no longer exists. Ten months ago they had friends, wives and children. Now they set out on an uncertain odyssey to find the survivors, an odyssey that uncovers a secret trail left by a man called General Zelig. But in this ravaged new world, no one knows who is friend or foe... and their quest will test the limits of endurance and the will to live.

Empire


Orson Scott Card - 2006
    The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own. When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on?Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War.

CyberStorm


Matthew Mather - 2013
    As the world and cyberworlds come crashing down, bending perception and reality, a monster snowstorm cuts New York off from the world, becoming a wintry tomb where no one can be trusted, and nothing is what it seems...CyberStorm is a techno-thriller set in present-day New York City that will appeal to fans of Michael Chichton and Tom Clancy as well as devotees of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. It is an exploration of the human condition as the cyberworld collides with our own, a compelling portrait of a possible future that is all too terrifyingly real.

The Scout


Eric Tozzi - 2012
    It's heading for Earth at twelve thousand miles per hour...and it will land virtually undetected. For Jack McAllister, a young writer who has finally launched a career for himself, it begins tragically: his estranged father, a former NASA engineer, dies suddenly at his home in Merriweather, Indiana, leaving Jack's Alzheimer's-stricken mother a widow. But in the wake of personal heartbreak, he's confronted by an even more astonishing event--the covert landing of an alien machine in the forest just a few miles outside of town. Now Jack must unmask the true purpose of the otherworldly device that has begun a detailed environmental survey of the woods. Aided by the town's young and resilient female deputy sheriff, he soon discovers that the alien scout is only one small part of a much larger operation, and the countdown to a terrifying global catastrophe is about to take place. Drawing deeply from his father’s scientific influence, all while attempting to avoid the snares of a sexy, seductive and scheming local TV reporter, Jack uncovers—and ultimately finds himself an unwilling component of—an alien plan set to terminate life on Earth as we know it.

The Atlantis Gene


A.G. Riddle - 2013
    They will set off a race to unravel the deepest secrets of human existence--and an event that could change humanity forever.

After Series Box Set


Scott Nicholson - 2015
    NASA scientists warn of the possible effects of heightened solar activity, but the threat is downplayed until it's far too late.After #1: The Shock- Rachel Wheeler flees the dangers of Charlotte to seek her grandfather's remote compound in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is joined by several other survivors as they fight back against a hostile world.After #2: The Echo- The survivors discover the mutant Zapheads are evolving by imitating human speech and behavior, but the threat of savage violence remains.After #3: Milepost 291- As Rachel and the others near her grandfather's compound, new dangers emerge, including a military unit that has established its own harsh laws.

Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson | Summary & Analysis


Book*Sense - 2015
    Neal Stephenson’s science fiction thriller, depicts the end of the Earth through the destruction of the Moon by an unknown Agent and the attempts to preserve humanity through a multi-millennial gap between times when the surface of the planet will be inhabitable. The preservation efforts soon bog down in political entanglements, both from the doomed world and from within the populations who are meant to carry humanity through thousands of years in space to a planned return to Earth. When, at last, humanity makes to return to the surface of Earth, they find that other populations, not entirely friendly, await them, having endured their own privations across the millennia. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, is a substantial piece of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction. Well-written and compelling, it offers a convincing account of one of the many scenarios in which Earth might end – only to be reborn millennia later from seeds sown by the seven Eves of the novel’s title and others uncontrolled by them. It is an excellent piece of science fiction. This companion also includes the following: • Book Review • Story Setting Analysis • Story elements you may have missed as we decipher the novel • Details of Characters & Key Character Analysis • Summary of the text, with some analytical comments interspersed • Thought Provoking /or Discussion Questions for both Readers & Book Clubs • Discussion & Analysis of Themes, Symbols… • And Much More! This Analysis of Seveneves fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

Into the Fire Once More (Death's Own Daughter #1)


Jessie Wolf - 2015
    Owens thought he would take one last trip to pay his respects to fallen comrades. However fate had other plans. His return trip to the planet of Hades in the Death Gates System was to be his final farewell. At ninety seven, his doctors had told him his chances of surviving the trip were small. This did not deter him in the slightest. It would be his last great adventure.This was supposed to be a trip to say goodbye to the men he had served with, under, and finally over as a Death Dealer. The men in those Imperial Black Uniforms. The Death Dealers have been the most feared military unit of the last four hundred and fifty years of the human Space Empire. Men trained in every form of combat known to man and alien. Units whose very names strike terror into the hearts of those they face. Names like Grim Rippers, Hells Lost Legion, and the Screaming Eagles. If it had not been for the Emperor Nicolai and an invasion by the Gelf Union four hundred and fifty years ago the Death Dealers may have been nothing more than a footnote in history. A company of Death Dealers were on Fair Cry Seven when they attacked. The Gelf’s killed every last human military unit that faced off against them. All but one was defeated within the first two days of the invasion. That one lone unit was the Death Dealer Company. From that war onwards, the Death Dealers have fought in every war on every planet from the time of their conception. Their battles have become legendary. Battlefields with names like Forty Acers where the Death Dealers lost one man for every enemy soldier they sent to meet their maker. Bloody Ridge on Colfax Eight where one company of Death Dealers in Armored Power Suits held off four regiments of Horbathian Tanks for three days before being relieved. On all of these planets and many more their battle cry of ‘Death is dealt by our hands’ has been heard. It was this battle cry that earned them their name. A name given to them by the very enemy they first faced off against. It was these stories that drew James as a young man to undergo the painful process of having the Death Dealers greatest asset installed in his body. The artificial intelligence computer known as a Death Dealer AI. As a young man from a poor planet James dreamed of wearing the Imperial Black Uniform of the Death Dealers. He never knew that he would become one of the most feared of Death Dealers, the man they themselves would call Death. It would be his drive to be the best of the best that would propel him far beyond his humble origins to being a First High Lord and personal Friend of the Emperor. However that is now all in his past. Now well past his prime, all James wants to do is travel to Hades and the Death Gates system to say goodbye and die a peaceful death. The old Death Dealer did not know that deep within him lying dormant was an old friend just waiting a signal to reawaken. An wakening that would begin not only a second chance in life, but what would become his greatest, and most rewarding adventure. He will face off against assassins, rogue military units, hostile planetary governments, and an all-out revolt against the Empire he swore to protect. All of these things are nothing compared to his greatest challenge.No that pleasure belongs to having to deal with not one but two very different Artificial Intelligence computers in his head. One is the original Death Dealer AI that all Death Dealers have, this was Dee De a Mark one Omega/ Assault class Death Dealer AI with a hidden secret. One that will lead to James’s greatest adventure and second chance in life.They say Death Dealers never retreat and never surrender. Their battle cry has been heard on thousands of worlds for over four hundred years.

Prototype D


Jason D. Morrow - 2015
    They have food, water, and a wall that separates them from their enemies—the Outlanders. Branded as savages, the Outlanders have grown in number and their attacks against the city have become more brutal. They threaten to overtake the city, bringing with them the doom and destruction that has plagued mankind for over a century. What the Mainlanders need is a weapon.Des is the first robot created with a full range of human emotions. His reasoning skills and thought processes will make it so no human will ever have to step foot on the battlefield again. But when Des realizes his true purpose—to help destroy the Outlanders—he suspects that the real enemies might not be the people he was built to destroy, but those who created him.

Incarceron


Catherine Fisher - 2007
    It is a terrifying mix of high technology -- a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber -- chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison -- a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device -- a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born ...

Chronicle Worlds: Tails of Dystopia


Samuel PeraltaCheri Lasota - 2017
    Discover Tails of Dystopia.-----Proceeds from this volume of The Future Chronicles help support the charity Pets for Vets, which rescues and re-trains shelter animals and matches them with military veterans in need of a companion animal.

Station Cores: Complete


Jonathan Brooks - 2019
     Milton Frederick was originally abducted from his apartment to help defend one batch of pacifistic aliens called The Collective against another set of homicidal aliens called Heliothropes…but he never quite made it that far. Instead, during the process where his human consciousness was ripped from his body and inserted into a massive metal contraption called a Station Core, the ship that he was being transported on blew up and he was sent hurtling through space. Crash-landing on an unknown planet with just a foot-and-a-half tall, foul-mouthed, nanite-formed AI guide called ALANNA to tell him what happened, Milton has to come to terms with his new existence as a giant metal egg, defend his hazardously-in-need-of-repair outer shell from the dangerous local wildlife (including blood-thirsty squirrels), and manage the unique radiation spewing from his damaged internal reactor – all while figuring out how the heck to get off the planet. All of his work building a “dungeon” underground, defending it with makeshift traps, and filling it with small Combat Units may work well enough against the random beasts wandering around, but they’re next to useless when something else even more dangerous shows up knocking on his door: people. Not humans, of course, but the local equivalent – Proctans – who are similar enough to Milton’s original species…though with one major difference. They all have unique special abilities that looks suspiciously like “magic”. However, there is an even bigger threat that looms on the horizon not only for Milton, but all the Proctans as well… Contains LitRPG/GameLit elements such as level progression and experience, optional tables, no harems, and a heavy Dungeon Core emphasis. Note: The optional stat tables tend to skew the percentages toward the back of the eBook. The locations can be a tad deceptive; while this box set is 562,000 words, stat tables comprise less than 8% of that total word count.

Cloudwalkers


Mark Wayne McGinnis - 2018
    Organic life forms are all but obliterated, and the human race is reduced to a tiny fraction of its population. This event is known as the Ruin. But five centuries later, humanity still survives. Cloudwalkers tells the story of Conn Brataich, a young man who lives a privileged life above the cloudbank, relying on his noble heritage—and the abilities it provides—to guide him through his beautiful but treacherous realm in the New York skylands, and Misty Casper, a Grounder who lives an arduous and somber life hundreds of feet below in the former subway tunnels of crumbling midtown Manhattan. Their two cultures live in uneasy, segregated codependence, rarely interacting until late one fall evening when, mysteriously, an experienced Cloudwalker of noble blood falls five hundred feet to his death. Conn is sent to recover the body in secret, but he doesn’t expect to encounter Misty on the dangerous streets of the dying city. Their chance encounter triggers a domino effect that throws them both headlong into a struggle for their very survival. Conn and Misty soon discover that only by working together can they succeed, but first they’ll have to put aside their preconceived notions about one another. Dark forces, long thought to have been expunged, have returned and are threatening to destroy both their ways of life. Through love, loss, and the looming threat of war, Misty and Conn will be forced to face their greatest fears for the sake of their very world and each other.

I Am Number Four


Pittacus Lore - 2010
    We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books--but we are real.Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.But they know.They caught Number One in Malaysia.Number Two in England.And Number Three in Kenya.They killed them all.I am Number Four.I am next.