Book picks similar to
The Old Man and the Flower by Vardan Partamyan


science-fiction
short-stories
apocalypse
goodreads-first-reads

The Stranded


Hugh Howey - 2012
    I never marketed this novelette; I failed to mention it on my website. What happened next was remarkable: People started reading it, and reviewing it, and talking about it.There was never any intention to create a series. It wasn't until the demand for "more" became so great that I launched into the next four books, each one growing longer and longer, until I was wrapping up the story line with this novel, a full 60,000 word WOOL 5.I would like to humbly thank everyone who has come along on this journey with me; it has been the most rewarding experience of my young writing career. Your emails, your reviews, your comments on my website, every ounce of your enthusiasm . . . it has combined to grant me enough satisfaction and confidence to last the rest of my writing days.For those of you who suffered the wait, I hope you'll find it was worth it. This is WOOL 5. Brace yourselves. And enjoy.

Karma of the Silo


Patrice Fitzgerald - 2014
     Hugh Howey, author of WOOL *** Karma lives in the Silo, deep underground. She lives with a man whom she barely knows and with a name she doesn’t remember choosing. When visions come to her about another husband, another way of life, and another world, Karma struggles to discover what came before. Outside, there is only the swirl of toxic clouds and an endless darkness broken by the rare glimpse of a faded sun or a dim star. Slowly, Karma learns where the real power is, and how to survive in this hellish concrete cylinder. Birth, death, love, murder, uprisings and cleanings come and go over the years, but still she carries on. Beaten but unbowed, Karma vows to preserve her memories of life above for those who will never breathe the open air, whatever it takes. This is a full-length novel based on Hugh Howey's WOOL books, and is a compilation of all five of the best-selling ebooks in the Karma series.

Rebel Radio


Boyd Craven - 2015
    Can be read on it's own or as a companion after The World Burns 5: The World Bleeds!Life after an EMP puts the USA in the dark ages is not an easy one. Life is dangerous and difficult enough without humans preying on each other. Don, an alcoholic and a gamer girl called 'Z' make an odd introduction together and find themselves thrust into a survival situation neither of them are prepared to endure. A ghost from Don's past surfaces, one who's responsible for his pain and suffering. Can both Don and Z endure in a world that has gone crazy, when all they want to do is keep on living?

This Plague of Days, Season Three


Robert Chazz Chute - 2014
    Season One of This Plague of Days was The Siege. Season Two was The Journey. Season Three is The War. Strap in for the zombie saga finale you won't regret and can't forget.Three plagues spread around the earth. The Apocalypse killed billions as new, deadly species were born. Jaimie Spencer, a strange boy from Kansas City, Missouri, is our unlikely champion. Strap in for the most unusual zombie apocalypse you'll ever read.The Walking Dead+ The Stand+ Stranger in a Strange Land= This Plague of DaysA huge adventure packed with humor, twists and suspense, Chute takes us on strange journeys, from humans versus each other and humans versus infected cannibals to exploring the nature of existence amid a war like you've never seen.˃˃˃ A Note to Readers of Seasons One and TwoThis Plague of Days was originally written as a television serial. Seasons One and Two were made available as novels, but also as episodes. Season Three is one big book, less expensive to purchase (and simpler to download) than buying each episode individually week by week. You asked for it, you got it!This Plague of Days, The Omnibus Edition by Robert Chazz Chute, is also available as an ebook.

Caldwell's Homestead


Millie Copper - 2019
    They have tried to plan for everything, but they never imagined this would happen. Recently, personal tragedy nearly devastated Mollie and Jake, leaving them struggling to rebuild their relationship while they consider selling the farm.  Now, as disaster strikes, Mollie is away on business, leaving Jake and ten-year-old Malcolm to prepare for the worst. Daughter Katie, soon to start her final year of college and planning a mission trip afterward, is over a thousand miles from home. The older children, and their spouses, live within an easy drive—under normal times. In this first installment of the Havoc in Wyoming series, they'll soon find themselves in a chaotic new world, where nothing is normal or easy, it's downright dangerous. Will the Caldwells’ planning, provisions, and faith be enough? Or have the recent changes in their relationship been detrimental to the family's survival? The Havoc in Wyoming series has been described as “Cozy Apocalypse” and contains no profanity; gratuitous sex scenes; or gruesome, overly detailed death scenes. While set in an imagined future, the people of Bakerville face real-life obstacles, created by this new world and brought with them from their old world.

Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box


Mira Grant - 2011
    Every week five friends get together to play a game-- a game they call the Apocalypse Game. It's a fun time with chips and beer and plotting the end of the world. Except this time, one of them is missing and the stakes are higher than ever before.Word count: ~3,900

The Last Boy On Earth


Thomas M. Burby - 2011
    As far as his eyes could see, he was the only one left alive. You might think he was pretty upset about the whole situation and he was, for awhile. There were dead bodies and nothing but desolation and it's true that he sat around a lot and wished that he was dead, too. For a long time he wondered why he remained and all the others were taken. Then he thought, it doesn't matter. It just is. Anyway, sitting around just got boring. So he equipped himself with tools and weapons and set out with his faithful sidekick so see what there was left to see and do what there was left to do. He wasn't disappointed, because since the fall of Humanity, the world had changed in a thousand different ways too small to notice at first and some so fantastic he couldn't believe it. As the days passed into weeks, he discovered something amazing: there really are monsters in the dark." What if a pandemic plague struck the planet and when you woke up one morning, everyone else was dead? What if you were a fourteen year old boy with an excellent imagination and the will to survive? What if you found that something else was out there, hunting you? This is the story of Brady, a teenager who quickly discovers that although people may be scarce in the world of the Abandonment, other things are arising to take their place. He is master of all he surveys but discovers that the world has changed and that he has gained some new exciting abilities. With no adults to tell him what to do and no peers to judge him, Brady discovers that he is capable of great deeds and this is a good thing, because things long quiet are waking up from the sleep of ages. With his faithful dog, Max, and a host of non-human assistants, Brady discovers that there are monsters in the dark and that deep within his own heart, a hero dwells. This post-apocalyptic novel straddles the line between fantasy and magic surrealism and is intended for teenage audiences and beyond. Half survival tale and half magical odyssey, this is a hero's journey into the darkness of the monster's lair and back out again. Action, horror, and mystery blend together with a sense of wonder and loss at a world gone forever. If the world ended tomorrow and you were still alive, then what? In this novel, the main character decides to survive and finds that, aside from food, water and a safe place to sleep, his most necessary tool for survival is imagination and a good, sharp sword! This novel is lavishly illustrated with 50 beautifully crafted drawings by Brian Estes. The story is set in the present-day cities of Bangor and Brewer in central Maine after the advent of an airborne virus has destroyed all but a few humans on earth. Unless these people can find each other, the species is doomed to extinction. This reconnection of the few straggling survivors becomes one of the central themes of the story. Perfect for readers looking for adventure, ghosts, werewolves, and things coming to life that were never meant to do so. A ripping good tale!

Alien Invasion of the Zombie Apocalypse


Ford Forkum - 2012
    Landing dead center at a college campus swarming with zombies, the aliens soon realize that their abduction mission is going to be quite a bit more complicated than they'd imagined. The presence of vampires only makes the situation worse.Will the human race prevail or be forced to relocate to an alien planet? Is there any way to reverse the zombie plague? Is the plague contagious to aliens and can an alien be turned into a vampire? What if a vampire alien became a zombie, then was bitten by a radioactive spider and then possessed by the ghost of a robot werewolf? That last part doesn't happen in the story, but what if it did? Find out what becomes of humanity in this hodgepodge of dystopian absurdity.

Out of Gas


Randy Dyess - 2012
    Their childhoods were spent in small Texas towns with summers at their respected grandparent’s farms. Like most teenagers growing up in small towns they could not wait to flee after graduation for big cities and successful careers. Careers were launched, the big house on the golf course bought, luxury cars leased, and fancy vacations taken. They had it all until a global fuel shortage started causing Mark to wonder about his job and the financial future of his family. Follow Mark and Kelly as they learn about global finances, hidden agendas, and the cover-up of the upcoming global fuel shortage and severe economic depression it will create. Follow the Turner’s as they plan their strategy to voluntarily move from an upper middle-class lifestyle to a self-sustaining lifestyle on an Oklahoma farm before it is too late. Learn alongside them as they learn the skills needed to live on a small farm, raise their own food, and prepare for a global economic depression on a scale never seem by mankind before.

Objects of Wrath


Sean T. Smith - 2014
    William flees with his family to Magnolia, a farm in Tennessee, while America descends into madness, anarchy, and death. With the aid of elite Special Forces units, Magnolia emerges as beacon of hope and stability. But evil is hungry and relentless. A new threat stalks the Earth. To save his people, and perhaps all of humanity, William must be more than a lethal soldier; he must become a hero.Objects of Wrath is the first book in a saga spanning four generations. In a depleted and peeled land savaged by The Fall, William struggles to keep the faith and light burning within him.Sometimes, the only way to defeat darkness is to become it.

New Kings of Tomorrow (The Order of Chaos Series Book 1)


J.M. Clark - 2018
    Just as he was starting to figure out life as a college freshman, his world was suddenly shattered when a devastating illness destroyed the world he once knew and claimed the lives of everyone that mattered to him. Jacob and the other survivors of the pandemic were transported to the Palace Program. Housed in a quarantined modern facility, the Palace is a perfect community designed to protect them from the sickness that wiped out ninety-five percent of the world population. The Order, which has risen as the new ruling power, and believes the desires of the old world were responsible for its collapse. They appoint Sirus, the program director, to rehabilitate the survivors and continue with the reproduction of mankind. As the years go by and Jacob's relationships in the Palace become more complex, he slowly begins to see that the man-made utopian society is nothing close to a perfect tomorrow, but is instead an unfathomable deception.

After the Pretty Pox: The Attic


August Ansel - 2016
    God will ignore us entirely.” A searing act of bioterrorism. A catastrophic plague they call the Pretty Pox. Most of the human race is dead, and for two years Arie McInnes has been alone, riding out the aftermath of the Pretty Pox, waiting for her own inevitable end. Hidden in the attic of her ruined home, Arie survives by wit and skill, ritual and habit. Convinced that humans are a dangerous fluke, a problematic species best allowed to expire, she chooses solitude…even in matters of life and death. Arie’s precarious world is upended when her youngest brother – a man she’s never met – appears out of nowhere with a badly injured woman. Their presence in the attic draws the attention of a dark watcher in the woods, and Arie is forced to choose between the narrow beliefs that have sustained her and the stubborn instinct to love and protect. In Book One of August Ansel’s captivating new post-apocalyptic series, After the Pretty Pox casts an unwavering eye on what it means to be human in a world where nature has the upper hand, and the only rules left to live by – for good or ill – are the ones written on our hearts.

Scream Angel


Douglas Smith - 2011
    Imagine a drug that flips the valleys and makes them peaks, too. You react now to an event based not on the pleasure or pain that it brings, but solely on the intensity of the emotion created. Pain brings pleasure, grief gives joy, horror renders ecstasy.Now give this drug to a soldier. Tell them to kill. Not in the historically acceptable murder of war, but in a systematic corporate strategy--of xenocide.They will kill. And they will revel in it.Welcome to the world of Scream.Jason Trelayne is a Screamer, a soldier forced to take part in the destruction of entire races. But when Trelayne falls in love with a beautiful Scream Angel, an alien who produces the addictive drug, he sets off a chain of events that pits him and a small group of followers against an empire.An award winning novelette of rebellion, love, and an unlikely hero."A dark and powerful story with a first line that sets the tone for what is to come: 'They stopped beating Trelayne when they saw that he enjoyed it.' (A++)" --Fantasy Book Critic"A visceral work. A true pearl of the fantastic literature. Breath-taking." --Café de Ontem"...the book's most skillfully crafted story...quickly becomes one that holds the reader's attention until the very end." --SpecFicWorld"...remind me of the reasons I love the author's writing: his characterization, attention to detail and recurring themes of love, faith and redemption." --SF Crowsnest Reviews"The story has so many layers that I'm still sorting them out. And like an onion, I'm not sure if I'll ever find the final layer." --Tangent Online"One of those rare ideas that seems at once so perfect and so natural that someone must have come up with it before; but if someone has, I haven't heard about it, and regardless Smith exploits the potential of the idea extraordinarily well here." --Strange Horizons

The Hospital


Keith C. Blackmore - 2012
    He scavenges what he can from what's left over. He is very careful in what he does and where he goes, taking no chances, no unnecessary risks, and weighing every choice... until he decides to visit the hospital at the edge of town, and experiences terror the likes he's never encountered before. A short story of approximately 9500 words, or 29 pages. The first story of the "Mountain Man" series. Contains language and graphic violence. This short story also appears in the horror fiction novella "Cauldron Gristle."If you enjoy this, check out the novels "Mountain Man" and "Safari," the next books in the series.Series order:The Hospital (short story)Mountain ManSafari (Coming in time for Christmas) Hellifax

In the beginning


Michael Farris Smith - 2014
    Those left behind include Aggie, a snake-handling preacher with a questionable past; Bub and Ava, who live in a FEMA trailer held down by cinderblocks; and Cohen, who refuses to evacuate and leave behind the graves of his late wife and child. As all four struggle to survive below The Line, their stories intersect with violent and unexpected consequences.