Book picks similar to
WaR: Wizards and Robots by Will.i.am


netgalley
fantasy
science-fiction
young-adult

The Girl with All the Gifts


M.R. Carey - 2014
    Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius."Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.

Soulprint


Megan Miranda - 2015
    In an attempt to clear her name, Alina unintentionally trades one prison for another when she escapes, aided by a group of teens whose intentions and motivations are a mystery to her. As she gets to know one of the boys, sparks fly, and Alina believes she may finally be able to trust someone. But when she uncovers clues left behind from her past life that only she can decipher, secrets begin to unravel. Alina must figure out whether she’s more than the soul she inherited, or if she’s fated to repeat the past. This compelling story will leave readers wondering if this fictional world could become a reality.

Beauty Sleep


Kathryn Evans - 2019
    But the rest of the world knows. Because Laura is famous - a dying girl who was frozen until she could be cured. A real-life Sleeping Beauty.But what happens when you wake up one day and the world has moved on forty years? Could you build a new life - while solving the mystery of what happened to the old one?A darkly twisted thriller plunging a pre-tech girl into a futuristic world.

The Wolf Road


Beth Lewis - 2016
    She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he's taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other.But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He's a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim.Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper's drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn't left Trapper behind--and he won't be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she's going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she's been set on.The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape--told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.

The Sudden Appearance of Hope


Claire North - 2016
    But we've met before - a thousand times.It started when I was sixteen years old.A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.The Sudden Appearance of Hope is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

In the After


Demitria Lunetta - 2013
    Her parents—vanished. The government—obsolete. Societal structure—nonexistent. No one knows where They came from, but these vicious creatures have been rapidly devouring mankind since They appeared. With fierce survivor instincts, Amy manages to stay alive—and even rescues "Baby," a toddler who was left behind. After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope. On the surface, it appears to be a safe haven for survivors. But there are dark and twisted secrets lurking beneath that could have Amy and Baby paying with not only their freedom... but also their lives.

The Electric Kingdom


David ArnoldDavid Arnold - 2021
    Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. The Electric Kingdom is a sweeping exploration of art, storytelling, eternal life, and above all, a testament to the notion that even in an exterminated world, one person might find beauty in another.

Amazonia


James Rollins - 2002
    Years later, one of its members has stumbled out of the world’s most inhospitable rainforest: a former Special Forces soldier – scarred, mutilated, terrified, and mere hours from death – who went in with one arm missing…and came out with both intact.Unable to comprehend this inexplicable event, the government sends Nathan Rand into this impenetrable secret world of undreamed – of perils to follow the trail of his vanished father…toward mysteries that must be solved at any cost. But the nightmare that is awaiting Nate and his team of scientists and seasoned U.S. Army Rangers dwarfs any danger they anticipated…an ancient, unspoken terror – a power beyond human imagining-that can forever alter the world beyond the dark, lethal confines of the Amazon rainforest for better… and for worse.

Edge of Collapse


Kyla Stone - 2020
    power grid.No electricity. No cars or phones. The country is plunged into instant chaos.But for Hannah Sheridan, it's the best day of her life. For the last five years, she's been the captive of a sadistic psychopath--until the EMP releases the lock of her prison.Battered but not broken, she emerges from her underground cell into a hostile winter wilderness with nothing but her determination to survive.Reclusive ex-soldier Liam Coleman is headed nowhere fast. He believed he was prepared for any disaster, until the EMP took everything he'd ever cared about in a matter of seconds.Two hundred frozen, perilous miles stand between them and their destination in rural Michigan. But the killing cold isn't the only threat, for Hannah's captor isn't about to let her go...When the country goes dark, ordinary people find themselves facing the end of the world as they know it. With society collapsing before their eyes, they'll have to risk everything to protect their home and the people they love.From USA Today Bestselling Author Kyla Stone comes the Edge of Collapse series, a gripping EMP apocalypse story featuring flawed, complex characters and high-octane action adventure. A survival thriller perfect for fans of Ryan Schow, Boyd Craven, and Jack Hunt.*This is the first book in a series. Rated PG-13 for mild language and moderate violence*

After the End


Amy Plum - 2014
    They’re hunting her to save their future.World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

Spinning Starlight


R.C. Lewis - 2015
    But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it’s hard to escape it. So when a group of men shows up at her house uninvited, she assumes it’s just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi’s vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home—a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers’ survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for its very survival.

The Call


Peadar Ó Guilín - 2016
    And then you hear a horn and you know that whoever lives in this hell has got your scent and the hunt has already begun.Could you survive the Call?

An Inheritance of Ashes


Leah Bobet - 2015
    Weeks after the final battle was won, sixteen-year-old Hallie and her sister, Marthe, are still struggling to maintain their family farm—and are waiting for Marthe’s missing husband to return. After a summer of bitter arguments, Hallie is determined to get Roadstead Farm through the winter—and keep what’s left of her family together, despite an inheritance destined to drive them apart. But when Hallie hires a wandering veteran in a bid to save the farm, every phantom the men marched south to fight arrives at her front gate. Spider-eyed birds circle the fields, ghostly messages write themselves on the riverbank, and soon Hallie finds herself keeping her new hired hand’s desperate secrets—and taking dangerous risks. But as she fights to keep both the farm and her new friend safe, ugly truths about her own family are emerging—truths that, amid gods, monsters, and armies, might tear Roadstead Farm apart. Leah Bobet’s stark, beautiful fantasy explores the aftermath of the battles we fight and the slow, careful ways love can mend broken hearts—and a broken world.

Elsewhere


Dean Koontz - 2020
    It’s a quiet life, until a local eccentric known as Spooky Ed shows up on their doorstep.Ed entrusts Jeffy with hiding a strange and dangerous object—something he calls “the key to everything”—and tells Jeffy that he must never use the device. But after a visit from a group of ominous men, Jeffy and Amity find themselves accidentally activating the key and discovering an extraordinary truth. The device allows them to jump between parallel planes at once familiar and bizarre, wondrous and terrifying. And Jeffy and Amity can’t help but wonder, could Michelle be just a click away?Jeffy and Amity aren’t the only ones interested in the device. A man with a dark purpose is in pursuit, determined to use its grand potential for profound evil. Unless Amity and Jeffy can outwit him, the place they call home may never be safe again.

The Death House


Sarah Pinborough - 2015
    until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test.Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium.No one returns from the sanatorium.Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes.Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts.