Book picks similar to
Blackout by Boyd Craven


post-apocalyptic
survival
apocalypse
apocalyptic

Dark Days of the After


Ryan Schow - 2019
    No one knows how this happened, or why America prostrated herself to the kind of foreign forces who would impose obedience through compliance.  Resistors call the occupation “creeping death.” Those countries grabbing at the reins of power see it for what it is—a full scale invasion.Security engineer, Logan Cahill, is part of the underground effort to reclaim America, but when he finds a cryptic message in the world's largest server room leading to a doomsday clock, everything changes. With the help of a local hacker, Logan traces the clock to its origins where he discovers a truth so horrific, so terrifying, the mere mention of it carries a death sentence. He now knows the enemies, the weapons and the time of America’s death, right down to the minute. If he wants to survive the apocalypse, he and the feisty Skylar Madigan have to bug out fast. This won’t be easy considering the surveillance grid in place, or the armed lock-down of all major cities.The final defensive frontier for dedicated patriots is life on the land held by their ancestors, those men and women dug into their off-grid homes and operating a black market economy.  But not everyone has what it takes to survive life outside the occupied cities, and precious few know how to defend themselves against the brutality of America’s captors.  All that is about to change…

Trackers


Nicholas Sansbury Smith - 2017
    Estes Park police chief Marcus Colton and tracker Sam "Raven" Spears have never liked one another, but when a young girl goes missing in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colton hires Spears to help find her. Their search ends after a night of devastating horror. When word reaches Estes that the nation has been hit by a coordinated electromagnetic pulse attack, Colton and Spears are forced to work together again. But they quickly realize they aren't just tracking a killer - they are tracking a madman. As the United States descends into chaos, the hunters become the hunted. Halfway across the country, Senator Charlize Montgomery awakes to find the nation's capital has gone dark. Forced to set off on foot, she treks across a city that has woken to a new world, and as the night progresses she learns the EMP attack was just the beginning.

Alone at the End of the World


M.P. McDonald - 2020
     Thirteen-year-old Ethan should be practicing his skateboard moves, not watching his family members die, one by one. He knows he could become a victim of the evil infection at any minute. Scared and alone, he fills his backpack and goes in search of other survivors, hoping he lives long enough to find someone. Anyone. When Cassie sees the bodies of neighbors and strangers littering what had been pristine front lawns, she realizes her intense focus on business and family may have saved their lives. How does a single mom and her two kids survive an apocalypse alone? Noah emerges from his two-week fishing trip in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, shocked to learn that a devastating pandemic has swept the world. Should he venture into the fray to find other survivors or retreat into the woods and isolate himself as long as he can? When their paths converge, they face a new struggle ─ learning to trust total strangers as if their very survival depends on it... because it does. Sympatico Syndrome is intent on sparing no one.

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End


Manel Loureiro - 2007
    But he never expected that his anonymous blog would ultimately record humanity’s last days.The end of the world has begun…Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called “Safe Havens” are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. Armed only with makeshift weapons and the will to live, a lone survivor will give mankind one last chance against…Apocalypse Z

Ashfall


Mike Mullin - 2011
    Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife


Meg Elison - 2014
    When she awoke, it was dead.In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.After all, if humanity is to be reborn, someone must be its guide.

Ashes


Ilsa J. Bick - 2011
    . .An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling post-apocalyptic novel about a world that could become ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.

The Passage


Justin Cronin - 2010
    government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Incubation


Adrienne Lecter - 2015
    Brianna Lewis wants is a cup of coffee. Coffee, to make slaving away in her cell culture lab at Green Fields Biotech a little more bearable on a Friday afternoon when everyone is home already. What she doesn’t count on is a group of terrorists blowing up all the entrances to the building and taking her and a select few others hostage. Bree soon finds herself conflicted. Not only does she know their charismatic leader. She also starts to suspect that there is a lot more to this than the hunt for an illegal bioweapon—a virus that could potentially kill millions in just a few days—particularly as there is currently a flu epidemic raging across the country, and reports about violent behavior among the afflicted are getting more and more alarming.

The First Days


Rhiannon Frater - 2008
    Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together. During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot. A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization. It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love…anything is possible at the end of the world.

The Release


Shelbi Wescott - 2013
    But as Lucy looks forward to her trip, a sinister plot is unfolding that will demolish the world as she knows it. An unknown bio-terrorist group unleashes a virus that virtually wipes out the earth’s population—leaving Lucy, and a small faction of survivors, trapped inside her high school to wait out the apocalypse. As war, looting, and death wreak havoc outside, inside, the students must contend with a tyrannical and paranoid principal and their own struggles of being orphaned, frightened, and unsure of what the future will bring. What begins as a basic fight for survival turns into a search for answers that will challenge everything Lucy has ever known about her life and her family.

The Preparation


Glen Tate - 2012
    299 Days: The Preparation, the first book in the 299 Days series, depicts the inner struggles Grant must face as he exists in a social system he recognizes as unsustainable and on the verge of collapse, but one in which he has built his life around. What begins as a return to his roots, self-sufficiency and independence, becomes a full blown move to prepare for what may come. Engaging, insightful and a bit suspenseful, follow Grant’s transition from a self-perceived “sheeple” to a full-blown “prepper.” Will his fears come true? Is he an extremist? What if nothing happens? What if something does?

Zoo


James Patterson - 2012
    This is James Patterson's best book ever.TotalFor 36 years, James Patterson has written unputdownable, pulse-racing novels. Now, he has written a book that surpasses all of them. ZOO is the thriller he was born to write.WorldAll over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear.DestructionWith the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide.

Hollowland


Amanda Hocking - 2010
    This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way - not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.

Swan Song


Robert R. McCammon - 1987
    He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan—and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world, and their souls. In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity....