Hough goes back to the beginning with this eBook exclusive novella, the prequel to the New York Times bestseller The Darwin Elevator. An indispensable introduction to a trilogy wrought with action, imagination, and mystery, The Dire Earth is sure to thrill new readers and diehard fans alike.   In the middle of the twenty-third century, an inexplicable disease engulfs the globe, leaving a trail of madness and savagery in its wake. Dutch air force pilot Skyler Luiken discovers he is immune to the disease when he returns from a mission to find the world in chaos, but he soon realizes that he’s not the only one to have endured the apocalypse. Elsewhere, the roguish Skadz, the cunning Nigel, and the tough-as-nails Samantha each make their way toward the last remaining bastion of sanity: Darwin, Australia, home to a mysterious alien artifact that may hold the key to the survival of the human race.

    Grown up in a dying world where nine out of ten babies are born male, she survives by trusting no one. When Marlin, the nineteen-year-old gunslinger with the sky-blue eyes, kills the man who has been keeping her enslaved, Nessa decides this handsome stranger might be her meal ticket. What she doesn’t realize is love is still possible, even in their decimated world. When Nessa discovers she’s pregnant with Marlin’s child, her difficult life now teeters on a knife’s edge. Can she bear to bring a child into their shattered world? Better yet, can Marlin keep them safe from those that hunt Nessa?A companion story to The Breeders, this prequel novelette (34 pages or 10,000 words) explores the origins of two important characters and gives a deeper look into their background. It contains minor spoilers to the novel and is intended for mature teens and adults.

    In a span of mere hours, the entire adult population is decimated, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves and deal with the horrific aftermath of the freak occurrence. As one of the newly made elders in his small town, Shane finds himself taking on the role of caretaker for a large group of juvenile survivors. One who just happens to be Kelly Douglas—an out-of-his-league classmate—who, on any other day, would have never given Shane a second glance. Together, they begin their quest to find out why all of the adults were slaughtered. What they find is even more horrifying than anything they could have expected—the annihilation of the adults was only the beginning. Shane and his friends are not the unlucky survivors left to inherit this new, messed-up planet. No, they are its next victims. There is an unknown power out there, and it won’t stop until every person in the world is dead. A spine-tingling adventure that will have you gasping for breath all the way until the last page, The Last Orphans is the first book in an all-new apocalyptic series.

    Weather workers. Time benders. When two people so determined have opposing desires, it's hard to say who will win - or even what victory might look like. This stunning, haunting short story from rising star Alyssa Wong explores the depth and fierceness of love and the trauma of family.

    Let the carriage to a royal ball wait. There is a story to be told: of a starless night, a mother and her sick son, and a mortal who falls in love with the snow god, and will do anything to have her...

    She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history.Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale.We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    Secrets, lies, and manipulations endure among a small group of survivors taking refuge on an island in the Northern Pacific. No one knows what claimed so many lives over three centuries ago, and no one asks, except Ashley Wortham. She can feel the secrets all around her, begging to be uncovered. But the nine elders who govern the island guard their secrets jealously. They believe the islanders know what they need to, and they hide their secrets behind a ruse of peace. But when Ashley, and her best friend Mason, go down the rabbit hole, no one is prepared for the truths they uncover. What will they do when they discover the downfall of humanity lies within their own island, deep inside the dead room? The Dead Room ebook categories - best post-apocalyptic science fiction books - best dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction - best post apocalyptic books kindle - best post-apocalyptic fiction novel - new post apocalyptic fiction - science fiction post apocalyptic novels - post apocalyptic books on kindle

    The Mayans knew it – their calendar proved it. So what better way to go out than by reading this short story collection about The End? ...apart from telling your friends about it in 2013, of course.This compilation brings together short stories by award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors Hugh Howey, Michael J. Sullivan and Tristis Ward, with fresh, new voices selected by their peers at SFFWorld.com - all brought to you in this first-of-its-kind anthology.Each story explores a different end of the world. What is the limit of a computer virus? Can we save the world by stopping time itself, or will we just wither away in the relentless winds of the apocalypse?Grab your copy now before the end of the world, and find out.********Contributors include: Michael Aaron, Liam Baldwin, R. F. Dickson, Wilson Geiger, Norman Gray, Hugh Howey, Stephen “B5” Jones, G. L. Lathian, Igor Ljubuncic, Pete McLean, Michael J. Sullivan, and Tristis Ward

    When he encounters a mysterious group of survivors who call themselves The Chosen, Dan is unsure whether he can trust them.THE WHITE FIST: Five years after the first of the infected reach Texas, pockets of survivors are reminded that the living can be even more dangerous than the dead.ROAD TRIP AT THE END OF THE WORLD: A middle aged couple, cut off from civilization for months, decides to strike out into the ruined world and make for the West Coast.FLIGHT 124: Air Thailand Flight 124 threatens to bring a gruesome and unwelcome passenger to Los Angeles International Airport. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    In his warped mind, the seven deadly sins were the downfall of society. To punish the guilty, he created the Hole, a place where sinners are branded according to their sins. Sinners are forced to live a less than human existence in deplorable conditions, under the watchful eye of guards who are ready to kill anyone who steps out of line.Now, LUST wraps around my neck like thick, blue fingers, threatening to choke the life out of me. I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit, and the Hole is my new home. Constant darkness. Brutal and savage violence. Excruciating pain. Every day is a fight for survival. But I won’t let them win. I will not die in the Hole. I am more than my brand. I’m a fighter. My name is Lexi Hamilton, and this is my story.

    Frank Baum introduced Dorothy and friends to the American public in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz became an instant, bestselling hit. Today the whimsical tale remains a cultural phenomenon that continues to spawn wildly popular books, movies, and musicals. Now, editors John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen have brought together leading fantasy writers such as Orson Scott Card and Seanan McGuire to create the ultimate anthology for Oz fans—and, really, any reader with an appetite for richly imagined worlds. Stories include: Seanan McGuire’s “Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust” finds Dorothy grown up, bitter, and still living in Oz. And she has a murder to solve—assuming Ozma will stop interfering with her life long enough to let her do her job. In “Blown Away,” Jane Yolen asks: What if Toto was dead and stuffed, Ozma was a circus freak, and everything you thought you knew as Oz was really right here in Kansas? “The Cobbler of Oz” by Jonathan Maberry explores a Winged Monkey with wings too small to let her fly. Her only chance to change that rests with the Silver Slippers. In Tad Williams’s futuristic “The Boy Detective of Oz,” Orlando investigates the corrupt Oz simulation of the Otherland network. Frank Baum’s son has the real experiences that his father later fictionalized in Orson Scott Card’s “Off to See the Emperor.”Some stories are dystopian... Some are dreamlike... All are undeniably Oz.***No stranger to Oz reinvention himself, Wicked author Gregory Maguire provides the foreword to these outstanding modern stories inspired by the enchanting Land of Oz.

    No longer relegated to the fringes of literature, this explosive collection of the world’s best apocalyptic writers brings the inventors of alien invasions, devastating meteors, doomsday scenarios, and all-out nuclear war back to the bookstores with a bang.The best writers of the early 1900s were the first to flood New York with tidal waves, destroy Illinois with alien invaders, paralyze Washington with meteors, and lay waste to the Midwest with nuclear fallout. Now collected for the first time ever in one apocalyptic volume are those early doomsday writers and their contemporaries, including Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Lucius Shepard, Robert Sheckley, Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, William F. Nolan, Poul Anderson, Fredric Brown, Lester del Rey, and more. Relive these childhood classics or discover them here for the first time. Each story details the eerie political, social, and environmental destruction of our world.

    Two years after the end of the world, she talks to herself and smashes heads with her favorite sledgehammer. This is not the life she imagined for herself as her eighteenth birthday rolls past.It’s time for her to look beyond her safe, little hiding place to the world beyond. The madness of the apocalypse is ending, the dangerous in-betweeners - those no longer quite human, but not yet dead - are few and far between. The deaders that cover the world are going still, their senses dulled by time and the elements. The problem is that there are no people...none. Emily has found not a single living human when she's dared to step outside her safe-zone.As Emily weighs the heavy cost of surviving alone and begins to accept the inevitable, everything changes once again. One of the deaders at her gate turns out not to be a deader at all. He’s an in-betweener different from any other she has seen before, and he carries a message. If Emily has the courage to step beyond her gate and the skills to survive a perilous trip in a dead world, she might just have a chance at life...a life with humans...after all.The In-Betweener is book one in the thrilling post-apocalyptic adventure series, Between Life and Death.

    But theirs is not the only tale to be told. In the first volume of the AS THE WORLD DIES UNTOLD TALES experience three terrifying tales of those who are forced to face the unrelenting and hungry walking dead.Deep in the Texas Hill Country, a man and his little dog takes refuge in a bed and breakfast located in the hills above a doomed town where an infested rescue center might unleash the hungry undead…On a deserted highway slicing through the desolation of West Texas, a woman struggles to survive as she faces the horrifying aftermath of the rise of the zombies…And finally, discover what happens on the first day to Katie’s beloved wife, Lydia, as the world dies…

    This is especially so for Meigan, who develops an unexpected friendship with a mysterious borrower of books from her Little Free Library.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.