Book picks similar to
Predator X by C.J. Waller


horror
science-fiction
thriller
fiction

Kaiju Winter


Jake Bible - 2014
    People are dangerous and desperate to escape the oncoming mega-eruption, knowing it will plunge the continent, and the world, into a perpetual ashen winter. But no matter how ready humanity is, nothing can prepare them for what comes out of the ash: Kaiju!

Vietnam Black


Brad Harmer-Barnes - 2018
    They find Viet Cong corpses along the path, strangely mummified or desiccated, and the village of Hai Trang itself turns out to be a ghost town. There, they find just one survivor - a young girl named Lai Anh - who tells them that everyone in the village has been destroyed by the "Vietnam Black". Heading back to base, they stumble across a Viet Cong tunnel system, which they feel compelled to investigate. Crawling into the darkness, the squad discovers that a nightmarish creature has made the tunnels its home. The Vietnam Black, a colossal centipede, covered in impenetrable black armour, loaded with a highly poisonous venom, and armed with scythe-like mandibles has awoken. Now, Reese has to lead his squad back home, avoiding the North Vietnamese Army, the Viet Cong, the dangers of the jungle, and the Vietnam Black.

The Island in the Mist


C.G. Mosley - 2012
     Angus assembles a team to accompany him to the island but keeps the details to himself. After tricking a paleontologist and his girlfriend to join them on the expedition, things begin to spiral wildly out of control. The secret hidden on the The Island In The Mist has kept the prehistoric beasts from extinction. Man will not be able to claim it without a fight!

The Breach


Patrick Lee - 2009
    It is the world's best-kept secret-and its most terrifying. Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the [resident of the United States.Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact. Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he's been destined for-a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind's final hope-as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest. Because something is loose in the world. And doomsday is not only possible...it is inevitable.

Spinosaurus


Hugo Navikov - 2015
    His targets are cryptids, animals denied by science. But they are well known by those living on the edges of civilization, where monsters attack and devour their animals and children and lay ruin to their shantytowns. When a shadowy organization sends Brett to the Congo in search of the legendary dinosaur cryptid Kasai Rex, he will face much more than a terrifying monster from the past. Spinosaurus is a dinosaur thriller packed with intrigue, action and giant prehistoric predators.

Prodigal Son


Dean Koontz - 2005
    But none as terrible as this. His name is Deucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, a sleight-of-reality artist who’s traveled the centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself. Detective Carson O’Connor is cool, cynical, and every bit as tough as she looks. Her partner Michael Maddison would back her up all the way to Hell itself–and that just may be where this case ends up. For the no-nonsense O’Connor is suddenly talking about an ages-old conspiracy, a near immortal race of beings, and killers that are more—and less—than human. Soon it will be clear that as crazy as she sounds, the truth is even more ominous. For their quarry isn’t merely a homicidal maniac—but his deranged maker.

White Shark


Peter Benchley - 1994
    But even Simon doesn't know that a far deadlier creature is about to come out of the deep and threaten everything he cares for. A creature whose malevolence is unthinkable. Whose need to feed is insatiable. And whose relentless hunt for prey is unstoppable.Twenty years after his huge bestseller Jaws, the master of the deep has done it again, letting loose a chilling new predator that only he could create. Drawing on his singular knowledge of the sea, science, and history, Peter Benchley masterfully spins a suspense-filled novel that hits you on a primal level, makes your heart pound, and leaves your blood running cold.White Shark is Peter Benchley at his best. Read it at your own risk.

Monster Island


David Wellington - 2004
    The most "developed" nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive — in places rife with high-powered weaponry, such as Somalia. In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. One amongst them is different; though he shares their appetites he has retained his human intelligence. Alone among the mindless zombies, Gary Fleck is an eyewitness to the end of the world — and perhaps the evil genius behind it all. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily-armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers has come in search of desperately needed medicine. Dekalb, a former United Nations weapons inspector, leads them as their local guide. Ayaan, a crack shot at the age of sixteen, will stop at nothing to complete her mission. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than being undead, as Gary learns the true price of survival.

The Cavern


Alister Hodge - 2019
    Sam joins an expedition to explore the subterranean passages as paramedic support, hoping to remain unneeded at base camp. But, when one of the cavers is injured, he must overcome paralysing claustrophobia to dive pitch-black waters and squeeze through the bowels of the earth. Soon he will find there are fates worse than being buried alive, for in the abandoned mines and caves beneath Pintalba, there are ravenous teeth in the dark. As a savage predator targets the group with hideous ferocity, Sam and his friends must fight for their lives if they are ever to see the sun again. "The Cavern is a tense and compelling descent into subterranean horror, with characters you will care about in a setting unlike most fiction these days. I've never been a fan of caving, but having read this book, I'm staying above ground in the sunlight forever." - Alan Baxter, author of DEVOURING DARK and the ALEX CAINE SERIES

Ice


Kevin Tinto - 2015
    While twisting through one of the narrow underground passageways, Leah’s flashlight illuminates the remains of a violent massacre. Ancient human remains—all slaughtered in a long-ago massacre—cover the cavern floor, along with a number of brilliantly colored, granite crystals. The rare crystals are native to only one place on earth: a frozen mountain range in central Antarctica. Could Native Americans have traveled to the frozen continent of Antarctica 800 years prior to the first known human exploration? If so how? And why? There’s only one person who can get Leah to those mountains in Antarctica: her estranged husband and climbing guide Jack Hobson. At their destination they make a stunning discovery that will change history and science forever. But Leah’s team is far from the only interested party. As her secret makes its way to the highest levels of government, a race to seize the Russian-claimed Antarctic territory brings the world to the brink of nuclear conflict.

Monsters in Our Wake


J.H. Moncrieff - 2017
     Thousands of miles from the nearest human settlement, deep on the ocean floor, the creatures have lived for millennia. But when an oil drill bursts through their lair, Nøkken attacks, damaging the drilling ship’s engine, trapping the desperate crew. The longer the humans remain in Nøkken’s territory, struggling to repair their ailing ship, the more confrontations occur between the two species. When the death toll rises, the crew turns on each other, and marine geologist Flora Duchovney realizes the scariest monsters aren’t below the surface.

Dark Island


Matthew James - 2018
    One of them is a long thought extinct species of dinosaurs living at the country’s core. A massive earthquake rocks the mountain range within the Andringitra National Park. The splitting earth reveals a network of tunnels, hidden away for millennia. Responding to the series of violent upheavals, a pack of hypersensitive predators flee their subterranean home, frenzied and hungry they head for the surface. Former Navy SEAL Ian Hunt begrudgingly accepts an offer to lead an exploratory team. What they uncover is the find of a lifetime…if they survive long enough to tell anyone. Dinosaurs are alive and well at the heart of the DARK ISLAND.

The Gemini Effect


Chuck Grossart - 2012
    By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop.As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens. The Gemini Effect was originally published as The Mengele Effect. This edition has been completely edited and revised, including significant plot changes.

Under the Dome


Stephen King - 2009
    Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a selectwoman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.source: stephenking.com

Bird Box


Josh Malerman - 2014
    One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.