Apocalyptic Fantasy

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Now, for the first time ever, comes a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

In the year 2035, humanity broke the dimensional barrier and attached its world to another. Unfortunately, something was waiting on the other side. Nearly 150 years later, humanity is in a never-ending war to hold what is left of its world. Vic is a military asset for the United Forces of Humanity (UFH), and his job is to kill the Invader Orcs and their kin.

Introducing new characters, as well as shedding fresh light on ones we all know and love, Project Hometown is the action packed prequel to The Remaining Universe that shows the madness of how it all began and looks unflinchingly at the grit and determination of the men who died to make it happen, as well as the ones who survived to become the legendary warriors known simply as “Coordinators.”

The world isn't what it used to be after the first apocalypse. Scourge roam the desolate wasteland, preying on whoever dares set foot outside the few remaining Megapolis. While enforcing tax from the local province, Raiden and the Mercenary Union's cultivator team come face to face with the latest the Scourge could throw at them: monstrosities far beyond their capabilities. Surviving an onslaught they shouldn't have, the small group manages to find their way home, only to get caught up in a decades-old political play for power.

A barely employed tech worker has never felt they belonged. Not in society, not even in their own family. Their days are filled with loneliness, a struggle to survive and a desperate search for connection—even if that connection is merely virtual. Now, a black-market hacker promises to open a new world for them, and it works—in ways no human has ever experienced. They find a world of wonder, of possibilities and of danger—where their new virtual reality could mean the end of their physical reality. And what they discover could change the fate of humankind—forever.

Shining Smith and her crew have obtained the weapons they need to rescue one of their own from the grips of their mortal enemy, Clarisse Warhammer. But to mount an assault on her fortified bunker, they have to cobble together an army of fighters. That could be the biggest battle of them all. Shining will need to step back into the biker world she left behind to broker an uneasy peace, then lead rival factions into a certain death trap.

When an experiment to study quantum uncertainty goes spectacularly wrong, physics student Bill Rustad and his friends find that they have accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal. They connect to Outland - an alternate Earth with identical geology, but where humans never evolved. The group races to establish control of the portal before the government, the military, or evildoers can take it away. Then everything changes when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts in an explosion large enough to destroy civilization and kill half the planet.

How do you stage a mutiny when you're only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears, and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what's best for you? Trapped aboard the starship Eriophora, Sunday Ahzmundin is about to discover the components of any successful revolution: conspiracy, code - and unavoidable casualties.

Zombie, Indiana explores the impact of an invading zombie horde on a trio of Hoosier protagonists…each of whom have some dark secrets to keep. When the governor’s daughter mysteriously disappears on a field trip, IMPD Special Sergeant James Nolan, scholarship student Kesha Washington, and Governor Hank Burleson must all come together not only to find the governor’s daughter, but also to undertake a quest to redeem the very soul of the state itself…all while under constant attack from the living dead.

JD Rideout is a washed-up writer with the best years of his career behind him. Nursing the wounds of a marriage breakdown, his kids are the only thing keeping him going. When JD wakes up on a tropical island in the middle of the Whitsundays on Queensland's Central Coast, chained to the ceiling, he knows something is very wrong. He feels like a character in one of his novels. JD is given a pistol and an axe, along with a new callsign: Hatchet. Uprooted from his life and forced to fight for the fate of the world, Hatchet may just be planet Earth’s last line of defence.

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

In the dead of winter, an EMP attack destroys the U.S. 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.

Sheriff Hayden Duke was born on the Pilgrim, and he expects to die on the Pilgrim, like his father, and his father before him. That's the way things are on a generation starship centuries from home. He's never questioned it. Never thought about it. And why bother? Access points to the ship's controls are sealed, the systems that guide her automated and out of reach. It isn't perfect, but he has all he needs to be content. Until a malfunction forces his engineer wife to the edge of the habitable zone to inspect the damage.

Ben Davis was prepared for disaster. He just didn’t know it would come so soon. He and his teenage son, Joel, are miles deep in the backcountry of the San Juan Mountains when high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic detonations light up the pre-dawn sky. Ben, Joel, and their dog, Gunner, must make their way home - or to whatever’s left of it - on foot.

The world outside has grown toxic, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. The remnants of humanity live underground in a single silo. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they want: They are allowed to go outside.

The System Apocalypse has come to Australia, altering native organisms and importing even more menacing creatures to the most dangerous continent on Earth. For Kira Kent, plant biologist, the System arrives while she's pulling an all nighter at work with her pair of kids in tow. Now, instead of mundane parental concerns like childcare and paying the bills, she's got to figure out how to survive a world where already deadly flora and fauna have grown even more perilous.

The climb through the ranks often ends with a knife in the back. Slum-dwelling orphan Garrett Walker scrounges for scraps in the wildlands beyond the walls that guard society, salvaging valuables from the ruins of fallen civilization. Offered the opportunity to compete in the Warden Academy entrance trials, Garrett seizes the chance for a better life. However, the academy holds dangers a street rat is ill-equipped to handle and he’ll have to grow stronger while relying on his wits to survive.

There is more to power than raw strength, a harsh lesson Sam must learn if he is to overcome threats from one world to the next. Though Sam's ascension to Paragon has elevated him to new heights, his overconfidence traps him in a trial on a dead world. Separated from his friends, Sam must survive the last Immortal Magus's training to navigate the Proving Grounds littered with mechanical monsters. The only way home is through.

Hal Mason's still going to find surviving the System Apocalypse challenging. While bringing in his latest fugitive, Hal's payday is interrupted by the translucent blue boxes that herald Earth's introduction to the System - a galaxy spanning wave of structured mystical energy that destroys all electronics and bestows game-like abilities upon mankind.

Ben, Joel, Allie, and their dog, Gunner, have faced down foes of all descriptions in their odyssey across the EMP-ravaged country in search of their families. Now, as they approach the final leg of their journey, the stakes are raised. With no way of knowing what danger lurks ahead, they encounter a new and never-ending gauntlet of challenges and threats. Their ability to work as a team is tested anew, and they realize survival in this new world will require them all to make sacrifices.