Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Accused of domestic terrorism, Emilio Vega was on his way to a Department of Global Security death camp when the mega-quake hit. The streets beneath his transport vehicle buckled, tossing the van in the air like a toy. He survived the crash, but the world is now in ruins. However, for a condemned man, this disaster may be just the lucky break he needed. Emilio has been left behind! Six detainees were in the van prior to the quake. However, only Emilio and one other prisoner were still around when he regained consciousness.

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.

The journey continues for Ben, his son Joel, Joel’s classmate Allie, and their dog Gunner as they struggle with the harsh realities of this dangerous new world. Forging their way past countless obstacles both natural and manmade, they slowly make their way across the country, never knowing where they will sleep, or what challenges lie ahead. But the drive to reunite with family pushes them toward the East Coast. Setbacks wait around every turn. Ben and his crew must adapt and overcome, honing their survival skills as they are repeatedly forced to fight for their lives.

The struggle to get through the post-apocalyptic wasteland in an effort to find Allie’s dad in Pittsburgh and reunite with Joel’s brother and sister in Maryland tests Ben’s abilities as a former Army Ranger. But the teenagers have trials of their own, namely coming to terms with their lost youth as they are forced to grow up fast and make some tough decisions. As the group passes through one devastated town after another, it becomes apparent that only the strong and prepared will survive in these dangerous days.

God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs—and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.

A world fallen under a plague of seven billion walking dead. A tiny island nation the last refuge of the living. One team of the world's most elite special operators. The dead, these heroes, humanity's last hope, all have.... Arisen.

Eight years ago, the world as we know it ended. Now, the last US government stronghold has sent a military recon team from Camp David to the bombed-out city of Seattle, but the mission turns deadly when a horde of horrifying mutant creatures are released onto the streets. Oliver Marcus and Trisha Pike, the only survivors of their nine-man team, are rescued by a group of scavengers led by their superhuman leader, River Kingston. Driven by the need to find her lost husband, River is drawn in by Mycroft, the invisible puppet master behind New Texas.

When the rule of law fails, dishonest politicians get even dirtier. Shane and Julianna can’t compete with the debased dictators of Jackson County unless they are willing to bend a few rules of their own. Shane Black escaped the city by the skin of his teeth. But his well-stocked mountain retreat is now the target of a local despot who gained his power through bribes, payoffs, and shady politics. Mayor Hayes had few scruples before the collapse. Now that he’s the only law around, he’s down-right ornery. Road trips are always a bad idea in the apocalypse.

It began on New Year’s Eve. The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed - and more than half of the world’s population was decimated. Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magick rose up in its place.

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: They become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.

2045, the Arctic Circle. A crew of six aboard the research vessel, The Nox, embark upon a voyage through the melting ice and Arctic dark in search of the last of the polar bears. The mission represents a ray of hope in a world ravaged by climate change, but it quickly becomes clear that some on board are in search of more than bears. Isolation and the disorientation of 24/7 darkness soon have the group losing their grip on reality – accidents, nightmares, or hauntings – no one can be sure, but the voyage seems cursed.

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman.

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. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's 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.

Country music icon Shane Black is this year’s headliner for the New Year’s Eve bash in Times Square, but when violent riots break out, he’ll need more than a six string to escape New York City. After decades of abuse as the world’s reserve currency, the US dollar’s day of reckoning is at hand. Without a functioning monetary system to purchase basic goods, society rapidly descends into abject chaos. Protests, looting, and bloodletting take the place of civility in a country which becomes thoroughly unhinged.

Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.

Dakota Sloane, a tough-as-nails former foster kid, has spent her life running from the past. A man haunted by secrets, Logan Garcia has only one goal: to drink himself into oblivion. They're two strangers in a bar—until the news reports nuclear detonations in New York City and Washington, D.C. Before they can escape Miami, everything explodes. Buildings collapse and fires rage. As the fallout descends, utter chaos erupts.

Humanity survived. Barely, and thanks to networks of gigantic tower systems created to surround small villages with a protective barrier of lethal energy. It kept everything out...and everyone in. Sixteen years have passed, and a girl born the night the world fell apart learns that she has a strange talent. The towers can speak, and she is the only one who can hear them.

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.

A century ago, the world fell - but the war never ended. Now, the survivors of the apocalypse are reunited, and a new fight begins. A century after the war that destroyed the planet, the UEC and GPS remain locked in a generational conflict. Split between a vast orbital space station and a base on the moon, neither faction can return to the scorched and irradiated planet.

After annihilating the traitor infestation in his city, Jonathan Black knows the danger isn’t over yet. While the last battle helped both him and his companions level up, their advancement brings about a major change–the opening of the Towers. John knows his Heaven’s Shield Guild needs to get stronger and braving the dangers of the Towers is their only hope. For across the sea, a new threat arises, one that almost defeated John in the previous timeline. The Bloodied Monster has begun his reign of terror.