Apocalyptic Science Fiction

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017.

A teenage mechanic must battle nightmarish creatures and create formidable weapons to defend his new home from dark forces in this thrilling portal fantasy. When Ryan Kotes awakens on an alien planet, his mind is a complete mess. But even with his memories ground into a fine paste, he's pretty sure he would remember having a metal arm . . . not to mention the flashing messages that keep playing across his vision.

Dan has accidentally "Noclipped" into the Backrooms—a bizarro, extra-dimensional Alice-in-Wonderland world, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as the Dwellers. No one ever gets out. Hell, forget about leaving, if Dan wants to survive the week, he's going to need to harness the strange game-like magic of the Backrooms, make some very sketchy allies, and carve out a little safe haven to call his own.

Since the EMP, Danny Walker's compound has survived waves of violence and the death of many key members. When Danny gets an unexpected piece of news, he pledges to put an end to the persistent threat in Charlotte. He will kill Regent Schlusser and shut down his consortium of depravity, or he will die trying. With JC still missing, a lust for revenge has worked its way into the heart and mind of Chris Castell, JC's eldest son. Will Chris function as part of the team, or will his hatred and need for vengeance derail the plan to end Schlusser's reign of terror?

Danny Walker's survival retreat has been devastated by violence since the detonation of the EMP. A megalomaniacal warlord has stepped in to fill the vacuum of authority left by the utter collapse of society. Regent Schlusser's designs on absolute power have already brought him to Danny's doorstep once, leaving a trail of blood and heartbreak in his wake. Another conflict with the malicious dictator will spell certain death for the remaining members of the compound.

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.

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.

Three weeks after the nation's power grid goes down, chaos reigns. Food supplies have dried up. Fuel is running low. And the bleak, brutal winter is relentless. Fall Creek has forged a shaky peace, but the cost for safety proves higher than some are willing to pay. The town is a powder keg waiting to explode. For Hannah, home is finally within reach. But it won't be anything like she expected....

An original novel pitting Batman against the Court of Owls, a secret society of wealthy families that's controlled Gotham for centuries using murder and money. For generations, an apocryphal cabal has controlled Gotham from the shadows, wielding fear and violence through its undead assassins...

Clay Jaeger and his family have faced down hordes of mobs, evil forces, and deadly Dungeon Lords since they came to the IZ, but this is the first time all of Civilization has been turned against them. Framed for heinous crimes they didn’t commit, Clay, Alex, and Joe will have to fight back with every resource the wasteland has at its disposal. If that includes taking over a dungeon and turning it against their enemies, so be it. This time, it’s not just the Jaegers’ lives on the line. This is bigger than them. The freedom of every wastelander and mob in the IZ is at stake.

For over a hundred and forty years, heroes and villains fought all over the world, the Long War. The Vigilant, the coalition of Supers, did their utmost to keep the depredations of the Citadel, the conglomerate of Villains, in check. After endless decades, The Vigilant finally thought they'd won but a decade ago, the heroes fell, betrayed, and utterly crushed by those they tried to save. This is the story of Arc, the last Vigilant.

Darlene Bobich, the zombie killer, is on a mission to save her family. Can she succeed, even as more obstacles are thrown in her way: survivors bent on their own selfish needs, evolving zombies, and the rotting world around her?

Fallon Swift, approaching her thirteenth birthday, barely knows the world that existed before - the city where her parents lived, now in ruins and reclaimed by nature since the Doom sickened and killed billions. Traveling anywhere is a danger, as vicious gangs of Raiders and fanatics called Purity Warriors search for their next victim. Those like Fallon, in possession of gifts, are hunted - and the time is coming when her true nature, her identity as The One, can no longer be hidden.

They lost the war once. They’re not letting it happen again. The end of the world wasn’t fire and brimstone—it was guild wars, mutated monsters, collapsing kingdoms, and rifts to realms that should never have been opened. Len and Rick fought through all of it. They watched Harmonia fall. They buried their friends. Now, they’ve been sent back—130 years before the collapse. No stats. No skills. No allies.

In a world devastated by alien invasion, Jarek and Rachel were never paragons of heroism. They survived, same as anyone else. They protected what was dear—Jarek with his exosuit and beloved AI companion, Rachel with her brother. They kept things simple... until the raknoth came and took it all away. Now, Jarek and Rachel will stop at nothing to protect what's theirs, even if it means swallowing their pride and working together to survive. Because it turns out the raknoth are only the beginning of the bad news for Mother Earth...

Sometimes, it's not just the zombies in a post-apocalyptic landscape that are the problem. As Darlene Bobich and the survivors try to rebuild and live another day, a new menace is coming at them from all angles. The zombie horde is coming, but will the Promised Land survive to see it?

With Dying Days 4, Armand Rosamilia continues to carve his own glorious path through the zombie apocalypse. His unique blend of sex and violence; well-rendered melancholy; and tough-as-nails, pedal-to-the-metal, can-do attitude makes for a story that gets it all just right.

Laurel is stabilizing a patient in the ER when the power goes out. When the rest of the hospital evacuates, she refuses to leave her patients behind—especially her sick mother. She’s determined to fight for their lives. Even if it means putting her own in danger… In a remote mountain cabin hundreds of miles away, Laurel’s husband, Bear, begins a grueling trek across Minnesota. He’ll do whatever it takes to reunite his family. But it’s a dangerous journey, and he’s all alone save for his loyal dog, Jessamine, and Trent, an orphaned boy he finds along the way.

Whether romantic or platonic, changing relationships prove tricky for Rose, Tom, Clara, and Craig—never mind adapting to the new not-so-normal. Being surrounded by the undead is bad enough, but with a tyrant-in-training running their Safe Zone, it’s that much worse.

After the sickness known as the Doom destroyed civilization, magick has become commonplace, and Fallon Swift has spent her young years learning its ways. Fallon cannot live in peace until she frees those who have been preyed upon by the government or the fanatical Purity Warriors, endlessly hunted or locked up in laboratories, brutalized for years on end. She is determined to save even those who have been complicit with this evil out of fear or weakness - if, indeed, they can be saved.