Fiction Survival Stories

A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief - she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust but no people and no answers. She knows only one thing about herself - her name, M. Savage, which was engraved on the foot of her coffin. She finds herself in charge. She is not the biggest among them or the boldest, but for some reason the others trust her.

Syd Chambers grew up on Earth with his human mother and barely remembers his alien father from Denza, who left on a mission when Syd was very young. After leaving Earth, Syd learned the truth of his father’s disappearance on the planet Ashfall—his father had died protecting a devastating secret about the history between humans and Denzans.

As a lethal plague sweeps through the land, Ani Mells is shocked when she is unexpectedly captured by the governor's wardens and forced to submit to a test for the deadly Scourge. She is even more surprised when the test results come back positive, and she is sent to Attic Island, a former prison turned refuge - and quarantine colony - for the ill. The Scourge's victims, Ani now among them, can expect only to live out short, painful lives there.

Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth’s population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school’s real purpose - and the horrifying fate that awaits her. Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive.

The Yellowstone super-volcano nearly wiped out the human race. Now, almost a year after the eruption, the survivors seem determined to finish the job. Communities wage war on each other, gangs of cannibals roam the countryside, and what little government survived the eruption has collapsed completely. The ham radio has gone silent. Sickness, cold, and starvation are the survivors' constant companions. When it becomes apparent that their home is no longer safe and adults are not facing the stark realities, Alex and Darla must create a community that can survive the ongoing disaster....

After six incredible books, John Marsden has written the final volume and a last adventure for Ellie, Lee, Homer, Fi, and Kevin. It may be the end of the series, but does it mean the end to Australia as we know it or the end of the war? Or both?

Entertainment Weekly calls acclaimed author and essayist J. Maarten Troost a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion". Both witty and poignant, Headhunters on My Doorstep follows Troost as he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson’s path through the South Pacific. Somewhere between AA meetings in Tahiti and discovering how the Island of Merrymaking got its name, Troost reconnects with himself, his family, and the beauty of life.

In the series debut The Testing, sixteen-year-old Cia Vale was chosen by the United Commonwealth government as one of the best and brightest graduates of all the colonies—a promising leader in the effort to revitalize postwar civilization. In Independent Study, Cia is a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas. Though the government has tried to erase her memory of the brutal horrors of The Testing, Cia remembers.

For the past four years, Rick Walker has been shuffled between foster care and group homes. At 14, he’s a kid nobody wants or cares about. Now he’s headed for Blue Canyon Detention Center. For Rick, life is a maze full of dead ends. But when he is threatened at Blue Canyon and runs away, Rick finds himself in a real maze - the enormous rocky expanse of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. There, Rick meets a biologist who has devoted his life to reintroducing the condor to its natural habitat. As Rick joins him to protect the giant birds, the teenager will begin to see choices instead of dead ends.

Emmett Atwater thought Babel's game sounded easy. Get points. Get paid. Go home. But it didn't take long for him to learn that Babel's competition was full of broken promises, none darker or more damaging than the last one. Now Emmett and the rest of the Genesis spaceship survivors must rally and forge their own path through a new world. Their mission from Babel is simple: extract nyxia, the most valuable material in the universe, and play nice with the indigenous Adamite population. But Emmett and the others quickly realize they are caught between two powerful forces.

When an EMP catastrophe shuts down power worldwide, Melanie Pearson must embark on a grueling trek to reunite with her family. But before she can cross the savage wastelands, she’ll need to help her boss find his own son first. And Melanie quickly realizes she may have made a deal with the devil himself….

First they defeated Mr. January. Next they trapped his sister, Mrs. Prosper. Now Eleanor and her best friends, Pip and Otto, have one last chance to escape the People Who Look Away. The last of the evil siblings is their most formidable opponent yet, with two vicious hounds at her side and the ability to open roads across time and worlds.

Gabriel has always had his brothers to rely on, especially his twin, Nick. But when an arsonist starts wreaking havoc on their town, all the signs point to Gabriel...except he's not doing it. And no one seems to believe him. No one but a shy sophomore named Layne, a brainiac who dresses in turtlenecks and jeans...and keeps him totally off balance.

A terrible danger is looming on the horizon, and Faolan is the only one who knows how to fight it. Will he be able to claim his rightful place as leader and lead his clan in battle? Unless Faolan can inspire the pack to stand together, it could be the end of the wolves of the beyond.

Something was coming. Arlo felt certain about that. For Arlo Finch and the Rangers of Pine Mountain Company, summer camp is more than canoeing and hiking. It's also a chance to search for ancient forest spirits and discover mysterious messages encoded in tree bark. But when Arlo and his best friends Indra and Wu stumble upon clues about the long-lost Yellow Patrol, Arlo uncovers a stunning history that leads right back to his very own family.

For a brief period after the world changed forever, the self-reliant community of Trout Run Valley managed to avoid conflict. They practiced subsistence, and found safety and security within their numbers. As the post-apocalyptic timeline moved forward, it began to spiral downward. Takers had made their presence known, and their malevolent intentions clear, transforming the once benign community into a violent battleground.

When Leo and Naomi are drafted, along with 22 of the world's brightest teenagers, into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever changed. Overnight, they become global celebrities in contention for one of the six slots to travel to Europa - Jupiter's moon - and establish a new colony, leaving their planet forever. With Earth irreparably damaged, the future of the human race rests on their shoulders. But Naomi is suspicious of the ISTC and the fact that a similar mission failed under mysterious circumstances, killing the astronauts on board.

For the first time since she escaped from her school many months ago, Eve can sleep soundly. She's living in Califia, a haven for women, protected from the terrifying fate that awaits orphaned girls in The New America. But her safety came at a price: She was forced to abandon Caleb, the boy she loves, wounded and alone at the city gates. When Eve gets word that Caleb is in trouble, she sets out into the wild again to rescue him, only to be captured and brought to the City of Sand, the capital of The New America.

Shay, one of the rare survivors of the epidemic sweeping the UK, has surrendered herself to the Army because she believes she's a carrier of the deadly disease. Along with other survivors, she unwillingly becomes a test subject in an effort to find a cure. When the lab where she's being held is attacked, Shay and a few others escape - with the help of Dr. Alex Cross, Kai's hated stepfather and Callie's father. Alex is the leader of the cult-like group Multiverse. Their agenda is murky, but genetic engineering might be one of their goals.

Returning from his training with Gold in the strange world of Somerset, Arbor is immediately forced into yet another battle - this time against multiple enemies. Worse, he receives reports of disturbing activity coming from the Goldenleaf Forest, and dire warnings of a threat that Laedrin will not be able to handle. The future holds many uncertainties - the hardest of which comes when Arbor is forced to make a choice between rescuing his sister from herself, and keeping the peace in his own lands.