Apocalyptic Fiction

Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of 20th-century literature—a chilling and still-provocative look at a postapocalyptic future.

John Thomas Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, is pursuing the trail of his wife and children from whom he was separated when World War III began. As he sets out from his retreat, he meets a beautiful woman scientist, who has learned that the nuclear bombing on the Night of the War has created an artificial fault line. Within days, perhaps hours, it will cause one of the most massive quakes in history — separating the Florida peninsula from the US mainland.

World War III has passed and John Thomas Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist and survival expert has at last reached his home, only to find that his wife and two children have fled for their lives. With the knowledge that his family has survived the nuclear holocaust, Rourke, with the aid of young Paul Rubenstein, must find his loved ones.

World War III is now a bloody page in American history. With nuclear holocaust killing more than a quarter-billion people worldwide and the United States just a memory, John Thomas Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert and survival authority is enduring the ultimate test. Soviet Occupation Forces have landed and must begin the "pacification" of America. They will start by liquidating any prominent Americans who could become a rallying point for armed resistance.

For years, like millions of other Americans, John Thomas Rourke had planned for what seemed inevitable — the destruction of civilization. There were various possible causes: global economic collapse, some uncontrollable pestilence, a world famine — or nuclear war. And the rumbling signaling the coming of Total War was becoming increasingly strong as Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, made his last desperate gambit to save his estranged wife and two children before the button was pressed.

In a heartbeat, everything grinds to a halt. On Christmas Eve, the lights go out. Vehicles stop working. Communications break down. Reclusive former soldier Liam Coleman doesn't want to be anywhere near bustling downtown Chicago the day before Christmas. But his twin brother and his pregnant sister-in-law need him. But mere minutes after leaving O'Hare, their car crashes, along with hundreds of other vehicles. When Liam's phone stops working, he begins to suspect something more sinister than a local power outage.

Miah Gray is a 27-year-old former army soldier living in rural New Hampshire with his sister, mother, and her boyfriend. He is plagued by PTSD, finding solace, but not redemption, with the aid of prescribed cannabis. All he wants to do is get high, relax with a good sandwich, and watch a meteor shower with his neighborhood crush, Jen. When the sun's light is blotted out the following morning and the world is plunged into darkness, Miah finds himself locked down with his family, covering windows with trash bags, lighting candles, and following the arcane rules of an ancient prophecy.

When there is a call, there is often a response. Najeeba knows. She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village. But it’s not a terrible thing, just strange. So when she leaves with her father and brothers to mine salt at the Dead Lake, there’s neither fanfare nor protest.

Yet another brilliant entry in Kenemore’s zombie canon - Cap’n Hook meets the undead. Set in the Caribbean of the eighteenth century, the epicenter of piracy, voodoo, and the dark arts, The Code of the Zombie Pirate reveals all the secrets to selecting, customizing, and managing a motley crew of pirates-cum-zombies.

A rogue Russian nuke sails toward the harbors of Los Angeles in the hull of a ramshackle sailboat. Without destroying a single building, the bomb shatters the latticework of the American dream, toppling one piece of the economy after another. A group of Special Forces veterans and their prepper friends scramble for survival in a worldwide catastrophe so psychologically disruptive they are left questioning everything they ever believed to be true.

Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm.

After a long, perilous journey, Hell Divers Xavier Rodriguez and Magnolia Katib discover the Metal Islands, a sunny, habitable zone where thousands of people live by fishing and farming. But this "paradise" is really a violent warrior society ruled by the cannibal King el Pulpo. For the first time in X's life, he is forced to lay down his arms and surrender.

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as "Last Stand in Denver", has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death.

In the early years of the 20th century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey, slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island. These are the facts. Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.

Katmai National Park: 7,000 square miles of rugged, isolated wilderness in southern Alaska. Vast stretches of frozen tundra, deep ancient forests, and impassable ravines ruled by the massive volcanic God, Devil's Desk. Despite the vigorous protests of Michael, the Talbots and the Tynes head to the park for a much-needed vacation away from it all.

Jenny's dreams have turned to nightmares. Every night, her thoughts are filled with evil. Something is reaching out...and she's not so sure she wants to reach back. That is, until someone new appears in her dreams. Someone who protects her, comforts her, and thinks of Jenny as his mate. Imaginary friends aren't real, but Jenny likes to pretend, anyhow. Then, one day, one of the mindless dragons guarding the fort awakens...and Jenny realizes that the friend from her dreams isn't a figment of her imagination. He's a dragon. And he's looking to claim his female.

Published six years before the real-world pandemic became reality, The China Pandemic by A.R. Shaw is a gripping, prescient tale of survival and resilience in a world ravaged by catastrophe. In this haunting post-apocalyptic novel, Graham Morgan finds himself one of the last survivors of a pandemic that wipes out over 98% of humanity.

Ten years ago, Hell Diver Xavier "X" Rodriguez fell to Earth. Those he left behind went on without him aboard the airship he once called home. Michael Everheart - the boy once known as Tin - has grown into a man and the commander of Hell Diver Raptor Team. While Michael dives to help keep the Hive in the air, Captain Leon Jordan rules with an iron fist at the helm of the ship. But unrest stirs under his strict leadership as a prophecy of hope sweeps the lower decks.

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

Discover a hidden conspiracy, a shadow government, and the CIA analyst who uncovers it all in this complete box set of The Days of Noah series by Mark Goodwin.