Fiction Survival Stories

The windows between the many worlds have been sealed, and the momentous adventures of Lyra Silvertongue’s youth are long behind her - or so she thought. Lyra is now a 20-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia’s College, and intrigue is swirling around her once more. Her daemon, Pantalaimon, is witness to a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry echoes from their past. The more Lyra is drawn into these mysteries, the less she is sure of.

Since his father died, Daniel Martin looks forward to summers with his uncle in the mountains. They have a great time practicing outdoor survival skills. But this summer his mother is sending him to Camp Eagle Nest. When he boards the camp van, Daniel’s heart sinks. Three boys from school - who always tease him - are going to camp, too. Soon the driver gets lost. As the van is crossing a rickety bridge, the wooden planks break, plunging the van into the river! Will Daniel be able to save himself and his classmates with his outdoor training?

This timely and powerful novel tells the story of three different children seeking refuge. Josef is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America. Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe.

After months of quarantine while a mysterious virus destroyed most of her family and her small island community, Kaelyn wants just a little good news when the first boat arrives from the mainland. But although she's overjoyed to see her best friend Leo again, the tidings he brings are nothing to celebrate. The virus has devastated the mainland as well, and they need help just as badly as the islanders do.

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends — the Gladers. But it's finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test. What WICKED doesn't know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it's enough to prove that he can't believe a word of what they say. Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He'll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all. The time for lies is over.

Cassy has joined with Frank and his group, and the group members declare themselves a clan, pitting themselves as a group against the rising tide of darkness around them. Then the death of one of their own creates new tensions that may tear the clan apart before it ever reaches the promised oasis of Cassy's homestead farm. Worse, they are followed by a man bent on their destruction, who would take her farm for his own group if he can find it.

In the thrilling sequel to the New York Times best-selling novel Minecraft: The Island, a stranded hero stumbles upon another castaway—and discovers that teamwork might just be the secret to survival.

Farnum dreams of running a famous zoo. But though the mobs he keeps are adorable, none of them draws anything close to a crowd. Farnum needs something strange and new—but he’s the furthest thing from an adventurer. It takes a lot of convincing from his friends, but Farnum finally takes a chance and goes with them to explore a lush new biome . . . which is how he ends up falling down a waterfall and washing up in front of a mysterious purple portal.

Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread lies about her, Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys - the ones she doesn't want. Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris is different. Way different: He can control water - just like his brothers can control fire, wind, and earth. They're powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death. And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.

Three lonely riverside dwellers - a boy, a firefly, and a cricket - are all trying to make sense of unexpected changes in their world. Each has a secret dream, but each finds himself trapped. Becoming friends brings them happiness and solidarity, but more changes are in store. Each character stands up to his greatest fear, and, in doing so, finds his greatest strength.

These words, spoken to Brian Robeson, will change his life. Two years earlier, Brian was stranded alone in the wilderness for 54 days with nothing but a small hatchet. Yet he survived. Now the government wants him to go back into the wilderness so that astronauts and the military can learn the survival techniques that kept Brian alive. Soon the project backfires, though, leaving Brian with a wounded partner and a long river to navigate. His only hope is to build a raft and try to transport the injured man a hundred miles downstream to a trading post - if the map he has is accurate.

The zombies are disappearing. This might seem like a good thing, since zombies eat your brains, but normal human kid Jack Sullivan is suspicious. He keeps hearing an eerie shrieking noise that seems to be almost summoning the zombies - but to where, and for what (probably) foul purpose? Jack, his three best friends (maybe the only people left on Earth), and their pet monster Rover need to get to the bottom of this. Along the way they encounter a lot more than they bargained for.

The EMP has officially crippled the nation and her infrastructure sits in ruin. Can a burned-out DEA agent, a Guatemalan-born cartel daughter, and an estranged brother find their way back to their families, or will they succumb to the perils of a nation in steep decline? The Complete Age of Embers is a no-holds-barred post-apocalyptic adventure series chronicling a nationwide descent into a powerless world.

“Don’t trust their lies. Don’t trust their false peace.” That is the warning that Alanik of the planet ReDawn gave the human pilot Spensa after Alanik’s ship crash-landed on Detritus. While accepting an invitation to meet with her people’s enemy, the Galactic Superiority, Alanik heard Spensa’s cry for help across the vastness of space, and she used her cytonic powers to hyperjump her ship to the source of that cry. What she found there was a shock - a whole planet of free humans fighting against the Superiority. Were they the allies her people desperately needed?

Megan Crewe has received both critical accolades and popular acclaim for her young adult novels. The Way We Fall launches a new series featuring 16-year-old Kaelyn, whose island community is quarantined after the outbreak of a deadly virus. Before long, people begin to turn against each other as they fight for dwindling supplies. Remarkably, in the midst of this chaos, Kaelyn discovers both an unlikely ally and a surprising love interest. And with prospects for survival growing dimmer with each passing moment, she will need all the help she can get.

Brave heroes have banded together to take a perilous journey through the war-torn Overworld to defeat the Arch-Illager and his formidable army. But how did that army come to be? And just where did the Arch-Illager come from? The terrible truth behind the Arch-Illager is that he never asked for ultimate power. Known as Archie, this little Illager is bullied by his fellow Illagers and mistrusted by fearful Villagers. Archie only ever wanted a place to call home, but he finds himself shunned by all. He stumbles upon a dark cavern - with a sinister secret waiting inside.

When a planet-destroying Delver suddenly appears in the sky of Detritus and vanishes just as suddenly, FM knows that the last free human society got lucky. Her Skyward Flight companion, Spensa, figured out how to draw this Delver away, but it won’t be so easy next time. The forces of the Galactic Superiority will be back - and if the Defiant Defense Force can’t figure out a way to escape the planet, humanity’s destruction is only a matter of time.

As millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, and Brian's Winter know, Brian Robeson survived alone in the wilderness by finding solutions to extraordinary challenges. But now that's he's back in civilization, he can't find a way to make sense of high school life. He feels disconnected, more isolated than he did alone in the North. The only answer is to return-to "go back in"-for only in the wilderness can Brian discover his true path in life, and where he belongs.

Bianca has never been good at following the plan. She's more of an act-now, deal-with-the-consequences-later kind of person. But consequences can't be put off forever, as Bianca learns when she and her best friend, Lonnie, are in a terrible car crash. Waking up in the hospital, almost paralyzed by her injuries, Bianca is faced with questions she's not equipped to answer. She chooses instead to try a new virtual-reality version of Minecraft that responds to her every wish, giving her control over a world at the very moment she thought she'd lost it.

When my best friend and the only person who knows who - and what - I really am gets selected for the Mating Games, I know the only way to save her is to try and win her for myself. All I need to do is navigate three trials while not letting anyone know I'm a woman, or, and this might be even more important, that I have magic. Easy, right? Easier than slaving away for all hours of the day swinging an ax in the mines. Or so I thought. I certainly didn't count on the one man I've longed for, the one man who stirs feelings of femininity and desire within me, to enter the games as well.