Fiction Survival Stories

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels. Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, their destinies are bound together...until they are split apart.

Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures begin in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.

In December 1850, the dark hours before dawn make 12-year-old Patrick O’Connell shiver. He lives with his mother and older sister in a wet and drafty shack. Patrick has been the man of the family ever since Da, his father, sailed from Ireland to America. But now he has a problem he can’t solve: there isn’t enough money to pay the rent.

Father John controls everything inside The Fence. And Father John likes rules. Especially about never talking to Outsiders. Because Father John knows the truth. He knows what is right, and what is wrong. He knows what is coming. Moonbeam is starting to doubt, though. She's starting to see the lies behind Father John's words. Then a fire engulfs life as she knew it, and Moonbeam is forced outside The Fence into a world she does not recognize.

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.

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.

Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods - all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, 40 dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever.

Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents - considered expendable by society - are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonize the planet. It could be their second chance at life...or it could be a suicide mission. Clarke was arrested for treason, though she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. Wells, the chancellor's son, came to Earth for the girl he loves - but will she ever forgive him?

Jimmy, David, and Henry are psyched. It's summer, school's out, and they are on their way to California, where they will be able to do some major skating. But on the plane, the unthinkable happens: They are hijacked by terrorists. As frightened as they may be, they take action and they succeed. Sort of. They may have beaten the terrorists, but now their plane has crashed in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden, their summer vacation is about finding food, shelter, and a rescue. Can three normal 12-year-old boys find a way to get by without fast food and skate parks?

“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?

Renowned storyteller Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of Lyra Belacqua and His Dark Materials for a thrilling and epic adventure in which daemons, alethiometers, and the Magisterium all play parts.

Peace has been restored to the Overworld after an epic griefer battle. Lily, Simon, and Michael are glad to have a break from fighting, and even from their attempts to escape the game and return to their normal lives. But then two new players are zapped onto the server, and no one's sure who's responsible for trapping them. With Mr. Anarchy and the other griefers in prison, anyone could be a suspect, and tempers flare as the townspeople's suspicions turn inward.

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.

Graham Salisbury has received numerous high-profile accolades from the ALA, VOYA, and several parent organizations. A Junior Library Guild Premier election, Night of the Howling Dogs is a rousing adventure set in Hawaii. On a Boy Scout trip, Dylan is looking forward to camping out at the foot of the Pu¹u Kapukapu volcano. But when an earthquake strikes, Dylan is forced to team up with a bully named Louie on a daring mission to rescue many of their scattered comrades.

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.

Take flight with the ender dragon in this official Minecraft novel! When a desert town is threatened by illager raids, a young adventurer turns to a newborn dragon to save her home.

I've seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened in Ohio. John Smith, out there, on the run. To the world, he's a mystery. But to me . . . he's one of us.

After the first wave, only darkness remains. After the second, only the lucky escape. And after the third, only the unlucky survive. After the fourth wave, only one rule applies: Trust no one. Now, it's the dawn of the fifth wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker.

From number one best-selling author Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson comes the final of three Skyward series novellas, each told from the perspective of a different member of the team back on Detritus. Listen to Jorgen's story along with Cytonic.