Survival Mystery

Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, has joined forces with the editors of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern to create a collection of action-packed short stories by some of today's most talented names in literature.

Twenty-four-year-old Charlotte Stahl would do anything for her older brother, Ian. After all, he'd done everything for her growing up. He played Burken with her - a hide-and-seek game they made up as kids. He comforted her when their mom deserted them. He raised her when their dad went to prison for murder. Ian is the only reason she's still alive. So when Ian asks her to play Burken in the isolated woods of Cadillac, Michigan, she feels she could use the nostalgia and agrees. Burken - it's the one thing that never changes...until Ian threatens to kill her in the middle of the game.

Beegie is riding the bus when the quake hits. The teenager was heading back to her unhappy foster home, but then she’s thrown into a broken world. Roads crumble, storefronts shatter and people run wild. Dessa, a single mom, is enjoying a rare night out when it strikes. Cell towers are down, so without even knowing if her three-year-old daughter is dead or alive, she races to get back across town.

With the mysterious event that devastated mankind now four months past, and winter fast approaching, Bobby, Becca, and Myron hunt for game. Though life is not easy, it has at least settled into what now passes as normal. That is until they discover a band of hunters stalking human prey. For Mel, Caryn, and Tara, the end of the world has been a constant struggle to survive. The new world has become chaotic and dangerous. Life has little value except in the depths of depravity in the minds of those who own you.

Disaster strikes after an EMP disables the country’s power grid, disrupting communications, transportation, and essential utilities. Ben Riker, a prepper and Lieutenant with the Asheville fire department, has managed to secure a new home to rebuild what his family had lost. But before they can start a new life, Ben must retrieve his daughter before the enemy finds her.

The Seventh Taking is the chilling tale of a young man’s journey through harsh mountain country in his search for the girl he loves and the two friends who dare to brave the dangerous elements - both human and natural - to support a friend. When Joy Vincent disappears in the Blue Summit Mountains of Tennessee while vacationing with her family, park rangers begin an intensive search for the Louisiana high-school junior. Seven weeks later, the search is abandoned, and authorities conclude that Joy voluntarily ran away because of a fight with her father.

In Silverdale, Washington the survivors of a worldwide apocalypse are preparing for the coming winter storms. But just as they’re stocking away the last of the fall harvest, they make a disturbing discovery - someone has pilfered the food supplies!

In a time of societal darkness, Mira Hastings and Grayson Stevens join a cadre of brave individuals who stand against a juggernaut of evil by putting their lives on the line to rescue ill-fated youngsters from certain death. In a bold attempt to bring down the beast, they publicly expose the greed and corruption that drives the system. Declared enemies of the state, Mira and Gray are forced underground as they flee the wrath of a vengeful government.

Stranded on a desert island, friendship is the first thing to go. But can Dee Sanders survive without it? He just wanted a nice vacation, but the cruise he and his friends took turns into a disaster. Now, after a rogue wave and a harrowing night, they’re on a beach with few options. Will a power struggle threaten their chance for rescue? The island isn’t just sunshine, coconuts, and palm trees. It holds secrets and dangers, but the biggest peril may come from within their group. Can they stick together? Will Dee be a loner or a leader? How will they get off the island?

In every city, girls are trafficked in brothels where the red haze of the neon lights never shut off. Red in the morning. Red at night. Red for the sailor's delight. But the red haze isn't just a district where girls are purchased by immoral men. Like the red of murderous bloodshed or the scales of demons, the red haze is a symbol of something more sinister. Enter Sam Eden and her boyfriend, Mike Carpenter, naive 20-year-olds who have traveled to the volatile country of Burma for a backpacking adventure but find themselves completely ill-prepared for the world they've entered.

Author, psychotherapist, consultant, guide, Dr. Angela Brownemiller offers new perspectives on what and who we humans actually are. She takes a new approach to out-of-body, lucid dreaming, and other non-physical sensations, working up to her thesis that there is much more to the picture than we are presenting ourselves. Brownemiller tells us: We humans have far more to work with here, even when and if survival issues are front and center. Every day, we are presented with minor and major opportunities, reasons, even needs, to listen to deep instinct.

Maxine Winters, an overworked yet successful veterinarian, finds herself trapped out at sea when an electromagnetic pulse erupts over South Florida. Stranded and concerned for her family's safety, she must rely on her wit to reach landfall before the storm hits. Little does she know that the incoming category four hurricane is the least of her problems.

After an EMP disrupts the nation’s power grid, putting millions at risk, Charlie Owens flees Seattle with his family to his cabin on the remote Beckett Island. But it doesn’t take long for the dangers of this post-apocalyptic world to threaten his family’s survival.

As the EMP bomb detonates, frying the entire electrical grid and plunging the nation into chaos, a small family takes refuge in their remote cabin. But as they huddle in the darkness, they soon realize that they are not alone. With the threat of unknown dangers lurking outside, they must use all their wits and resourcefulness to survive in this new and treacherous world. Every decision could mean the difference between life and death as they struggle to outsmart the enemies closing in on them.

Recently separated from her cheating husband and unaware of a budding pregnancy, Georgia Charles travels to the Yukon Territory to spend a month with a childhood friend. Suddenly kidnapped by bank robbers, she manages to flee into the wild and find shelter in an abandoned cabin - but minimal skills and an impending childbirth threaten her survival. Set in the harsh winter of British Columbia’s Last Frontier, Winter’s Captive is the riveting story of a woman’s incredible journey of survival and path to empowerment against all odds.

What happens when an EMP sends California back into the stone age? When an EMP bomb knocks out the power in LA and the rest of the United States, Ailani Ho's main goal is to survive the end of the world. Then she discovers her sister was on a plane when the bomb exploded, and she can't rest until she knows if her sister is alive or dead.

America was on the brink of a second Civil War. Divisions were deep and fundamental. The heated rhetoric was abandoned in favor of weapons. The powder keg had erupted and nobody would be spared from the carnage. In Anarchy, the Doomsday series continues as the fuse has been lit and the battle has been taken to Main Street, USA. Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option as Americans are pitted against Americans in a nation on the cusp of a Second Civil War.

Best-selling author Bobby Akart once again masterfully tells a tale of a nation on the edge of societal collapse. For decades, Americans had found themselves increasingly at odds with one another - politically, socially, and culturally. In Doomsday Minutemen, the Doomsday series concludes as the conspiracy reveals itself, and those responsible for leading the nation to the brink of a civil war are exposed.

Far from home without a gun to defend himself with, Bob must find a way to get food and protect his possessions from would-be thieves in this post-apocalyptic world. Luckily, he has his fishing gear with him along with an inflatable kayak he brought on the airplane with him for recreation. Now his luggage has become his bug-out gear. Others want what he has, and he tries to flee the area to avoid them. Youth gangs take over the area where he resides.

The post-apocalyptic survival adventure begins anew as Hobe sails for Florida in search of new opportunities after leaving the Trade Rendezvous. He has a plan that has not been revealed to his sailboats crew yet to hopefully put them into some new profitable adventures. Everything seems to be going well despite the hurricane that blew them off course and sent them towards an oyster fishing village in a far bay until pirates were spotted on the horizon. Follow our stalwart heroes as they brave the high seas five years after a Solar Storm has taken the electrical grid and economy down.