For the Apocalyptic Fiction lover!
Explore the ultimate list of apocalyptic fiction books for the end-times enthusiast! Dive into gripping tales of survival, dystopia, and chaos perfect for any doomsday book lover.
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Wastelands
by John Joseph Adams
With stories from George R.R. Martin (author of Game of Thrones), Gene Wolf, Carol Emshwiller, Stephen King, and more! "I can't help but give this collection the highest recommendation. I think this will be a cornerstone for most reader's shelves."—SFF World From the Book of Revelation to ''The Road Warrior'', from ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' to ''The Road'', storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction - including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King - Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core.
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The Unsung Patriots
by Tolman Farrah Geffs
Could a group of terrorists launch an attack that would destroy California? Yes, they could. And they once almost did. Set at the height of the Cold War, The Unsung Patriots is historical fiction at its besta tale of terror and intrigue with chilling implications for our times. Based on the author's own experience, the book tells the story of Tad Lundgren, a Caltech PhD student who uncovers strange drilling activities near the San Andreas Fault. In conference with one of his fellow students and a senior advisor, Lundgren discovers a plot by the Russians to knock out America's strategic missile defense system and lay the nation open to a full-scale nuclear attack. Working with high-ranking security agents from the United States and the U.S.S.R., the Caltech students survive a deadly confrontation and defuse the situation, only to be unwittingly recruited into the upper echelons of the American intelligence community.
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Red Inferno: 1945
by Robert Conroy
In April 1945, the Allies are charging toward Berlin from the west, the Russians from the east. For Hitler, the situation is hopeless. But at this turning point in history, another war is about to explode. To win World War II, the Allies dealt with the devil. Joseph Stalin helped FDR, Churchill, and Truman crush Hitler. But what if “Uncle Joe” had given in to his desire to possess Germany and all of Europe? In this stunning novel, Robert Conroy picks up the history of the war just as American troops cross the Elbe into Germany. Then Stalin slams them with the brute force of his enormous Soviet army. From American soldiers and German civilians trapped in the ruins of Potsdam to U.S. military men fighting behind enemy lines, from a scholarly Russia expert who becomes a secret player in a new war to Stalin’s cult of killers in Moscow, this saga captures the human face of international conflict. With the Soviets vastly outnumbering the Americans—but undercut by chronic fuel shortages and mistrust—Eisenhower employs a brilliant strategy of retreat to buy critical time for air superiority. Soon, Truman makes a series of controversial decisions, enlisting German help and planning to devastate the massive Red Army by using America’s ultimate and most secret weapon.
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Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.
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Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.
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A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel of love during wartime. Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield, this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Hemingway famously rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. A classic novel of love during wartime, “A Farewell to Arms stands, more than eighty years after its first appearance, as a towering ornament of American literature” (The Washington Times).
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V for Vendetta
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In a futuristic Britain where a totalitarian regime rules, a young woman is rescued from death by a masked vigilante calling himself "V," who launches a one-man crusade against government tyranny and oppression.
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Anthem
by Ayn Rand
Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dark future age of the great "We"-a world that deprives individuals of name, independence, and values. Written a full decade before George Orwell's "1984," this dystopian novel depicts a man who seeks escape from a society in which individuality has been utterly destroyed. Rand expertly shows how collectivism (including social programs in the United States) destroys freedom and individuality. Her philosophy is simple: "planning" is a synonym for "collectivism," and "collectivism" is a metaphor for communism and tyranny. This important book should be read by all who are concerned about the role of government in modern life. This publication from Boomer Books is specially designed and typeset for comfortable reading.
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We the Living
by Ayn Rand
This classic novel is not a story of politics, but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the banners and slogans. It is a picture of what those slogans do to human beings. What happens to the defiant ones? What happens to those who succumb?
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World War Z
by Max Brooks
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies.”—Entertainment Weekly We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic. The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE “Will spook you for real.”—The New York Times Book Review “Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone. . . . It’s Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.”—USA Today “Will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. A.”—Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick “Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.”—Dallas Morning News
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The War After Armageddon
by Ralph Peters
Shocking scenes of battle…unforgettable soldiers…heartbreaking betrayals…. In this stunning, fast-paced novel, a ruthless future war unfolds in a 21st century nightmare: Los Angeles is a radioactive ruin; Europe lies bleeding; and Israel has been destroyed…with millions slaughtered. A furious America fights to reclaim the devastated Holy Land. The Marines storm ashore; the U.S. Army does battle in a Biblical landscape. Hi-tech weaponry is useless and primitive hatreds flare. Lt. Gen. Gary “Flintlock” Harris and his courageous warriors struggle for America’s survival--with ruthless enemies to their front and treachery at their rear. Islamist fanatics, crusading Christians, and unscrupulous politicians open the door to genocide. The War After Armageddon thrusts the reader into a terrifying future in which all that remains is the horror of war--and the inspiration of individual heroism. A master at bringing to life “the eternal soldier,” Ralph Peters tells a riveting tale that honors those Americans who fight and sacrifice all for a dream of freedom.
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War in 2020
by Ralph Peters
As the Soviet Union crumbles, Colonel George Taylor leads the Seventh Cavalry, America's experimental airborne regiment in a battle featuring ECM systems and laser guided projectiles.
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Wars of Blood and Faith
by Ralph Peters
In the no-holds-barred tradition that has won him so many fans across the nation and around the world, best-selling author and strategist Ralph Peters confronts the crucial security issues of our time--and the troubled times to come.
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World War III
by Joel M. Fulgham
It is said that cancer is the most feared word in the English language. Running with Cancer: The Ultimate Marathon is the intensely intimate and poignant story of one defiant individual's twenty-five year struggle with the disease. Join the author, William A. Phelan, Ph.D., in this insightful account as he chronicles his marathon journey of survival and reveals how long distance running has provided him with the physical therapy, emotional stability and spiritual strength needed to overcome four perilous bouts with Head and Neck cancer. Running with Cancer is the inspirational tale of the author's remarkable odyssey in search of redemption against a life-threatening illness. Uplifting and motivating, the book reaffirms the triumph of the human spirit over a relentless adversary.
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2013
by Carl Berryman
The Gilded Age Presidency Reconsidered is a revisionist account in which the author examines the leadership of Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester Arthur, and Grover Cleveland in dealing with Civil service reform, economic problems such as the tariff, and civil rights in the South. This work is limited to domestic affairs only, since the author believes that is the area in which these president accomplished much needed change. The work challenges the traditional view that Congress dominated these weak chief executives who hardly protested its actions. Nothing could be farther from reality. By taking the actions they did, these presidents not only helped solve immediate problems for the nation, but they also paved the way for a significant growth of the president as a leader of the nation in the years ahead. Without the foundations of these daring men, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson would have encountered many more difficulties in expanding the scope of presidential power in the early twentieth century.
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America Reborn
by Lee Boyland
Political intrigue, treason, military battles, women Rangers, American girl's stoning, drug cartels, MS-13 gangs, kidnappings, assassination, patriotism, love of God, country and Constitution-final novel of Clash-of-Civilizations trilogy describes America's rebirth into a world forever changed by the terrorists' nuclear attack.
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Behold, an Ashen Horse
by Lee Boyland
"Can America Survive the Day of Islam? Does America still have the right stuff?"--Cover.
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American Apocalypse
by Nova
In the not so distant future, the American economy fails, stumbling from a sharp decline into full out collapse. One casualty of the fallout finds himself homeless in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and faces new challenges at every turn just trying to survive. As he changes and adapts he learns hard lessons, makes new friends and ultimately becomes a formidable force of harsh justice in a lawless land. An unrelenting coming of age story set in the backdrop of a once proud America spiraling downward into third world squalor and violence.
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The World Ends in Hickory Hollow
by Ardath Mayhar
The Hardeman family, survivors of the nuclear war, try to make a new life for themselves in the bizarrely transformed east Texas scrubland.
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Tomorrow!
by Philip Wylie
This book may change your life. It may save it. It is one of the most important—and most shocking—books ever written. Tomorrow! is a story of average, nice Americans living in the neighboring cities of Green Prairie and River City in Middle America. It is—until the sudden blitz—the story of the girl next door and her boyfriend; of the accountant who saw what was coming, and the rich old lady who didn’t; of engaging young kids, babies, “hoods,” a bank official who “borrowed” from a customer’s account. Then, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Condition Red is sounded, and this down-to-earth story of America’s Main Street becomes a shattering, vivid experience of the nightmare that human beings have cooked up for themselves. Tomorrow! can be read as a novel of pure suspense—if you dare. It is a thriller in which the apocalyptic technology of today is superimposed on the future. But the novel is also designed to show Philip Wylie’s conclusions about America’s dangerous vulnerability to dread, hysteria, and panic, as well as his recommendations about what must be done.
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Survivors
by Terry Nation
Survivors of a global plague battle for life on an empty planet. A terrifying vision of a post-apocalyptic world...A virus has wiped out 95 per cent of the world's population in just a few weeks, leaving the remaining 5 per cent to stay alive in a world devoid of the most basic amenities - electricity, transport and medicine. The few survivors of the human race are forced to fall back on the most primitive skills in order to live and re-establish some semblance of law and order. Abby Grant, widowed by the plague, moves through this new dark age with determination, sustained by hope that her son, who fled his boarding school at the onset, has survived. She knows she must relearn the skills on which civilisation was built. With others, she founds a commune and the group return to the soil. But marauding bands threaten their existence. For Abby, there's a chance for a new life and love when she encounters James Garland, the fourteenth Earl of Woodhouse, who is engaged in a desperate fight to save his ancestral home. But more important, she must find her son.