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anchored on:science fictionpost-apocalypticsurvivalnorth americamid 20th centuryfamily secrets+3 more
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- I Am Legend
Richard Mathesonstandalone novel1954
similar bymid 20th centurysurvivalpost-apocalypticdarktensenorth americascience fiction
The last human survivor of the vampire epidemic has to maintain his defences against their onslaught, while attempting to research the cause and possibly solution to the plague. Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood. By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can a man survive like this?
- Alas, Babylon
Pat Frankstandalone novel1959
similar bynorth americamid 20th centurysurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalyptictense
Classic novel of nuclear war and aftermath in rural Florida. From the back cover of a Bantam Pathfinder edition: "The day that the bomb dropped the thousands of years of "progress" that had covered the treacheries and weaknesses of ordinary man with a thin veneer of civilization were dissolved and melted like snow on the desert's dusty face. Then - the law of the jungle reigned but in the wreckage a few courageous survivors, men and women with the guts to have hope, were determined to build a new and better world on the ruins of the old. This is their story."
- Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournellestandalone novel1977
similar bynorth americasurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktense
Lucifer's Hammer is a science fiction post-apocalypse-survival novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle that was first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978.
- The Hunger Games
series3 books2008
part of The Hunger Games Universe
similar bynorth americascience fictiondarktensepost-apocalypticsurvival
The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The series consists of a trilogy that follows teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, as well as two prequels. The Hunger Games universe is a dystopia set in Panem, a post-apocalyptic North American country consisting of the wealthy Capitol and 12 districts in varying states of poverty. As punishment for rebellion, the Capitol hosts an annual battle royale competition called The Hunger Games. Each of the 12 districts must send two children between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate, and the last surviving child is dubbed the victor.
- The Fireman
Joe Hillstandalone novel2016
similar bynorth americasurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktense
The Fireman is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic time by American author Joe Hill. The novel, Hill's fourth, tells the tale of a deadly spore that has infected most of the world's population. Hill first spoke of the novel in 2013 in promotional interviews for his then-new novel NOS4A2. The novel was released on May 17, 2016.
- The Kraken Wakes
John Wyndhamstandalone novel1953
similar bymid 20th centuryscience fictiondarktensesurvivalpost-apocalyptic
" Behind a spectacular meteor shower actually hides the beginning of an invasion by a mysterious and powerful alien race. Earth's life is disrupted by the attacks of extraterrestrials whose war machines, emerging from the depths of the oceans, seem indestructible. The coalitioned forces of the whole world are worthless, powerless in the face of the indecipherable and deadly plans of a superior intelligence, capable of bringing the entire planet to the brink of catastrophe" Goodreads May 20, 2022
- The Death of Grass
John Christopherstandalone novel1956
similar bymid 20th centuryscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktensesurvival
The Death of Grass is a 1956 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written by the English author Sam Youd under the pen name John Christopher. The plot concerns a virus that kills off grass species, including rice and wheat. The Death of Grass was the first of several post-apocalyptic novels written by Youd. The novel was written in a matter of weeks and liberated him from his day job.
- City at World's End
Edmond Hamiltonstandalone novel1951
similar bysurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktensenorth america
An experimental atomic weapons test in small-town America goes catastrophically wrong, hurling the entire town of Middletown, buildings, streets and all, untold ages into Earth's future, to a time when the sun is dying and humanity's last city struggles on beneath a darkening sky. Cut off from everything and everyone they knew, the townspeople have to find a way to survive in a world that has nothing left to spare for latecomers. Edmond Hamilton's novel strands a slice of mid-century America at the literal end of the world.
- Earth Abides
George R. Stewartstandalone novel1949
similar bynorth americamid 20th centuryscience fictionpost-apocalypticsurvival
The novel tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools. Set in the 1940s in Berkeley, California, the story is told by Isherwood Williams, who emerges from isolation in the mountains to find almost everyone dead. en.wikipedia.org
- The 5th Wave
series4 books2013
similar bynorth americascience fictiontensedarksurvivalpost-apocalyptic
Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave opens after a series of escalating alien attacks has already devastated Earth's population and infrastructure, following sixteen-year-old survivor Cassie Sullivan as she searches for her younger brother while trying to work out who, among the remaining humans, can still be trusted. The trilogy is young-adult science fiction that treats its alien-invasion premise as a survival and paranoia story more than a war story.
- The Passage
series3 books2010
similar bynorth americadarktensepost-apocalypticsurvivalscience fiction
The Passage is a novel series by Justin Cronin. There are three published books in the series. The film rights were acquired by Fox Entertainment Group in 2007 for adaptation into a film trilogy, but after 12 years of development and planning, it was changed to a television series, which premiered in January 2019 and was canceled after the first season.
- Under the Dome
Stephen Kingstandalone novel2009
similar bynorth americasurvivalscience fictiondarktensepost-apocalyptic
A small town in Maine finds itself suddenly cut off from the outside world by an impenetrable barrier, and the clash of personalities of the trapped people takes its inexorable devastating course.
- Fallout
Todd Strasserstandalone novel2013
similar bynorth americamid 20th centurysurvivalscience fictiondarktensepost-apocalyptic+1 more
When an unthinkable nuclear attack occurs in an alternate-reality 1962, Scott is forced into his father's bomb shelter with his family and neighbors, where they rapidly consume limited supplies and fear the worst about the fate of the world outside.
- Cell
Stephen Kingstandalone novel2006
similar bysurvivalpost-apocalypticdarktensenorth americascience fiction
In Cell, King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution.
- Directive 51 / Daybreak
series3 books2010
similar bynorth americasurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktense
Directive 51 opens John Barnes's near-future thriller trilogy with government analyst Heather O'Grainn as anti-technology extremists unleash a nanotech plague called Daybreak that destroys petroleum-based materials, rubber, and electrical systems worldwide. The resulting collapse triggers mass death, a crisis over presidential succession, and mysterious Moon-launched fusion strikes on Washington and Chicago, while a shadowy neofeudalist movement moves into the vacuum. Daybreak Zero and The Last President carry the same unraveling-civilization story through the rest of the trilogy.
- The Midwich Cuckoos
John Wyndhamstandalone novel1957
similar bymid 20th centuryscience fictiondarktenseparenthood
The Midwich Cuckoos is a 1957 science fiction novel written by the English author John Wyndham. It tells the tale of an English village in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens. The book has been praised by many critics, including the dramatist Dan Rebellato, who called it "a searching novel of moral ambiguities", and the novelist Margaret Atwood, who called the book Wyndham's "chef d'œuvre". The book has been adapted for film, radio, and television.
- The Hunger Games Universe
universe5 books2008
Start hereThe Hunger Games · Start here
similar bynorth americadarktensescience fictionsurvival+1 more
Panem, they call it now — a nation raised on the drowned bones of North America, a glittering Capitol ringed by twelve districts it once starved into obedience. Every year the Capitol collects its debt in children: two tributes from each district, drawn by lottery, dropped into an engineered arena, and made to kill one another on live television while the whole country is required to watch. This is the Hunger Games — entertainment, punishment, and government at once. Suzanne Collins tells it in a compact, unified body of work. The founding trilogy — The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay — follows Katniss Everdeen, a girl from the coal-mining District 12 who volunteers in her sister's place and becomes something the Capitol never scripted. Two prequels reach back into the same machinery: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes traces a young Coriolanus Snow long before he is President, and Sunrise on the Reaping returns to District 12 a generation ahead of Katniss. Begin with the trilogy, in order — it is Katniss's voice, close and present-tense, that makes Panem breathe, and the prequels land hardest once you know how her story ends. Beneath the spectacle sits one steady, uncomfortable question: who profits when we agree to look away.
- One Second After / John Matherson
series4 books2009
similar bynorth americapost-apocalypticdarktensesurvivalscience fiction
Retired army colonel and college professor John Matherson is living an ordinary life in a small North Carolina town when every piece of modern electronics around him dies at once -- the opening move of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States. William R. Forstchen's One Second After follows Matherson and his neighbors as they try to hold their community together with no power, no vehicles, and no outside help, and the sequels track the same slow, grinding rebuilding over the following years. The series leans hard into plausible, granular detail about what actually happens to a country when its grid goes down.
- The Year When Stardust Fell
Raymond F. Jonesstandalone novel1958
similar bynorth americamid 20th centurysurvivalscience fictiontensepost-apocalyptic
The Year When Stardust Fell is a science fiction novel written by Raymond F. Jones. It was initially published in 1958 by the John C. Winston Company.
- Z for Zachariah
Robert C. O'Brienstandalone novel1975
similar bysurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalyptictensenorth america+1 more
Sixteen-year-old Ann Burden, on an Amish family farm in an isolated valley, believes she is the only survivor of nuclear war and nerve gas. One day a man arrives in a "safe-suit" that he and others have recently developed.
- The Puppet Masters
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1951
similar bymid 20th centuryscience fictiontensenorth americasurvival
Parasitical aliens attach themselves to human hosts and take over their bodies. Two spies are sent to find out what's happening, but the extent is much farther than they knew. With access to the humans' memories, the aliens quietly invade the government and start taking over.
- Firestarter
Stephen Kingstandalone novel1980
similar bynorth americadarktenseparenthoodscience fiction+1 more
WorldCat: Innocence and beauty ignite with evil and terror... First, a man and a woman are subjects of a top-secret government experiment designed to produce extraordinary psychic powers. Then, they are married and have a child. A daughter. Early on the daughter shows signs of a wild and horrifying force growing within her. Desperately, her parents try to train her to keep that force in check, to 'act normal'. Now the government wants its brainchild back for its own insane ends.
- The Long Loud Silence
Wilson Tuckerstandalone novel1952
similar bynorth americasurvivalscience fictionpost-apocalypticdarktense
Publisher's description: Tomorrow's war -- the war that could not be. The army of the United States was stationed along the length of the Mississippi River, guns pointed east -- with orders to shoot anyone attempting to cross. For the Final War was not a war of the ultimate bomb, of atomic hell. It was a war of the tiny germ, the filterable virus, the disease that came to conquer a nation -- and stayed to damn a world."
- The Road
Cormac McCarthystandalone novel2006
similar bysurvivalpost-apocalypticdarknorth americaparenthoodscience fiction
In this post-apocalyptic novel, a father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other. This book boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. It is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.--From publisher description.
