Science fiction: apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic

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Book SynopsisWE ALL HAVE DEMONS. SOME DEMONS HAVE YOU.The world you know is dead. We did this to ourselves. The epidemic struck at the end of the Third World War. Fighting over oil, power, and religion, governments ignored the rise of an antibacterial-resistant plague. In just five years, the Earth was annihilated. Only one city survived—Etyom—a frozen hellhole in northern Siberia, engulfed in endless conflict.The year is 2251. Two groups emerged from the ashes of the old world. Within the walled city of Lower Etyom dwell the Robusts—descendants of the poor who were immune to the New Black Death. Above them, in a metropolis of pristine platforms called lillipads, live the Graciles—the progeny of the superrich, bio-engineered to resist the plague. Mila Solokoff is a Robust who trades information in a world where knowing too much can get you killed. Caught in a deal gone bad, she's forced to take a high-risk job for a clandestine organization hell-bent on revolution. Demitri Stasevich is a Gracile with a dark secret—a sickness that, if discovered, will get him Ax'd. His only relief is an illegal narcotic produced by the Robusts, and his only means of obtaining it is a journey to the arctic hell far below New Etyom. Thrust together in the midst of a sinister plot that threatens all life above and below the cloud line, Mila and Demitri must master their demons and make a choice—one that will either salvage what's left of the human race or doom it to extinction …Awards Bronze Winner — 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards — Science Fiction Gold (1st Place) Winner — 2019 Feathered Quill Book Awards — Science Fiction/Fantasy Finalist — 2018 Dragon Awards — Science Fiction Winner — 2018 New York Book Festival — Science Fiction Trade Review"...merging the best of apocalyptic fiction and sci-fi ...compelling." -- Library Journal"Cinematic, thought-provoking, and immersive in the manner of the novels of Philip K. Dick." BOOKLIST"One-of-a-kind, richly imagined and vividly portrayed. The sense of pacing is exquisite." Jason Kirk, 47North

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Book SynopsisAltered Seasons: Monsoonriseis a top recommendation for cli-fi (climate change fiction) readers seeking more depth than the usual approach to life-threatening environmental changes. - D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review. A few weeks with no sea ice in the Arctic Ocean are enough to trigger a chain reactionthat alters the Northern Hemisphere beyond recognition. Isabel Bradshaw, an engineer, tries to find security for her family in an increasingly chaotic world when they are driven out of their home on the Chesapeake Bay.

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Book SynopsisThirty years ago, the world ended. Giant electrovoric ants and pterodons came through a rift in space-time, millions of humans died, and that was that. Thirty years later, humanity has rebuilt . . . to an extent. Without electricity, human ingenuity has provided some creative solutions, but most folks survive at the subsistence level, farming to keep themselves and their families fed. Chuck Gibson never thought he'd have to leave his family's farm. The simple life of a rancher was enough for him. A dying stranger proved him wrong. Now, he’s on the road of destiny, accompanied by a mystic warrior monk, a beautiful dragon tamer, a runaway cultist, and a mysterious drunken lecher, all of them searching for the key to reclaiming humanity’s future and past. Each of them carrying a single spark of hope. But will that hope be enough to light the beacons of freedom once again? Or will they face the next century in bondage to the last century’s technology? About The Valley of Shadows by John Ringo: ". . . fast-paced . . . building to an exciting climax . . . Ringo and Massa have written an end-of-the-world novel that is unconventional and entertaining."—Daily News of Galveston County About Black Tide Rising, coedited by John Ringo (featuring stories by Kacey Ezell and Christopher L. Smith): “. . . an entertaining batch of . . . action-packed tales. Certainly, fans of Ringo’s particular brand of action-adventure will be pleased.”—Booklist "This anthology broadens Ringo’s Black Tide world, serving up doses of humanity amid the ravenous afflicted. Comedy has a place in this harsh reality, and these stories stir adventure and emotion at a frantic clip throughout. Zombie fiction fans will be thrilled."—Library Journal About the Black Tide Rising Series: “Not only has Ringo found a mostly unexplored corner of the zombie landscape, he's using the zombie frame to tackle a broader theme: the collapse and rebirth of civilization. The zombie scenes are exciting, sure, but its the human story that keeps us involved. A fine series.”—Booklist on the Black Tide Rising Series About John Ringo: “[Ringo’s work is] peopled with three-dimensional characters and spiced with personal drama as well as tactical finesse.”—Library Journal “. . . Explosive. . . . Fans . . . will appreciate Ringo’s lively narrative and flavorful characters.”—Publishers Weekly “. . . practically impossible not to read in one sitting . . . exceedingly impressive . . . executed with skill, verve, and wit.”—Booklist “Crackerjack storytelling.”—Starlog About the work of Kacey Ezell: "Gritty, dark and damp. Much like the war itself."—Michael Z. Williamson, best-selling author of A Long Time Until Now "I loved Minds of Men."—D.J. Butler, best-selling author of Witchy Eye

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Book SynopsisThe magical King of the West has been killed in California, and his assassin is one of the multiple personalities in the head of Janis Cordelia Plumtree—but which one? One of them is a streetwise pickpocket. Another is dead, and can only speak in quotes from Shakespeare. And another seems to be the unquiet ghost of her father. And there are many others. Sid Cochran is a one-time winemaker who blames his wife's suicide on the wine-god Dionysus, and believes that Dionysus is now pursuing him. Cochran and Plumtree escape together from a mental hospital in Los Angeles, and—pursued by ghosts, gangsters, and a crazy psychiatrist—set out for San Francisco and the wine country to try to restore the dead King of the West to life. But the god Dionysus himself is a player in this perilous game—and not on their side. About Tim Powers: "Powers writes in a clean, elegant style that illuminates without slowing down the tale. . . . [He] promises marvels and horrors, and delivers them all."—Orson Scott Card "Other writers tell tales of magic in the twentieth century, but no one does it like Powers."—The Orlando Sentinel ". . . immensely clever stuff. . . . Powers' prose is often vivid and arresting . . . All in all, Powers' unique voice in science fiction continues to grow stronger.”—Washington Post Book World “Powers is at heart a storyteller, and ruthlessly shapes his material into narrative form.”—The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction “On Stranger Tides . . . immediately hooks you and drags you along in sympathy with one central character's appalling misfortunes on the Spanish Main, [and] escalates from there to closing mega-thrills so determinedly spiced that your palate is left almost jaded."—David Langford "On Stranger Tides . . . was the inspiration for Monkey Island. If you read this book you can really see where Guybrush and LeChuck were -plagiarized- derived from, plus the heavy influence of voodoo in the game. . . . [The book] had a lot of what made fantasy interesting . . .”—legendary game designer Ron Gilbert “Powers's strengths [are] his originality, his action-crammed plots, and his ventures into the mysterious, dark, and supernatural.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review "[Powers’ work delivers] an intense and intimate sense of period or realization of milieu; taut plotting, with human development and destiny . . . and, looming above all, an awareness of history itself as a merciless turning of supernatural wheels. . . . Powers' descriptions . . . are breathtaking, sublimely precise . . . his status as one of fantasy's major stylists can no longer be in doubt.”—SF Site "Powers creates a mystical, magical otherworld superimposed on our own and takes us on a marvelous, guided tour of his vision."—Science Fiction Chronicle "The fantasy novels of Tim Powers are nothing if not ambitious. . . . Meticulously researched and intellectually adventurous, his novels rarely fail to be strange and wholly original."—San Francisco Chronicle

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Book SynopsisIN THE AFTERMATH OF THE INVASION Decades ago, the Visitors descended on Earth. They claimed to bring peace and prosperity. Their real goal was the total subjugation of humankind. But humanity did not give up its only home without a fight. After a devastating war, the Visitors were driven back to Mars. Their willing human collaborators were left behind. The task of hunting down these former alien collaborators and bringing them to justice falls to Federal Recovery Agents like Nathan Foster. Emmogene Anderson was taken to the Visitors as a teenager and was experimented upon by the alien invaders. She carries within her body a semi-functional alien device that allows her to control other people. Until recently, she was serving a prison sentence for aiding and abetting the enemy. That is, until she was broken out by her obsessive ex-lover, Anthony Krieg, a former commando for the Visitors’ forces, physically enhanced but mentally unstable. Now, Nathan Foster and his 14-year-old nephew, Ben, are tasked with bringing the pair to justice. Krieg must be killed, Emmogene captured and returned to the proper authorities. An easy enough job—but Emmogene has been implanted with something else, something much more important . . . Nathan and Ben must decide what is right in a largely lawless world—and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. Praise for Mike Kupari: “After co-writing Dead Six and Swords of Exodus with Larry Correia, Kupari makes his solo debut with this space opera that is bound to attract fans of Mike Shepherd’s Kris Longknife series or Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War books. An excellent choice for both teen and adult sf readers.” —Library Journal on Her Brother's Keeper “A big, sweeping space adventure, with heroic characters you care about. Mike Kupari is an awesome storyteller.”—Larry Correia on Sins of Her Father

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Book SynopsisIt was supposed to be fun. Six teenagers and their British captain aboard the ketch Crosscurrent Voyager, headed on a senior year summer cruise to excitement and adventure. Then the world as they knew it ended. A plague spread throughout the globe, killing millions and turning the survivors into cannibalistic rage monsters—zombies, in so many words. Only by putting aside their differences were the young crew able to survive. Now, they seek others like them, those fortunate souls who have made it through the zombie apocalypse. After all, maybe it's not the end of the world so long as GPS can help survivors navigate deadly terrain, to link up, and maybe—just maybe—ensure the continuation of the human race. But the Earth’s GPS systems are failing. It falls to those aboard the Crosscurrent Voyager to keep the unthinkable from happening. In order to do so, they must traverse dangerous seas to a European Space Agency complex in French Guiana. And thousands of infected stand in the way. If they succeed, humankind has a chance of rebuiling. If they fail, humanity may well be at the end of its journey. About Charles E. Gannon: “The plot is intriguing and then some. Well-developed and self-consistent; intelligent readers are going to like it.”—Jerry Pournelle "Chuck Gannon writes the kind of science fiction we all grew up on: rousing, mind-expanding, pulse-pounding sagas of spaceships and aliens. He's a terrific writer, and we're lucky to have him."—Robert J. Sawyer "[A] strong [writer of] . . . military SF . . . [much] action going on in his work, with a lot of physics behind it. There is a real sense of the urgency of war and the sacrifices it demands."—Locus About the Black Tide Rising series: “Not only has Ringo found a mostly unexplored corner of the zombie landscape, he's using the zombie frame to tackle a broader theme: the collapse and rebirth of civilization. The zombie scenes are exciting, sure, but its the human story that keeps us involved. A fine series.”—Booklist “Ringo combines humor and horror in this strong series debut, the thinking reader’s zombie novel.”—Publishers Weekly on Under a Graveyard Sky About the work of Charles E. Gannon: Caine's Mutiny: “This is military science fiction the way it’s supposed to be written. . . . All in all, a highly satisfying tale of the Terran Republic that moves the story forward and sets us up for the next chapter, which promises to be interesting at worst and explosive at best.”—SFcrowsnest Raising Caine: “Raising Caine unveils a lot of thought-provoking ideas but ultimately this is a space opera adventure. There are space battles, daring emergency landings, desperate quests, hand-to-hand combat, and double-and-triple crosses. It’s an engrossing read. You owe it to yourself to read the two previous books in order. Then enjoy Raising Caine. It’s an intergalactic thrill-ride.”—Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews “This is science-fiction adventure on a grand scale.”—Kirkus “Gannon’s harrowing . . . military space opera (following Trial by Fire) builds well on his established setting . . . Gannon’s signature attention to developing realistic alien worlds makes this installment satisfying.”—Publishers Weekly “[A]n incredibly active book . . . as our protagonists are confronted by the beautiful, terrible, and sometimes lethal variety of the universe and its inhabitants. . . . a whole mess of fun . . . that manages to be scientifically accurate while refraining from excessive wonkiness. Those who value meticulous world-building . . . will certainly have their needs met.”—BN Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog Nebula-nominated Trial by Fire: “I seriously enjoyed Trial by Fire. This one’s a tidal wave—can’t put it down. An excellent book.”—Jack McDevitt “Gannon's whiz-bang second Tales of the Terran Republic interstellar adventure delivers on the promise of the first (Fire with Fire). . . . The charm of Caine's harrowing adventure lies in Gannon's attention to detail, which keeps the layers of political intrigue and military action from getting too dense. The dozens of key characters, multiple theaters of operations, and various alien cultures all receive the appropriate amount of attention. The satisfying resolution is enhanced by the promise of more excitement to come in this fascinating far-future universe.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review “[D]efinitely one to appeal to the adventure fans. Riordan is a smart hero, up against enormous obstacles and surrounded by enemies. Author Gannon does a good job of managing action and tension to keep the story moving, and the details of the worlds Riordan visits are interesting in their own right.”—Analog “[O]ffers the type of hard science-fiction those familiar with the John Campbell era of Analog Science Fiction will remember. Gannon throws his readers into an action-packed adventure. A sequel to Fire With Fire, it is a nonstop tale filled with military science-fiction action.”—The Galveston County Daily News Compton Crook Award winner for best first novel, Fire with Fire: “Chuck Gannon is one of those marvelous finds—someone as comfortable with characters as he is with technology, and equally adept at providing those characters with problems to solve. Imaginative, fun, and not afraid to step on the occasional toe or gore the occasional sacred cow, his stories do not disappoint.”—David Weber “If we meet strong aliens out there, will we suffer the fate of the Aztecs and Incas, or find the agility to survive? Gannon fizzes with ideas about the dangerous politics of first contact.”—David Brin “[T]he intersecting plot threads, action and well-conceived science kept those pages turning.”—SFcrowsnest Starfire series hit Extremis, coauthored by Charles E. Gannon: “Vivid . . . Battle sequences mingle with thought-provoking exegesis . . . ”—Publishers Weekly “It’s a grand, fun series of battles and campaigns, worthy of anything Dale Brown or Larry Bond ever wrote.”—Analog

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Book SynopsisLIFE AFTER THE APOCALYPSE The world has been brought to its knees by the “zombie virus.” Nations have fallen, cities have been overrun by the infected, and the human race has come perilously close to extinction. But with the first winter come and gone, the infected have been reduced to not much more than a background nuisance and survivors around the world are taking stock and vowing to rebuild and rise up stronger, better, and unafraid. All new stories from New York Times best-selling author John Ringo’s “Black Tide Rising” series: Kevin J. Anderson Brendon DuBois Jody Lynn Nye Michael Z. Williamson Kacey Ezell Mike Massa Christoper L. Smith Lydia Sherrer Jason Cordova Brian Trent Patrick Vanner Jamie Ibson About Black Tide Rising: “. . . an entertaining batch of . . . action-packed tales. Certainly, fans of Ringo’s particular brand of action-adventure will be pleased.”—Booklist “This anthology broadens Ringo’s Black Tide world, serving up doses of humanity amid the ravenous afflicted. Comedy has a place in this harsh reality, and these stories stir adventure and emotion at a frantic clip throughout. Zombie fiction fans will be thrilled.”—Library Journal About the Black Tide Rising Series: “Not only has Ringo found a mostly unexplored corner of the zombie landscape, he's using the zombie frame to tackle a broader theme: the collapse and rebirth of civilization. The zombie scenes are exciting, sure, but its the human story that keeps us involved. A fine series.”—Booklist About Under a Graveyard Sky: “Ringo combines humor and horror in this strong series debut, the thinking reader’s zombie novel.”—Publishers Weekly About John Ringo: “[Ringo’s work is] peopled with three-dimensional characters and spiced with personal drama as well as tactical finesse.”—Library Journal “. . . Explosive. . . . fans . . . will appreciate Ringo’s lively narrative and flavorful characters.”—Publishers Weekly “. . .practically impossible not to read in one sitting . . . exceedingly impressive . . . executed with skill, verve, and wit.”—Booklist “Crackerjack storytelling.”—Starlog BLACK TIDE RISING SERIES: Under a Graveyard Sky To Sail a Darkling Sea Islands of Rage and Hope Strands of Sorrow Black Tide Rising Voices of the Fall We Shall Rise At the End of the World At the End of the Journey The Valley of Shadows River of Night

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Book SynopsisOne young woman faces down an all-powerful corporation in this all-too-near future science fiction debut that reads like a refreshing take on Ready Player One, with a heavy dose of Black Mirror.Ready Player One meets Cyberpunk 2077 in this eerily familiar future. ?Twenty minutes to power curfew, and my kill counter?s stalled at eight hundred eighty-seven while I?ve been standing here like an idiot. My health bar is flashing ominously, but I?m down to four heal patches, and I have to be smart.? New Liberty City, 2134. Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the country?s remaining forty-five states (five have been submerged under the ocean) between them: Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf. There are nine supercities within the continental US, and New Liberty City is the only amalgamated city split between the two megacorps, and thus at a perpetual state of civil war as the feeds broadcast the atrocities committed by each side. Here, Mallory streams Stellaxis?s wargame SecOps on BestLife, spending more time jacked in than in the world just to eke out a hardscrabble living from tips. When a chance encounter with one of the game?s rare super-soldiers leads to a side job for Mal?looking to link an actual missing girl to one of the SecOps characters. Mal?s sudden burst in online fame rivals her deepening fear of what she is uncovering about BestLife?s developer, and puts her in the kind of danger she?s only experienced through her avatar. Author Kornher-Stace?s adult science fiction debut?Firebreak? is loaded with ambitious challenges and a city to save.

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Book SynopsisIn the aftermath of the invasion. Decades ago, the Visitors descended on Earth. While they claimed to bring peace and prosperity, their true goal was the total subjugation of humankind. But humanity did not give up its home without a fight. After a devastating war, the Visitors were driven back to Mars, leaving their willing human collaborators behind. The task of hunting down these former alien collaborators and bringing them to justice falls to federal recovery agents like Nathan Foster. Emmogene Anderson was taken to the Visitors as a teenager and experimented upon by the alien invaders. She carries within her body a semi-functional alien device that allows her to control other people. Until recently, she was serving a prison sentence for aiding and abetting the enemy. That is, until she was broken out by her obsessive ex-lover, Anthony Krieg, a former commando for the Visitors’ forces, physically enhanced but mentally unstable. Now, Nathan Foster and his 14-year-old nephew Ben are tasked with bringing the pair to justice. Krieg must be killed, Emmogene captured and returned to the proper authorities. An easy enough job—but Emmogene has been implanted with something else, something much more important . . . Nathan and Ben must decide what is right in a largely lawless world—and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. Praise for Mike Kupari: “After co-writing Dead Six and Swords of Exodus with Larry Correia, Kupari makes his solo debut with this space opera that is bound to attract fans of Mike Shepherd’s Kris Longknife series or Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War books. An excellent choice for both teen and adult sf readers.” —Library Journal on Her Brother's Keeper “A big, sweeping space adventure, with heroic characters you care about. Mike Kupari is an awesome storyteller.”—Larry Correia on Sins of Her Father

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Book SynopsisIn her first novel since the Pulitzer Prize–nominated The Quick and the Dead, the legendary writer takes us into an uncertain landscape after an environmental apocalypse, a world in which only the man-made has value, but some still wish to salvage the authentic. She practices ... camouflage, except that instead of adapting to its environment, Williams’s imagination, by remaining true to itself, reveals new colorations in the ecology around her.” —A.O. Scott, The New York Times Book ReviewKhristen is a teenager who, her mother believes, was marked by greatness as a baby when she died for a moment and then came back to life. After Khristen’s failing boarding school for gifted teens closes its doors, and she finds that her mother has disappeared, she ranges across the dead landscape and washes up at a “resort” on the shores of a mysterious, putrid lake the elderly residents there call “Big Girl.” In a rotting honeycomb of rooms, these old ones plot actions to punish corporations and people they consider culpable in the destruction of the final scraps of nature’s beauty. What will Khristen and Jeffrey, the precocious ten-year-old boy she meets there, learn from this “gabby seditious lot, in the worst of health but with kamikaze hearts, an army of the aged and ill, determined to refresh, through crackpot violence, a plundered earth”? Rivetingly strange and beautiful, and delivered with Williams’s searing, deadpan wit, Harrow is their intertwined tale of paradise lost and of their reasons—against all reasonableness—to try and recover something of it.

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Book Synopsisthe half-drowned is a vision of a future at the end of the world where what survives is the shapeshifting love of family both given and chosen. Drawing on the Afro-diasporic ancestral knowledge of water and the urgency of desire, Delaney builds a glittering, speculative world where community holds through grief, where we must choose to fend for ourselves while also caring for others. the half-drowned is a genre-bending novella that crafts a polyphony of voices to speak to and through our lives and dreams in order to reach for the unspoken and unsayable and make it heard. PraiseA forceful, surreal, and poetically muscular read about a resiliently catastrophic future. So so good. What a style and voice. Jeff VanderMeer, author of AREA X (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Told with searing insight and compassion, Trynne Delaney offers up a feast in the half-drowned. With swiftness, precision, and extraordinary prose Delaney gifts us an astonishing spec-fic tale of ancestors, lineage, aliens, blood, and memory. Francesca Ekwuyasi, author of Butter Honey Pig Bread (Arsenal Pulp Press)

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