Apocalyptic Science Fiction

As anarchy and civil war took grip across the globe, Britain was quarantined. The press was nationalized, and martial law, curfews, and rationing were implemented. It wasn't enough. An evacuation was planned. The inland towns and cities of the United Kingdom were to be evacuated to defensive enclaves being built around the coast and the Scottish Highlands and in the Irish Republic. For George Tull and the other residents of the Waverly-Price Retirement Home, walking to the coast is not an option.

In the walled city of Edin, Spike's carefree childhood has always had an end date. His protection from the wasteland of death on the outside is about to change on his 18th birthday. But while only half of the cadets survive their mandatory time on national service, Spike's goal goes far beyond making it out alive. He's betting everything on being chosen as the top candidate, rising to the role of Protector, and securing a spot beside his beautiful best friend.…

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death. 

For dinosaurs, it was a big rock. For humans: Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When the Earth is hit by the greatest CME in recorded history (several times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859), the combined societies of the planet's most developed nations struggle to adapt to a life thrust back into the Dark Ages. In the United States, the military scrambles to speed the nation's recovery on multiple fronts including putting down riots, establishing relief camps, delivering medical aid, and bringing communication and travel back on line. Just as a real foothold is established in retaking the skies (utilizing existing commercial aircraft supplemented by military resources and ground control systems), a mysterious virus takes hold of the population, spreading globally over the very flight routes that the survivors fought so hard to rebuild.

Ethan is a ranger, sworn to protect his walled settlement from the dangers of his ravaged wasteland planet. One night, a mysterious light thunders overhead and Ethan investigates, discovering a crashed spacecraft and two soldiers from a moon base he didn’t even know existed. Captain Salus and Commander Kurren have risked everything to find a Planetsider to help save their people. Ethan needs them to answer questions that have haunted him all his life – what happened to his world and why?

Mike, along with the rest of Ankeny, only wanted a snow day... unfortunately for them, they got more from the frigid Iowa skies than flurries. Drugged prisoners are dropped in against their will. As if that wasn't enough, each one of the prisoners contains a ticking time bomb. When the buzzers go off the drugged prisoners disappear and rage-filled zombies emerge, ready to tear apart the world. Now it is up to the survivors to keep each other safe and survive what is hopefully the only wave of souls dropped in their town…

Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody knew why it came. When an eight-foot-tall man made of stone appears in the middle of a busy city center one July afternoon, two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer assumes it's just a publicity stunt. Indeed, so does everyone else...until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it, and killing several people inside as a result.

It’s 2555 and the remaining members of the Phoenix colony, both convicts and astronauts, have fully integrated since they were originally downloaded from cryogenic suspension. Now, as the countdown to Earth's final day approaches, two groups of colonists prepare to leave on separate missions.

In 2059, two vastly different groups of people portrayed by the compelling trio of Brendan Fraser (Academy Award winner), Luke Kirby (Emmy Award winner), and Vanessa Sears (Dora Award winner) undergo cryonic suspension. While their bodies are frozen, their minds, still active and awake, are uploaded into a massive quantum computer. The first group are all astronauts, about to leave Earth on a one-way interstellar colonization mission. The second group consists of convicted murderers and volunteers who elect to serve their sentences in a virtual-reality prison.

Those who would seek a new world order have unleashed the most devastating virus onto mankind, and even they do not know the secrets hidden in their weapon. Follow along as Harry, a CDC scientist, races to figure out what exactly the virus is and how to stop it. It will be up to him and a group of marines led by Major Sanders to stop the zombie fallout before it ravages an unsuspecting world.

Deep in the icy black of the North Atlantic, a state-of-the-art submersible makes a chilling discovery—a metallic object slicing through the water with impossible speed and precision. Moments later, systems fail, lights die, and terror takes hold. On Mars, a European rover transmits the image of a stone—etched with unknown symbols—just before vanishing from the data grid. Entire neighborhoods in Nevada disappear without a trace. And in the French Alps, a champion cyclist vanishes mid-race, his GPS pinging him thousands of miles away—then gone.

In less than twenty-four hours a vicious viral epidemic destroys virtually all of the population. Billions are killed. There are no symptoms and no warnings; within moments of infection each victim suffers a violent and agonising death. Only a handful of survivors remain.

The Primordial of Entropy has arrived on Earth, and he’s here to… help? After some quick thinking by Hades and an evolution that has far-reaching consequences, Drew manages to position himself in a way that should make him appear neutral to the visiting Primordial. But in doing so, his relationship to The Baleful Lady is irrevocably changed.

When an EMP wipes out the power grid, Caroline Thompson is alone on the family ranch while her husband, Luke, and their son are stranded in Fort Worth as chaos erupts. With no power, no law, and danger at every turn, Caroline must fight her way into the collapsing city to find them. But bringing her family back together is only the beginning. Looters are closing in, determined to take everything Caroline has fought to protect as their ranch turns into a battleground for survival.

Seth Willard is broke, sick, and running out of time. A single dad drowning under bills and a cancer diagnosis, his last chance comes from a desperate gamble: taking a job as an NPC in a real world, fully immersive zombie survival experience. The nanites injected into his body that will project the game’s experience into his senses will also cure his cancer as he safely sells supplies to rich players out killing monsters that aren’t really there. At least, that’s the plan.

A civilization-ending comet is headed for Earth. Two days before impact, thousands of mysterious pods land in a swath across North America. When people touch them, the pods open. Anyone who climbs inside is carried away. No one knows where the pods came from and no one knows where they go, but finding one is David Williams’ only chance to save his family from the end of the world … and escaping Earth is just the beginning.

A secret detonation kills the grid and the world goes dark. As chaos erupts and fires spread through Albuquerque, three sisters fight to survive the first night of collapse. With law breaking down outside, their only chance is to stay hidden and stay together.

The aliens left. Their monsters didn’t. Life after the invasion is perilous for these young men. The world ended while they were still learning to drive. Now, they’re all that stands between humanity and extinction. But here’s the kicker: Earth’s alien invaders didn’t take everything when they departed. They left monsters behind. This collection contains five explosive sci-fi survival stories from bestselling author M.G. Herron. Each one follows a different hero facing impossible odds as he discovers what it takes to remain human when the world—and its alien monsters—want him dead.

From birth to death, The War is all the citizens of Dystance know. As children it is drilled into their heads that war is the purpose behind all existence. Winter doesn't agree. She's stumbled across remnants of life the way it was before The War began, and now she longs to be as free as her ancestors. With help from her best friend Cedar and the boy she is forbidden to love, Tallow. She believes she can do it. Winter can see a life beyond the Pickets, beyond the constant hunger and the threat of death, beyond the war machine.

For Lance, the incursion of monsters and a magical shop isn't as much of an apocalypse as an inconvenience. Coming back from archery practice, Lance and his club are in the right place and right time to deal some mayhem for the spawning monsters. But just killing them as they come out of the portals isn't enough. They're going to have to go in and finish the job.