Here are 100 books that Ashfall fans have personally recommended if you like
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My interest in kids running their own world largely free of adult intervention probably began with reading Swallows and Amazons and carried on into writing my own book. I love how the kids become important, standing figures, taking on the role of adults while still being kids. It offers the kids an opportunity to take leading roles in their society while also becoming a vehicle by which to potentially explore the true nature of young people. There aren’t very many books that actually do this, and some of them are fairly obscure.
This was a truly unputdownable story. The science fiction concept was interesting in itself, especially watching the characters try to figure it out, but the suspense was strong. The plot had a lot going on, but it was well done and worked pretty well.
I really got to know the characters and particularly enjoyed the well-done romance between Sam and Astrid. It’s a very character-driven story, including the conflict between tyranny and freedom.
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Gone
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Welcome to the FAYZ! The first book in the bestselling cult YA thriller series GONE that Stephen King calls a 'driving, torrential narrative'.
In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why.
Cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there's no help on the way. Sam Temple and his friends must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen - strong or weak. Cruel or humane.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Apocalyptic novels have always been a favorite genre of mine. It’s interesting seeing the lengths that people will go through to survive when all factors are stacked against them. The list of novels below is some of the many great reads that opened my eyes to this genre. The characters in these novels are oftentimes faced with challenges that seem impossible to the reader but are left feeling so fulfilled after seeing a character complete the difficult tasks. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
The Marbury Lens is one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read. Andrew Smith created the world of Marbury in such a way that stuck with me years after reading it. It teaches readers not to easily trust people and that one wrong decision can lead to a downward spiral into insanity. The apocalyptic wasteland of Marbury was vividly brought to life in all of its morbid glory. The creatures in this novel were grotesque and horrifying. I’d like to see them go head to head with the villains in my novel, the threaders.
A 16-year-old boy who escapes a kidnapper thinks he can forget his trauma, but instead, he loses his grip on reality and believes he's part of an alternate world called Marbury.
Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury.
There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place…
Apocalyptic novels have always been a favorite genre of mine. It’s interesting seeing the lengths that people will go through to survive when all factors are stacked against them. The list of novels below is some of the many great reads that opened my eyes to this genre. The characters in these novels are oftentimes faced with challenges that seem impossible to the reader but are left feeling so fulfilled after seeing a character complete the difficult tasks. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Dark Inside centers around a series of powerful earthquakes that shake every continent on Earth and awakens a supernatural inner rage within people. The concept of this novel is incredibly fascinating and is another novel that shows the power of Mother Nature - with a twist. After the earthquakes, the world descends into a hellish landscape that, at times, eerily mirrors events that have taken place in the real world. The apocalypse is brought on by the evilness of humanity, which makes it an interesting read.
Moments after several huge earthquakes shake every continent on Earth, something strange starts happening to some people. Michael can only watch in horror as an incidence of road rage so extreme it ends in two deaths unfolds before his eyes; Clementine finds herself being hunted through the small town she has lived in all her life, by people she has known all her life; and Mason is attacked with a baseball bat by a random stranger. An inner rage has been released and some people cannot fight it. For those who can, life becomes an ongoing battle to survive -…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Apocalyptic novels have always been a favorite genre of mine. It’s interesting seeing the lengths that people will go through to survive when all factors are stacked against them. The list of novels below is some of the many great reads that opened my eyes to this genre. The characters in these novels are oftentimes faced with challenges that seem impossible to the reader but are left feeling so fulfilled after seeing a character complete the difficult tasks. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Although this novel is not necessarily ‘apocalyptic,’ I couldn’t help but include it. Alexander Gordon Smith’s Lockdown is a high-stakes novel that follows Alex, a teenager who is wrongly accused of murder and sentenced to an underground prison. The Furnace Penitentiary is not a normal prison, but is a building where inhumane experiments take place. I’ve always been fascinated by characters who have to survive in an environment they cannot physically leave, and the Escape from Furnace series does this beautifully.
Prison Break meets Darren Shan in an unforgettable story of terror, evil and intrigue. Alexander Gordon Smith's cult teen series has been reissued with the bestselling US covers.
Beneath heaven is hell. Beneath hell is Furnace.
When thirteen-year-old Alex is framed for murder, his life changes forever. Now he is an inmate in the Furnace Penitentiary - the toughest prison in the world for young offenders. A vast building sunk deep into the ground, there's one way in and no way out.
But rowdy inmates and sadistic guards are the least of Alex's problems. Every night an inmate is taken…
Simon has been a student and historian of ancient Rome for most of his life, and has authored one non-fiction work and numerous historical novels set in the era, a number of them set in the ancient city itself. He has spent time in Rome over the decades, hunting down traces of the ancient city and studying architecture and finds, ever deepening his understanding of the place, how it worked, what it looked like, and its place in the world. Rome is the core of three decades of research for Simon.
This is quite simply the best entry-level guide to the ancient culture, world, and city of Rome I have found. Written in a humorous and engaging manner, it walks the reader through the history of Rome from its legendary founding to the date the book is nominally set (the reign of Domitian), all from the point of view of someone of Domitian’s time. It covers every subject from the dos and don’ts of dinner parties to the importance of gods. A perfect start for someone new to the subject, and equally entertaining for the scholar.
Imagine you were transported back in time to Ancient Rome and you had to start a new life there. How would you fit in? Where would you live? What would you eat? Where would you go to have your hair done? Who would you go to if you got ill, or if you were mugged in the street? All these questions, and many more, will be answered in this new how-to guide for time travellers. Part self-help guide, part survival guide, this lively and engaging book will help the reader deal with the many problems and new experiences that they…
As a horror writer whose interests tend to favor morbid topics that are often neglected, end-of-the-world stories have fascinated me since I first read Stephen King’s The Stand at far too young of an age. I love how these works enable the exploration of life, death, and survival. My appreciation for the subject matter deepened during my studies in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, where I learned how genre fiction has the unique ability to both enlighten and entertain readers. This inspired me to write my post-apocalyptic horror novel, What Remains.
I was first introduced to the film adaptation of The Road in my early teens when I went through all five stages of grief in the span of 1 hour and 51 minutes.
I then made a beeline to the bookstore for a copy of McCarthy’s novel, which subsequently solidified my love of end-of-the-world stories in how they can examine what it means to survive.
The Road is a story that has stayed with me over the subsequent decade and a half and greatly influenced my post-apocalyptic novel.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).
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. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I have an idea. A conviction, let's call it, that humanity is not doomed. The Mad Max scenario where civilization collapses, thrusting us into an anarchic hellscape in which the living envy the dead, is totally unrealistic and not likely to happen. So let's imagine a post-apocalyptic scenario in which people come together to help each other, to save what knowledge they can, to build something new and useful. To learn the lessons from the destruction that came before. This is what I tried to imagine in my novel Bannerless, and this is why this topic interests me so much.
When you study the long arc of history you begin to suspect that apocalypses aren't just inevitable, they're common. And so is survival, which is a really heartening thought. Human beings are crazily adaptable, and our ability to come together in communities (ideally, when we're at our best, which granted isn't always and is hard to see sometimes) will aid our survival. Annalee Newitz tells us how this is has happened before, and how it can happen again.
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in Science & Technology
In its 4.5 billion-year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? In this brilliantly speculative work of popular science, Annalee Newitz, editor of io9.com, explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Scatter, Adapt, and Remember explores…
I’m a historical and dual timeline novelist, and I sometimes think I love the research phase more than the writing phase. For each novel I start with a vague idea, then buy or borrow books to read around the subject in the hope that a story will gradually emerge. I was lucky with The Lost Sister in that a chance remark of my brother’s sparked an idea, and he had a large collection of Titanic books which he let me borrow.
I came across a mention of Violet Jessop in a Wikipedia article right at the start of my research into Titanic and her sister ships.
She worked on all three ships – Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic, and survived not one but two shipwrecks. Even after those harrowing events she went back to work on Olympic until the ship was retired in the 1930s.
Her autobiography was published posthumously, and makes for fascinating reading. I ended up including her as a minor character in my novel, and she’ll feature in my forthcoming novel too!
Violet Jessop's life is an inspiring story of survival. Born in 1887 in Argentina, the eldest child of Irish immigrants, at the age of 21 she became the breadwinner for her widowed mother and five siblings when she commenced a career as a stewardess and nurse on some of the most famous ocean going vessels of the day. Throughout her 40 year time at sea she survived an unbelievable series of events including the sinking of the TITANIC.
"One awful moment of empty, misty blackness enveloped us in its loneliness, then an unforgettable, agonizing cry went up from 1500 despairing…
I’m a writer who loves to read and wants to write all the fantasy genres, or at least, wants to try. I’ve always been fascinated by monsters and the question, “What if?” Dystopian, Apocalyptic, Post-Apocalyptic, and Fantasy gives us the freedom to explore both these things. It’s amazing how these genres can bend our world and expectation when we explore these two things. What if the world ended but not in the way we expect? What if monsters were real? What if we are the real monsters? These questions are terrifying but so fascinating to consider and blending fantasy with apocalyptic has been a safe way to explore them.
This book felt so real. Ilsa Beck did such an amazing job at writing a book about a very saturated genre that was fresh and terrifying because her use of science really made me think this was a very real way the world could end. Also, it is wonderful when a book features a flawed, but strong female lead, something I always strive to write in my books. The main character, Alex, is real and three-dimensional and relatable, even as she’s trying to survive a sudden zombie apocalypse all on her own.
A cataclysmic event. A dramatically changed world. A zombie army. Can three kids really survive... and who can they trust?
Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...
Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I consider myself a topologist of story, ever fascinated by the shapes stories take, and how those underlying forms—as much as their specific content—guide our reactions and our emotions. In a social-media-saturated age, it’s more important than ever that we practice the skills of comprehending story landscapes so that we can understand who benefits from them—and who doesn’t. Ditch the GPS: whether memoir, reportage, or fiction, these books showcase some of the map-and-compass skills we all need to navigate a complicated new era.
During a group summer vacation on a beachy East Coast hideaway, the age-old dynamics of young vs. old—and the have-a-lots vs. the have-less—are in full play. The result sounds like any number of 20th-century American literary dramas, until it becomes clear that the disasters that loom are far larger than any single-family or community. Millet’s playful, snarky novel is a portrayal of what may come as the young realize how thoroughly older generations have sold out their future. The adults may be lost, but the kids are alright.
Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet's sublime new novel-her first since the National Book Award-longlisted Sweet Lamb of Heaven- follows a group of eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their parents at a lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their elders, who pass their days in a hedonistic stupor, the children are driven out into a chaotic landscape after a great storm descends. The story's narrator, Eve, devotes herself to the safety of her beloved little brother as events around them begin to mimic scenes from his cherished picture Bible.
Millet, praised as "unnervingly talented" (San Francisco Chronicle), has produced a…
