Fans pick 100 books like Omega Sub

By J. D. Cameron,

Here are 100 books that Omega Sub fans have personally recommended if you like Omega Sub. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Total War

Justin Oldham Author Of Haven's Legacy

From my list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

My firsthand experience of the Cold War influenced my taste in reading and entertainment from an early age. I’ve spent my entire adult life collecting books and movies that showcase adventure and adversity in situations where combinations of war and climate change have brought about the end of life as we knew it. All those influences have inspired me to make my own contributions to this form of literature.

Justin's book list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories

Justin Oldham Why did Justin love this book?

As a teenager, I was captivated by this fast-moving romp that didn’t pull any punches. With so many knockdown, drag-out action sequences, I couldn’t help wanting more. The author infused epic storylines with moments of heart-breaking humanity in a dark and dangerous world. This novel made me appreciate storytelling on a grand scale. Even now, it’s still a fun read. 

By Jerry Ahern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Total War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is NUMBER ONE in the Survivalist series featuring the hero, John Thomas Rourke: The story of the ultimate war, the final nuclear holocaust and the unrelenting quest of John Thomas Rourke as he begins his search across war-ravaged America, following every haunting clue, however fragmentary, to locate his missing family.


Book cover of Doomsday Warrior

Justin Oldham Author Of Haven's Legacy

From my list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

My firsthand experience of the Cold War influenced my taste in reading and entertainment from an early age. I’ve spent my entire adult life collecting books and movies that showcase adventure and adversity in situations where combinations of war and climate change have brought about the end of life as we knew it. All those influences have inspired me to make my own contributions to this form of literature.

Justin's book list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories

Justin Oldham Why did Justin love this book?

I love epic heroes. From the first page, this author (who was actually two collaborators) presents a hero that is so larger-than-life, it’s just breathtaking. The heroes and villains in this imagined wasteland are so very fun to read, even when the carnage is eye-watering in severity. I’ve never experienced anything else like this. 

By Ryder Stacy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Doomsday Warrior as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Doomsday Warrior 1st Novel
Doomsday Warrior is a series of science fiction short novels set in 2089 and later, depicting the struggle to reclaim America from the USSR, after a nuclear strike and invasion in 1989 (the first book was written in 1984).


Book cover of The Guardians

Justin Oldham Author Of Haven's Legacy

From my list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

My firsthand experience of the Cold War influenced my taste in reading and entertainment from an early age. I’ve spent my entire adult life collecting books and movies that showcase adventure and adversity in situations where combinations of war and climate change have brought about the end of life as we knew it. All those influences have inspired me to make my own contributions to this form of literature.

Justin's book list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories

Justin Oldham Why did Justin love this book?

This storyline blew me away with its fast pace and realism. All the heartaches and firefights come so fast, you barely have time to catch your breath. I was fascinated by the way so many of the chapters read like scenes from a movie. It made me want to read more.

By Richard Austin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Guardians as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This story is the first novel in a series about the adventures of a four man elite survival team, set up to keep things under control in post World War III America. In this first story they have to transport the President from war ravaged Washington to a fortress 1000 miles away.


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Book cover of Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds by Louise Blackwick,

Vivian Amberville® is a popular dark fantasy book series about a girl whose thoughts can reshape reality.

First in the series, The Weaver of Odds introduces 13-year-old Vivian to her power to alter luck, odds, and circumstances. She is a traveler between realities, whose imagination can twist reality into impossible…

Book cover of Wingman

Justin Oldham Author Of Haven's Legacy

From my list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

My firsthand experience of the Cold War influenced my taste in reading and entertainment from an early age. I’ve spent my entire adult life collecting books and movies that showcase adventure and adversity in situations where combinations of war and climate change have brought about the end of life as we knew it. All those influences have inspired me to make my own contributions to this form of literature.

Justin's book list on action-oriented post-apocalyptic stories

Justin Oldham Why did Justin love this book?

I’ve never encountered anything else like this aviation-oriented apocalypse. The author skillfully blends supersonic air combat and cutthroat conquest in a shattered world. This is the most high-octane adventure concept I’ve read in the last 30 years. It grabbed me by the throat and never let go. For many reasons, I still feel influenced by it today.

By Mack Maloney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wingman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first book in the bestselling, action-packed Wingman Series: With America in ashes, and lawlessness threatening to rule land, air, and sea, one pilot stands poised to pull his nation back from the brink of all-out anarchy
The Big War started in Western Europe with a Soviet nerve gas attack that laid waste to France, Germany, and Spain. The world's democracies fought back, and pilots like Hawk Hunter led the charge-tearing across the flaming wreckage of the continent at supersonic speeds. They pushed the Russians back and just when victory was in sight, a traitor at the highest level of…


Book cover of Life. An Unauthorized Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth

Frederick Lin Sutherland Author Of The Volcanic Earth: Volcanoes and Plate Tectonics : Past, Present & Future

From my list on the glories of global geology.

Why am I passionate about this?

My final high school year in Tasmania added a new topic, geology. I and my school friends knew little about it but signed up. In the first lesson, the teacher pointed at the adjacent sunlit river gorge saying “There is your laboratory.” We were hooked and most of us became professional geologists. I started off in museums where mineral, rock, and fossil collections were a font of knowledge and generated field collecting, research, and educational activities. This led to MSc and PhD degrees from universities at both ends of Australia. A base at the Australian Museum led to travel around Australia and visits to many overseas institutions and meetings.

Frederick's book list on the glories of global geology

Frederick Lin Sutherland Why did Frederick love this book?

In this magisterial view of life’s progress, the author, a paleontologist, guides readers through its expansions and setbacks caused by the Earth’s ever-changing geological environments. This is no sterile account. Published in an excellent format, the writer’s travels and studies, and efforts of others, in uncovering past life are supported by vivid writing and splendid images. The book depicts landscape and submarine scenes of fossil finds, the creatures themselves, their relationships, and amazing reconstructions of past collective life scenes. 

In describing life from its primitive start through its explorative passages to human advent, the book opens up and pieces together the grandest story on Earth. 

By Richard Fortey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Life. An Unauthorized Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A magisterial exploration of the natural history of the first four thousand million years of life on and in the earth, by one of Britain's most dazzling science writers.

What do any of us know about the history of our planet before the arrival of man? Most of us have a dim impression of a swirling mass of dust solidifying to form a volcanic globe, briefly populated by dinosaurs, then by woolly mammoths and finally by our own hairy ancestors. This book, aimed at the curious and intelligent but perhaps mildly uninformed reader, brilliantly dispels such lingering notions forever. At…


Book cover of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Patrick G. Cox Author Of Captain James Heron First Into the Fray: Prequel to Harry Heron Into the Unknown of the Harry Heron Series

From my list on combining fantasy and social commentary.

Why am I passionate about this?

My great interests have been ships and space travel, and if one takes time to consider the similarities the parallels stand out. Ships, especially submarines, travel in a medium and through an environment that is hostile to human life. In space travel, the ‘ship’ becomes the only habitat in which we can survive for any extended period, leaving it without a space suit is a fatal move. I cannot claim to be an expert in closed environments, but it's a subject that has fascinated me throughout my life. Every ‘biosphere’ is unique and incredibly complex and depends on the symbiosis of an enormous number of living creatures right down to bacteria and even viruses. 

Patrick's book list on combining fantasy and social commentary

Patrick G. Cox Why did Patrick love this book?

This is the story that first got me interested in science fiction. Of course, we now recognise some of the flaws in the science, but consider that at the time of its writing steam propulsion was still in its infancy, most ships were still built of timber, and Verne envisaged a ship capable of indefinite travel beneath the ocean surface – something not even possible until the advent of nuclear power almost a century later. Even today Verne’s vision and the story he wove around it can inspire.

By Jules Verne,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, and 9.

What is this book about?

First serialized in a French magazine from 1869-1870, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is an incredible adventure story that popularized science fiction throughout the world.

Professor Aronnax, a marine biologist, joins harpoonist Ned Land in search of a mysterious sea creature in the open ocean, only to discover that the beast is actually a submarine piloted by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. They are taken captive, thus beginning a strange undersea voyage from Antarctic ice shelves to the subterranean city of Atlantis, hunting sharks along the way.

With its sprawling, exotic plot and vivid descriptions, Jules Verne's epic underwater adventure…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

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, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…

Book cover of Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II

John J. Geoghegan Author Of Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II

From my list on submarine warfare during World War II.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent more than five years researching and writing a book about the Japanese submarine force during World War II—a topic virtually untouched by western historians. My research took me to Japan where I interviewed surviving members of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Sixth Fleet—its submarine branch. These men told incredible stories of what it was like to serve aboard a Japanese sub during World War II; stories filled with courage, fear, pathos, and humor revealing the universality of the human condition. I remained moved by them to this day.

John's book list on submarine warfare during World War II

John J. Geoghegan Why did John love this book?

Few people understand just how lousy the East Coast of the United States was with U-boats during the opening months of World War II. Operating with virtual impunity, they sank tankers and merchant ships up and down the coast for nearly a year before the U.S. finally organized an effective defense. Gannon does an excellent job both setting the scene and relating the history of the U-boat war—a story that few people know but will keep you riveted.

By Michael Gannon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Operation Drumbeat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Operation Drumbeat is the story of Germany's first deliberate attacks against the United States in World War II. The attacks took the form of torpedo launchings, and deck-gun actions by submarines, called U-boats, against American and Allied freighters and tankers steaming with war cargoes along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, in the Caribbean, and across the Gulf of Mexico during the first eight months of 1942.

By August, the number of sinkings reached nearly 400, with loss of over 5,000 U.S. and Allied merchant seamen and sailors-twice the number of fatal casualties at Pearl Harbor the preceding December. In his magisterial…


Book cover of Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-boat Codes, 1939-1943

Mark Ciampa Author Of Security Awareness: Applying Practical Security in Your World

From my list on how to break things (encryption, passwords, etc.).

Why am I passionate about this?

I have had the opportunity to write (I have written over 30 college textbooks on technology, most of them in the area of cybersecurity), study (my PhD dissertation was on cybersecurity), teach (I have taught at colleges and universities my entire career about technology, networking, and cybersecurity), and research (I have published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles) on the topic of cybersecurity. But I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the average computer user who struggles with how to protect their technology devices. This has helped drive my passion to focus on practical cybersecurity for everyone.

Mark's book list on how to break things (encryption, passwords, etc.)

Mark Ciampa Why did Mark love this book?

David Kahn explains the most widely-known effort (widely-known today but in complete secrecy then) to decipher messages sent by the Germans using their Enigma machines during World War II. This book looks at the groundbreaking work done by Polish mathematicians in the 1930s, how Enigma machines were rescued from sinking German U-boats, and how Bletchley Park in Britain became the focal point of breaking these transmissions. Much of the book focuses on how Enigma machines, rotors, and codebooks were confiscated from German submarines and surface vessels, and how these were then used to allow the Allies, by the war's end, to read German messages almost as quickly as the Germans could send them.

By David Kahn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Seizing the Enigma as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Seizing the Enigma tells the thrilling story of the Royal Navy's battle to crack the Germans' supposedly unbreakable U-boat Enigma code, which would allow the vital Allied convoys in the North Atlantic to be routed away from Doenitz's wolfpacks. This battle was fought both on shore and at sea: by an assortment of scientists, chess champions and linguists, including Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, who struggled to crack Enigma at Bletchley Park, and in the Atlantic by sailors and intelligence officers, such as Ian Fleming, the future creator of James Bond, who undertook dangerous and often fatal…


Book cover of The U-boat War

Lawrence Paterson Author Of Schnellboote: A Complete Operational History

From my list on U-boats that aren't Das Boot.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been writing non-fiction Second World War history books since 2000 and just recently had my twenty-first published by Osprey. Most deal with aspects of the history of Germany’s U-boats. Though I have had a lifelong interest in military history, the desire to write about this topic began while living near Brest in Brittany, France. I am a scuba diving instructor and spent a great deal of time diving on wrecks left behind by the Kriegsmarine, all in the shadow of the huge U-boat bunkers created in Brest’s military harbour. Encouraged by authors Jon Gawne and Robert Strauss I submitted the proposal for the First U-Boat Flotilla to Pen & Sword in 2000…and it went from there. 

Lawrence's book list on U-boats that aren't Das Boot

Lawrence Paterson Why did Lawrence love this book?

Related to Das Boot this may be (same author, same boat as within the novel) but this is a factual photographic essay of photos taken by Buchheim, predominantly aboard U96 during August-September 1941 as a member of the Propaganda Company. The photographs show life as it actually was in the North Atlantic on patrol, and end with shots taken aboard U309 as it escaped Brest in August 1944 and was involved in the rescue of crew from U981 which sank after hitting a mine with twelve crewmen killed.

This is, quite simply, a brilliant and evocative set of photographs. Buchheim was part of the propaganda machine that he so vocally lambasted in his later years, and, talking to U-boat veterans, opinions of him as a human being were extremely polarised. However, there can be no doubt about his mastery of the visual medium.

By Lothar-Gunther Buchheim,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The U-boat War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Chronicles submarine warfare in the North Atlantic during the Second World War, and describes the battles above and below the surface


Book cover of Mr. Limpet

Helen M. Rozwadowski Author Of Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans

From my list on human's relationships with the underwater world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated with the ocean starting when I was a kid growing up on the Great Lakes. While I sailed and swam in Lake Erie’s freshwater, I dreamed of and read about oceans. My career as a historian and writer has been dedicated to exploring the human relationship with the ocean, especially the underwater realm so often left out of maritime history and literature. My greatest joy is that other historians have joined my quest. The books I’ve selected include some I used as sources in writing ocean history and others by historians who are themselves plumbing the ocean’s depths. 

Helen's book list on human's relationships with the underwater world

Helen M. Rozwadowski Why did Helen love this book?

This fantasy by the prolific and well-known American novelist Theodore Pratt follows the adventures of a bespectacled bookkeeper who becomes a fish, serves the American navy during the Second World War, and swims off to evolve a better species of humanity, free of those qualities that provoked global conflict. Reflecting scientific and popular embrace of the idea that life, including the human species, evolved from the sea, Mr. Limpet combines pointed commentary and humor with the growing cultural fascination of the undersea prompted by submarine warfare. Rare today because of its publication shortly after American entry into the war, the novel inspired the more well-known 1963 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

By Theodore Pratt, Garrett Price (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mr. Limpet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Total War
Book cover of Doomsday Warrior
Book cover of The Guardians

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Interested in submarines, Western culture, and earth?

Submarines 35 books
Western Culture 57 books
Earth 319 books