The best books about the end times

“They say to hold a Memory Blade is to live forever, both as a life trapped within the blade and as a ruling Memory Lord carved into history. I say to hold a Memory Blade is to become an utter bastard, with three dozen pricks inside your head, all encouraging you to do depraved and despicable things. Immense fun, yes, but bloody dangerous when you have the four other Memory Lords coming to your city to celebrate your father’s funeral, doing their best to politely kill you and pilfer your family’s sword. So all I have to do is get through the next twenty-four hours without being spectacularly murdered and I should be fine. Right?“

– Lord Seff Thurat, beleaguered dilettante and all-around scoundrel

The Exit Zero Zombie trilogy, because you always knew the zombie apocalypse would begin in New Jersey. The book series, Exit Zero, followed by Nuke Jersey and ending with Zombie Democracy, take the zombie genre in an entirely new direction, the Garden State Parkway south. 

Author Neil A. Cohen blends horror and humor to create a fast-moving story and relatable characters. He also created an apocalypse with a complete backstory, explaining the how and why the virus was created as well as why the infected, or as he describes them, addicted, look and behave the way they do. 

3 Unique Storylines. Over 50 Possible Endings. Just one question... Will you survive the zombie apocalypse? Here's how it works: You, Dear Reader, are the main character of this story. Live, die, and rise again based solely on the merit of your own choices.

"Infected. Is. So. Good." -- A girl just like you. "Holy $#*% this is awesome!" -- A guy more or less like you.

Hitomi Beaumann isn’t supposed to live to see her 18th birthday. Hitomi has always been just an average girl in a small town. But now she's being followed and her skin prickles every time the eyes are on her. After escaping a brutal attack thanks to a mysterious young man, she discovers he is one of the ones who have been watching her. Obsidian has jet black hair, red eyes and an attitude to match. She realizes that he might just be as evil as he wants her to believe. With someone trying to kill Hitomi, she finds herself plunged into a reality where a power struggle has been raging for years between mystical realms, humans are not the only beings and most of her life has been a lie.

When a deadly virus decimates most of Earth's population, 16-year-old Sawyer Bradshaw finds he is both immune and alone in a world that has descended into violent chaos. Armed with only his estranged father's shotgun, and an unrelenting desire to stay alive, Sawyer discovers that he not only has an uncanny knack for cheating death, but also for taking lives. He meets his match in a fierce and cunning teenage girl named Sara. By her side, Sawyer emerges as more than just a natural-born killer but as a leader among men.

As the young survivors fall desperately in love, they find themselves caught up in a series of conspiracies and twisted struggles for power. They soon realize love, betrayal, and death tend to walk hand in hand.

The Broken Destiny is a profound book about a select group of South African children who were conceived in a laboratory and exiled to another planet. On the planet the factions are quickly apparent. Military, Agricultural. Zulu tribe and all these earthlings live alongside an ancient race known as the Minoans. A council rules with a strict hand and keeps the children hidden from many truths about who and what they really are. That is until a girl meets a boy from a different sector and a prophecy is set in motion that could cause Ava to become their salvation or their destroyer.

Emily Croy Barker’s enchanting debut novel offers an intelligent escape into a richly imagined world. With an appealing female protagonist, cinematic storytelling, wry humor, and clever literary references, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic has captured the imaginations of readers everywhere.

During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, eager to forget about her disastrous breakup and stalled dissertation, Nora Fischer wanders off and somehow finds herself in another realm. There, she meets glamorous Ilissa—who introduces Nora to a decadent new world—and her devastatingly handsome son, Raclin. But when the elegant veneer of this dreamland shatters, Nora finds herself in a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. And the only way she can survive is by learning magic herself.

Luke, an astrophysicist working on a Mars mission, finds his world is far more dystopian than he ever considered. Three simple letters lead him down a road of deception, mind manipulation, and espionage, and all seem tied to the planned flight to Mars. The deeper he gets into understanding that an elite few are in control, the more discoveries point to the letters T-H-B being the answer to everything.

Luke and his friends try to stay under the radar while traveling from Houston to Paris to Hong Kong to unravel this mystery of T-H-B that consumes his every waking hour.

The idea that time and history move forward is a cornerstone of critical economic perspectives. But what happens to the present when the past catches up with it? History in Financial Times pursues this question in connection with contemporary financial capitalism, exploring the strange power of the past within financial journalism, policymaking, and popular culture. From comparisons with the Great Depression to the enduring appeal of fictional characters like Gordon Gekko, the book shows how the past continually circulates through and shapes the present, such that historical change emerges through a shifting panorama of historical associations, names, and dates.

The End is at Hand is an illustrated history of the apocalypse. People have always concerned themselves with the end of the world. Through a collection of short essays, the book explores how it has all ended before, when we mistakenly thought it would end again, and the ways it could end in the future. Told chronologically, the tales begin with prehistoric extinctions and extend into the distant future when the universe may (or may not) collapse. Nothing lasts forever, including the worlds we inhabit – human society, our planet, and the entire universe.