The 11 Best Postapocalyptic Books For Walking Dead Fans

After a brutal pandemic wipes out a large portion of civilization, every person is left to fend for themselves in order to survive. It's in this context that Station Eleven's protagonists have assembled, a ragtag group of actors who travel the continent performing music and theater for those who have survived. It's a love story, a story of the fundamental struggles to move forward in uncertain times, and ultimately, a reminder of how humanity can thrive under the least-likely circumstances.

Ernest Cline's masterwork Ready Player One takes place in 2044, a time when the world is in ruins and the only solace to be found is in within a virtual gaming network called OASIS. But within that game is a quest for the ultimate Easter egg that can change the life of anyone who finds it, a challenge that requires the most extensive knowledge of pop culture and video game culture imaginable. So when Wade Watts finds the first clue to the puzzle, the clock starts ticking down and he's on the race of his life to find the ultimate way to transcend the brutal reality around him.

When a plague hits America and wipes out everyone over the age of 20, the children are left to fend for themselves in The Country of Ice Cream Star. Clans are formed and ways of life are developed, but as Ice Cream Star's brother approaches the age at which his life will end, she makes it her mission to find the cure — no matter how dangerous that journey may be.

Mitchell Zukor studies the worst-case scenarios for disasters for a living. So when the actual end of times comes for New York City, he's uniquely placed to rise to the occasion and attempt to rebuild the future. An obsession with the effects of our present on our future underlies the plot of Odds Against Tomorrow, but it's truly the story of what happens next that makes it well worth reading.

The near-future version of California, ravished by drought, is the backdrop for Gold Fame Citrus, but the real story comes out of the relationship between a surfer and a poster child who find a mysterious child at a rave and depart the only safety they've known since the crisis began in search of a better life for the next generation.

When a sentient virus invades computers across the world, a new war begins between humans and machines. The surprising part? The humans are joined by "freeborn" robots who fight on behalf of a free and stable future. Oh, and the author of Robopocalypse is a former robotics engineer, which serves to make the book feel real on an unprecedented level.

When Los Angeles falls apart, the last thing that Frida wants to do is bring a new life into the world. But that's exactly what happens when she becomes pregnant. She and her husband attempt to find a community that isn't too frightened to accept other stragglers in the new world. California is an exploration of the boundaries of humanity, and the risks we'll take in order to keep the ones we love safe.

The Only Ones is about those humans that are immune to the infertility that has struck the entire populace, and as a result, they become the test subjects on which the future of the world rests. But one of these immune individuals, Inez, is given a greater task: protecting a child who has been born against the odds, regardless of the challenges that are thrown her way.

When western America runs out of water in The Water Knife, they become reliant on vigilantes who "cut" water to survive. But when it becomes clear that there's a source of water that hasn't yet been tapped in Arizona, a journalist, an immigrant, and a "Water Knife" team up to try to get to the bottom of why the water isn't being shared with all — a dangerous undertaking that reveals a complicated network of crime and corruption that's reached far further than any one of them could've imagined.

The ultimate zombie tale isn't The Walking Dead, it's Max Brooks' bestselling World War Z. Centered around various characters flung across the country during the great zombie apocalypse, the book is an oral history of the zombie war, giving insight from all sides of the catastrophe.

Joy is immune to the plague that's sweeping the country, but that doesn't mean that she's immune to the everyday evils of being a lost 20-something in the modern world. Find Me tracks one woman's journey across a devastated country to find her birth mother, the past she can't quite remember, and most importantly, herself.