Books like 'Back to Before'
Readers who enjoyed Back to Before by K.A. Applegate & Katherine Applegate also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
sc-fi action / adventure mystery alternate history horror military, war & conflict aliens time-travel animals children
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Wolf 359 by Gabriel Urbina, Zach Valenti
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLife's not easy for Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. He's stuck on a scientific survey mission of indeterminate length, 7.8 light years from Earth... -
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it's on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out, but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings...Categorized as:
war 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
The Divide by Jeremy Robinson
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsA wildly exciting journey through a world remade, THE DIVIDE combines real characters with horrifically realized creations, pitting the worst of human nature against the strength of family. Equal parts action, horror, and moving drama that only Jeremy Robinson can pull off.WHEN THE DIVIDE IS CROSSED...No one remembers how the Divide was created...Categorized as:
survival action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book disaster -
The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is 1862, though not the 1862 it should be. . . . Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king’s agent, is one of the few people who know that the world is now careening along a very different course from that which Destiny intended...Categorized as:
time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies audiobook conspiracies crime -
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The Rift Walker by Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsPrincess Adele struggles with a life of marriage and obligation as her Equatorian Empire and their American Republic allies stand on the brink of war against the vampire clans of the north. However, the alliance's horrific strategy for total victory drives Adele to abandon her duty and embark on a desperate quest to keep her nation from staining its hands with genocide...Categorized as:
war action-adventure alpha-mc alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book dark -
The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFirst-class entertainment (The Sunday Times) from a classic SF author. En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist...Categorized as:
aliens invasion time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
One Second After by William R. Forstchen
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsNew York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real ... a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages ... A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP)... -
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThe year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind...Categorized as:
survival war 21st-century action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
Tale of the Thunderbolt by E.E. Knight
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAs the Resistance attempts to overthrow their vampiric alien masters, elite Cat force member David Valentine embarks on a terrifying journey in search of a long-lost weapon that will guarantee their victory-and the end of the Kurian Order's domination of Earth... -
Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMercy Lynch is working at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when she learns that her husband has died in a POW camp and her estranged father is gravely injured and wishes to see her. With no good reason to stay in Virginia, Mercy sets out to see her father in Seattle...Categorized as:
war action-adventure alternate-history alternate-universe apocalyptic audiobook book civil-war -
Ganymede by Cherie Priest
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe air pirate Andan Cly is going straight. Well, straighter. Although he’s happy to run alcohol guns wherever the money’s good, he doesn’t think the world needs more sap, or its increasingly ugly side-effects. But becoming legit is easier said than done, and Cly’s first legal gig—a supply run for the Seattle Underground—will be paid for by sap money...Categorized as:
war action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book civil-war dystopia -
The Fold by Peter Clines
Rated: 3.87 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsSTEP INTO THE FOLD. IT’S PERFECTLY SAFE. The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's chosen isn’t much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he’s content with his quiet and peaceful existence...Categorized as:
aliens survival time-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic -
The World Turned Upside Down by David Drake, Poul Anderson
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratings29 short stories from 1933-1967 that left permanent significant impact on the three editors as teens.1 Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke (Astounding Science Fiction May'46)2 Menace from Earth by Robert A. Heinlein (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug'57)3 Code Three by Rick Raphael (Analog Feb'63)4 Hunting Problem by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy Sep'55)5 Black Destroyer by A. E...Categorized as:
aliens invasion time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies classics -
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOne hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting.What if the football hadn't gone over the wall. On the other side of the wall there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn't want anyone to know... -
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Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history...Categorized as:
aliens invasion time-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
The Fossil by Greig Beck
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsKlaus and Doris have just made the discovery of their lives – a complete Neanderthal skeleton buried in a newly opened sinkhole. But on removing it, something else tumbles free. Something that switches on, and then calls home.Soon the owners are coming back, and nothing will stop their ruthless search for their lost prize...Categorized as:
aliens time-travel action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book -
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsA young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service in exchange for his freedom. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four...Categorized as:
poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book -
City of Savages by Lee Kelly
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt has been nearly two decades since the breakout of the Third World War, and Manhattan is now a prisoner-of-war camp ruled by island native Rolladin, who controls the city’s survivors with an iron fist. For Skyler Miller, Manhattan is a cage that keeps her from the world beyond the city’s borders. But for Sky’s younger sister, Phee, the Central Park POW camp is the only home she’d ever want... -
Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs
Rated: 3.76 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsWhile young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with the epidemic of a radioactive virus. An opium-infused apocalyptic vision from the legendary author of Naked Lunch; the first of the trilogy with The Place of the Dead Roads and his final novel The Western Lands...Categorized as:
time-travel 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book classics -
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Rated: 3.77 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsTade Thompson's Rosewater is the start of an award-winning, cutting edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging new voices.Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers...Categorized as:
aliens invasion poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure adult afrofuturism alternate-history -
The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez
Rated: 3.66 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsMars is supposed to be dead.…Bizarre quakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason... -
The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle
Rated: 3.76 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe greatest mystery of all time...the history of human origins...will be revealed.In Antarctica, researchers discover a mysterious structure, buried in ice.In a lab in Jakarta, an autism researcher identifies a revolutionary treatment that could change everything.But these two incredible discoveries aren't what they seem...Categorized as:
aliens time-travel war action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook book -
Clementine by Cherie Priest
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMaria Isabella Boyd’s success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty…she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago.Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army...Categorized as:
war action-adventure alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book civil-war dystopia -
The Stone Man by Luke Smitherd
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNobody knew where it came from.Nobody knew why it came.When an eight feet tall man made of stone appears in the middle of a busy city centre one July afternoon, two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer assumes it's just a publicity stunt.Indeed, so does everyone else .. -
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Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis
Rated: 3.74 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsTruth is a human right.It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father...Categorized as:
aliens invasion 21st-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book conspiracies -
Tiger Chair by Max Brooks
Rated: 3.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen China invades America, guerrilla warfare explodes on the streets of Los Angeles in this provocative short story about the future of war from Max Brooks, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War Z.China thought it would be a quick war, an easy war... -
Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances by Trisha Telep, Maria V. Snyder
Rated: 3.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDark, urban fantasies come to life in the newest collection of Steampunk stories, Corsets & Clockwork. Young heroes and heroines battle evils with the help of supernatural or super-technological powers, each individual story perfectly balancing historical and fantastical elements...Categorized as:
war action-adventure alternate-history anthologies dystopia fiction historical historical-fiction -
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Rated: 3.53 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIn the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born... -
Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson
Rated: 3.35 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCassie Klyne, nineteen years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015—but it’s not our United States, and it’s not our 2015.Cassie’s world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1914. There was no World War II, no Great Depression. Poverty is declining, prosperity is increasing everywhere; social instability is rare. But Cassie knows the world isn’t what it seems...Categorized as:
aliens invasion action-adventure adult alternate-history alternate-universe audiobook book -
Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
Rated: 3.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack...
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