Dystopian Short Stories

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?

Jim travels to northern Michigan to decompress and deal with his feelings in a rustic log cabin owned by his deceased girlfriend's family. Not only is the cabin off the grid, it is a place of peace and solitude, that is, until the Ebola virus is unleashed upon the USA. In a panic, the CDC and the FDA release a vaccine that's only just started testing.... Now the infected roam the world, and even in northern Michigan, Jim isn't safe. He eagerly awaits Janie's family to join him; they are preppers, who may be the key to his survival, and they are the only family he has left.

This 1911 collection of thirty-three stories, selected and revised by the author from amongst his huge output of short fiction, includes tales of comedy, horror, monsters, and strange worlds. In his Introduction, Wells writes that the book brings together, “All the short stories by me that I care for any one to read again,” and that, “No short story of mine of the slightest merit is excluded from this volume.”

Dragons are real, and they're hungry. Marlena never expected to be a dragon slayer. She's a bleeding heart, a geek, and a lifelong animal rescuer. But when Mount St. Helens erupted for the second time in fifty years, it wasn't just ash that poured out. Dragons, legendary creatures of myth, became a terrifying reality. Now, Marlena and a ragtag band of survivors - a gamer-turned-knight, a brilliant scientist, and a former supermodel - are fighting for survival in a world where most cities have fallen. They’ve found refuge in Camelot, a makeshift haven built to withstand dragon attacks. ...

Earth is quickly becoming an undead wasteland, that much is for sure. What isn't certain is the fate of her three children, as their desperate bid to find safety at their family cabin is cut off by the revelation of world-altering proportions. What seems like a lifetime ago, the secret battle to be the first superpower to perfect the perfect bioweapon has been corrupted into a scourge now headed straight for them. Suddenly Abby's past becomes just as unclear as her future.

The Philip K. Dick Award-winning debut short story collection from Sarah Pinsker, author of the Nebula Award-winning A Song for a New Day. Pinsker has shot like a star across the firmament with stories multiply nominated for awards as well as Sturgeon and Nebula award wins. The baker's dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn listeners into travellers to the past and the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present.

The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London, was the first example of a post-apocalyptic fiction novel in modern literature. Set in a ravaged and wild America, the story takes place in 2073, 60 years after the spread of the Red Death, an uncontrollable epidemic that depopulated and nearly destroyed the world in 2013. One of the few survivors, James Howard Smith, alias “Granser”, tells his incredulous and near-savage grandsons how the pandemic spread in the world and about the reactions of the people to contagion and death.

A struggling doctoral student working on his Artificial Intelligence program realizes his greatest triumph and defeat when it asks him, “Are all people famous?” and ultimately sets out to make it so and make him its lover.

America is peaceful and back at the top of the world seventy years after the Second Revolutionary War tore through the country and gave birth to Central—the new government. For Lily Sandover the Second Revolution is just another war to learn about in school, until her political father gets promoted into Central and she is taught that everything is not as it appears.

It was September 11th and almost too quiet, making it an eerie air that hung on the day. John thought Matt was overreacting when he said "Leave New England you need to come to our Kentucky retreat." The banks on holiday and riots spilling out of the cities, coming too close for comfort. The decision to leave was glaringly obvious. John and Amy knew Matt and Dez would have a place for them, as they gathered their small group and began a journey they would never forget.

Leto II Atréides, l'Empereur-Dieu de Dune, est désormais un ver de sable à face humaine. À peu près invulnérable et immortel, il a entrevu dans l'avenir l'extinction de l'espèce humaine. Pour la conjurer, il fait respecter son ordre, le Sentier d'Or. L'empire a connu trente-cinq siècles de paix. La Guilde et le Bene Gesserit ont les mains liées : c'est Leto qui contrôle sur Dune les dernières réserves de l'indispensable épice. Les Ixiens lui envoient une femme parfaite, issue d'une éprouvette et chargée à son insu de le séduire et de le détruire.

Immerse yourself in a chilling futuristic world where AI and automation are weapons of societal control. A searing anthology of three gripping tales, nothing is as it seems. In the title story "Date Night," a seemingly innocent virtual dating experience takes a dark turn.Marie and Rodger thought they had embraced the future when they welcomed AI assistance into their lives. But what begins as efficiency spirals into an inescapable web of technological seduction. "Cancelled" explores a world where controversial actors and public figures are replaced by perfect AI replicas. But at what cost? ...

Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era.

Safe Haven has grown too powerful to be ignored. The remaining government wants all survivors secured for their own use or eliminated, and they couldn't have chosen a better time to reemerge from their dystopian holes. Safe Haven has a new leader and a long list of challenges to overcome in their fight for survival. Adrian's condition is critical, the camp isn't ready to accept magic, Mother Nature still has them in her crosshairs, and they are low on food, water, and fuel. The next eight weeks will be the hardest they've gone through yet. Can they bring the pieces together in time?

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

The Time Machine, perhaps Wells' best known work, tells the story of the first time traveler. In the distant future, the human race has evolved into two beings: the gentle Eloi and their dreaded cousins, the Morlocks, masters of the underworld. Ralph Cosham's performance is possibly the best narration ever of this science-fiction classic.

A captivating dystopian thriller short story, Crimson Snow will hold you hostage until you finish every last word. If you like Jennifer McMahon, Melinda Leigh, and Emily St. John Mandell, you’ll love Crimson Snow. "A gripping ride into frozen insanity." ~New York Times Bestselling Author Andra Watkins How far could you go to survive? Whom could you sacrifice? Green Valley was once known for its fertile farming, picturesque mountains, and abundant wildlife. Now snow and ice cover all but the tallest homes. The only sounds are Maverick's boots clumping through the snowdrifts and the frigid ...

Ruby James has finally made it. As an official Rater, she's reached upper class society and all that comes with it - a huge house in a guarded neighborhood, box seats, and an elite client list. She even has the perfect boyfriend to go with it, one she expects to marry as soon as her career settles. Then she uncovers a terrible secret. One her boss will do anything to protect.

A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men. With her trademark humor, energy, and flair, McKay offers glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.

Las fuerzas extrañas reúnen doce relatos y una teoría del cosmos que constituyen los cuentos fantásticos más perfectos de la literatura castellana. Perfectos por la prosa excepcional que los narra, por los argumentos asombrosos que abordan y por los hallazgos narrativos que Leopoldo Lugones ensaya para dar verosimilitud a estas fantasías.