Dystopian Short Stories

Full of friendship and revenge, each story and setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, in these futuristic lands, the people must still confront deeply human emotions and dilemmas. Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and immerses listeners into six short stories that feel startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful. With two new stories from the Carve the Mark universe, this collection has something for everyone.

Six hundred years after the War: A group of elderly hermits live in an ancient, crumbling fortress, high up a mountainside. A local Lord, armed with a powerful relic, wants to take it from them. A young Shepherd is determined to save them.

Torn from the world she’s used to, Nyra battles with the mystery of her father’s death. Gary’s hospitality has made the sudden change easy on her. They’ve formed a quick friendship – a friendship that stops Nyra from spinning into total unease. However, more and more mysteries unfold that put more questions in Nyra’s mind than are answered. When someone masquerades as a familiar face to ask about her father in her dream, Nyra begins to understand that she may be part of something she has no idea about. But why? Answers may be waiting for her if she honors the text that promises ...

The world is burning and Nelson Miles is the only man alive who can stop it. Nelson Miles is a software engineer who confronts a rogue AI he designed that is bent on saving the biosphere by reducing the human population to sustainable limits. When the AI sends a little girl to Nelson demanding assistance in its designs, Nelson has to decide between saving himself and the girl or sacrificing the girl so he can destroy the monster he created.

Laundrygate: Strange Stories About the Future is an unusual collection of short stories about the unimagined consequences of technology and the creation of new realities. Tery Spataro dreams up these wild, surreal tales and envisions the outcomes brought about by technological change and human curiosity, and imagines post-humanist worlds. The four heroines of Laundrygate experience many themes and challenges caused by these otherworldly environments.

Imagine a company so large that it touches the lives of the majority of citizens around the globe. Through technology, seemingly unlimited resources and philanthropy, kongo.com set out to change the world while making profits never seen before in business. Follow the actions of this behemoth company through four stories detailing the life-changing methods used to make the world a better place. What could possibly go wrong? Listen to these stories to find out exactly what can go wrong, even with the best intentions.

Waiting for Martin is set in a nebulous future-never in which catastrophic environmental change has returned ancient beings to Earth, as well as raining down a disastrous helping of new ones. A family of children try to make their way home to their older brother, who is their guardian, when a bit of environmental fallout gets in their way.

Earth has fallen far from its splendor and progress. Humanity’s long-held fear of an asteroid colliding with the world has come to pass, and the repercussions are devastating. Resultant natural disasters, plagues, and famines have taken billions of lives. With mankind’s future uncertain, scientists set to work creating a virtual Earth in which people can live in the mind rather than in physical form.

Fighting in the streets, corruption at the highest levels, collapsing infrastructure, brutal police, a daily threat of nuclear war: few of us thought we’d find ourselves here, so far into the 21st century. What’s next? Are we really going to be “great again,” however that’s meant? And if we are, what does that mean for those of us on the receiving end of the less-than-great? In this diverse and vigorous mix of stories by newcomers and luminaries, writers offer their takes on what life might hold for us in the next few years.

When her mother's head is pulped to mush by a coin carelessly dropped from higher up in the mega-city, sixteen-year-old Jerica makes a difficult trek up through a miles-high skyscraper, determined to find out who dropped the coin and avenge her mother

The year is 2836: 800 years since the great war. Liberty has grown up in this postapocalyptic climate. Her home is an airship built by her adopted father. It has been five years since his death, and each day is just another day of trying to survive in a hostile environment. That is until a dying friend of her father asks if she'll take custody of a small, childlike robot.

Prawdziwa sensacja i tajemnicze historie są na wyciągnięcie ręki! I to dosłownie. Jeżeli uważasz, że istnieje zbrodnia doskonała, a pierwszym człowiekiem na Księżycu był Neil Armstrong, to koniecznie musisz wysłuchać czterech brawurowo napisanych opowiadań autorstwa Dariusza Rekosza, które otworzą Ci oczy. Okazuje się bowiem, że w świecie pędzącym ku zdigitalizowaniu naszego życia, nikt nie może czuć się bezpieczny, a praca w biurze w nadgodzinach kończy się nieoczekiwanym wyzwoleniem drzemiących w ludziach żądz. Gdy rozum śpi, budzą się demony?

Perché un paladino in copertina? Certamente perché il racconto, intrigante e pieno di atmosfera, è ambientato in Sicilia - ma tranquilli, di dialetto ce n'è poco. Quanto basta, "come il sale", secondo una lettrice di Parma. Ma c'è un secondo motivo. In tutti i racconti tratti da "Pilipintò - Racconti da bagno per Siciliani e non", come questo "I moti del 2048" che state per ascoltare dalla mia voce, troverete trame e capovolgimenti di prospettiva.

Generations after a bloody nuclear civil war, the United States is not as we know it. The inhabitants of the Northern states live as normal, but the South, after being decimated during the Second Civil War, are a changed people. Nuclear fallout has stolen any vestige of humanity. When the aircraft carrying the President of the Northern United States takes an erroneous detour, it is shot down somewhere over the south.

While wandering outdoors, Gary makes an amazing discovery that turns his life upside down. A clunky, old piece of metal becomes a trusted companion - or does it? Follow them on a tragicomic, interplanetary journey with its share of twists and turns, bumps, and bruises.

A stream of consciousness short story about life after undeath. An entertaining satire about personal transformation in the face of frightening odds. Not for the faint of heart.

Have you ever wondered what lies behind every click you make on the internet? What if the data from your online life is used to change your own future? As the internet shapes a new era, three corporations become the rulers of a virtual world called Etherea. Mr. Davis, the CEO of Apollo Corporations, will have to fight against two unprecedented enemies that seek supremacy in the universe.

In this science fiction short story, a young man living in a totalitarian farming community seeks a better life in a fabled city beneath the ground.

In a dystopian America 50 years from now, a battle-weary enforcer for a domestic terrorist cell trying to overthrow the ruling class questions his faith in the cause.

Jennifer Benton has made it through the zombie apocalypse and has fallen in love with Mark, the charismatic leader of a group of fellow survivors. He's brought them from Illinois to hoped-for shelter at his family's Texas ranch, only to discover it destroyed. The survivors have one more chance when Mark befriends Todd in a nearby refugee camp; he invites the group to fly with him to his wealthy family's home in Oklahoma. But what's inside Todd's house may be worse than the zombies outside. And now Jennifer has more than Mark and herself to worry about....