Dystopian Short Stories

It's not the end of the world...only humanity! All five books in the haunting Humanity Series have been brought together in one digital collection. Follow Scott Beck in his quest to keep himself, those he loves, and humanity alive. Combining dystopian, post-apocalyptic, and cyberpunk fiction, The Humanity Series depicts a future in which humanity is on the brink of annihilation. Join the adventure before it's too late!

From New York Times best seller Mira Grant comes Countdown, a novella prequel set in the thrilling and treacherous world of Feed. The year is 2014, the year everything changed. We cured cancer. We cured the common cold. We died. This is the story of how we rose. When will you rise?

The first collection by writer Matthew Hughes, and the perfect companion to his acclaimed novel Black Brillion, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories features nine stories taking place in the universe of The Archonate, as well as four non-series stories. The stories of Henghis Hapthorn, Old Earth's "foremost freelance discriminator", combine mystery and science fantasy while simultaneously recalling the arch irony of Gene Wolfe and the sly fancies of Jack Vance.

One sunny day in the middle of a pandemic, Posey Pig decides her life would better serve others if she ended it. However, a chance meeting with an unlikely friend encourages her to reconsider, and they both discover something worth fighting for.

A runaway biological effect begins to rapidly increase oxygen levels across the planet, transforming the very air we breathe into a ticking time bomb. Forests ignite spontaneously, and fires rage unchecked as the increased oxygen feeds their voracious appetites. The world plunges into chaos, with cities becoming infernos and the natural order spiralling out of control. High above the stricken planet, two astronauts aboard the International Space Station bear witness to the unfolding catastrophe. Ellie and Sergei, left alone in orbit due to the increasingly hazardous atmosphere, have little ...

Chicken Little was right after all. The sky literally is falling. In a cataclysmic turn of events, the ambitious venture of asteroid mining spirals into a nightmarish scenario that no one saw coming—except perhaps, the fabled Chicken Little. It began with a boom as colossal machines drilled deep into the heart of a massive asteroid, seeking the treasures within. But what followed was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. The failure was spectacular, an explosive mishap that sent the asteroid shattering into a million pieces, unleashing a torrent of carbon flakes upon the Earth. These ...

Meet Simion, who navigates a landscape where familiar faces vanish from the ballot, replaced by a spectrum of virtues. Loyalty, confidence, and honesty—these virtues redefine the criteria for leadership, challenging traditional notions - vote for traits, not people. As the votes are cast, how will the moral compass guide our new leader? Join Simion as he grapples with existential questions: Will forgiveness soften justice? Will righteousness reign supreme? Or will chaos concoct a cure for society's ruin?

Three years after a series of massive waves takes out New York City and apocalyptic weather continues to shrink US coastlines, Julian and Kate's daughter returns to their Midwestern home...what's left of it. They should be thrilled, but while Kate is happy to have her daughter home, Julian can't quite believe it's really her. Since their daughter worked in New York City at the time of the first disaster, it seems impossible for her to be alive.

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake - whether set in the years soon after the change, or in decades far in the future.

Now the Congress of Animals is in control, unforgiving, and debating the fate of the planet’s most reviled species. The popular ruling: Exterminate humankind without exception. But a curious mare, coming of age, is making a case for a seemingly gentle person she longs to save - a wish for mercy that could once again unbalance the new and righteous nature of the world.

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.

In the world of the Stymph, humans have become prey. Survivors must hide every day and night, praying the Stymphs don't find them. If they do, there's no escape. Technology helps them to come back, to Reawaken after a Stymph feasts upon them... ...but what price does Reawakening exact? Follow Captain Yuen as he journeys to a place he never expected. Into the minds of fellow humans, once people he knew, now mentally damaged and trying to heal. But Captain Yuen will discover something on this journey...something that could rock all of humanity to its core. (This story takes place within the ...

He doesn’t know how to love and cannot bring himself to hate her, so all he can offer is tender cruelty. A boy who was never taught how to love. A man bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. A villain who holds the power to destroy the very girl he cannot let go. Who is Asher Rudd? In this raw and compelling prequel, fully narrated from Asher’s perspective, discover the secrets behind the man who commands Kiara Bennet’s world. Haunted by a childhood he can’t escape and a promise he refuses to break, Asher lives a life ruled by control—until Kiara storms into his life. ...

A prison doctor escapes with a handsome inmate. Thom works as a doctor at a prison. He finds the jailbirds attractive, even though he knows he can never date one. Celtus, an inmate, gets slashed with a shank and must visit Dr. Thom’s office, and the attraction is immediate. It’s suffocating. Too bad there’s nothing the men while the cameras and other guards are watching. Not until a cyberattack hits the computers and leads to a prison break at the very moment that Celtus is in Dr. Thom’s office. Jailbreak is a fluffy and spicy standalone m/m short romance story with low angst, ...

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?

The 'best short story writer in English' (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Marisol willingly seals herself into a bunker designed for profound solitude, only to discover she is never truly alone. In this intense and unsettling psychological thriller, she battles haunting echoes of her own voice and an AI that claims to have created it. As hallucinations and hidden cameras unfold an unsettling spectacle for unseen watchers, Marisol races to expose the cycle of her own making before it consumes her entirely. Dormant Frequencies delves into the unnerving depths of isolation and the fine line between personal ambition and self-inflicted terror, all within a concise, ...

Jonathan R. Rose’s feminist fable slices into the reader with the satirical razor of Angela Carter. — James M Wright Growing up in a small highway town, Elena Corzo always dreamt of attending university in her country’s capital city. After leaving home and finally arriving in the sprawling metropolis however, she becomes overwhelmed by its relentless movement, suffocating population, strange customs and unaffordable prices. Less than a month to go before her classes begin, Elena finds herself trapped in perdition, where she catches the eye of Diego Bustamante. Handsome, successful and...

It's on the prowl... When an inquisitive paperboy notices something strange along his route, he immediately investigates. But what begins as an innocent inquiry will soon become something hauntingly sinister. And as the truth is unleashed, the neighborhood discovers... THE ATTACK IS JUST BEGINNING Now, hampered by a record storm and left to fend for themselves, three high schoolers must do the impossible. Their neighborhood is under attack--the infection spreading. And with a deadly creature and its undead minions on the loose, what these teenagers think they know, could never be more wrong...

In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstances. Throughout these breathtakingly creative 17 stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs. A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison.