Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Dystopian

In late-twenty-first-century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside an immersive, consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile, their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments. Across the city, in the abandoned real world, Tao-Yi's mother remains stubbornly offline, dwindling away between hospital visits and memories of her earlier life in Malaysia.

It was a hard-learned lesson but Jim Powell finally understood that isolating his group of friends and family was no longer the best idea. It was a strategy that had once kept them safe, but lately seemed to be doing exactly the opposite. Staying out of town and away from people had led to them missing critical intelligence—that there were people in their community actively plotting against Jim.

Seventeen-year-old Truth Medici scavenges for scraps to eat; weathers his parents' abuse; and battles derelicts, killer pimps, and demons in the soul-crushing stretch of desperation he calls home. Even the cops steer clear of the toxic Harban slums. But just across the canal live the magical elite, with their wealth, flying carpets, gorgeous mages, and custom spell beasts, all thanks to the patronage of the almighty Starbrite Corporation. Getting there, and taking his three vulnerable siblings with him, is Truth's only dream.

Richard Morgan has always been one of our most successful SF authors, with his fast-moving and brutal storylines, blistering plots and a powerful social conscience behind his work. And now he's back, with his first SF novel for eight years...and it promises to be an audiobook to remember. An ex-corporate enforcer, Hakan Veil, is forced to bodyguard Madison Madekwe, part of a colonial audit team investigating a disappeared lottery winner on Mars. But when Madekwe is abducted and Hakan nearly killed, the investigation takes him farther and deeper than he had ever expected.

Annie is a robot, created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug. Playful and eager to please, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the outfits he buys for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his whims. Maybe the apartment isn’t always spotless, but she’s trying to be good enough for Doug. She’s trying really hard.

When an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strikes Rose of the Sea, the pleasure cruise becomes a drifting nightmare. Powerless and desperate, the 1,100 passengers and crew must face their new reality: No one is coming to save them.

Two teams of pipe-hitting special-operations Marines. A tribe knit tight as steel cable. One Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman, struggling to find his place and keep the others alive. And everything at the end of the world exploding spectacularly at all times...

Toby, a survivor of the man-made plague that has swept the earth, is telling stories. Stories left over from the old world, and stories that will determine a new one. Listening hard is young Blackbeard, one of the innocent Crakers, the species designed to replace humanity. Their reluctant prophet, Jimmy-the-Snowman, is in a coma, so they've chosen a new hero—Zeb, the street-smart man Toby loves. As clever Pigoons attack their fragile garden and malevolent Painballers scheme, the small band of survivors will need more than stories.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.”

Mitchell is a brilliant biologist, committed to the environment and the growing global antinatalist movement. For one month each year he lives with his colleague Frances in a utopia of radical equality and scientific dedication in Antarctica. They are concluding the Anarctos Project: a seed vault in an isolated, secret location. It is a biodiversity insurance policy against humanity’s devastating effects on the rapidly warming planet.

Jude's life has been about survival. She works on rebuilding - fixes roofs, trucks supplies, transports refugees. Tries to stay free from attachments and obligations. But Jude won't talk about her past. Or her sister Celeste, lost in the tragic failure of a space station that was supposed to save her, and the other ultra-rich, from the wreckage of a dying world. When an escape pod falls from the sky, its passenger near death, Jude knows her anonymous existence can't continue. As the fragile peace of her community is put at risk, Jude must re-examine the terms of her survival - and her exile.

London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia.

Tautly-written and suspenseful, Burning Chrome collects 10 of William Gibson’s best short stories with a preface from Bruce Sterling, co-Cyberpunk and editor of the seminal anthology Mirrorshades. These brilliant, high-resolution stories show Gibson's characters and intensely-realized worlds at his absolute best.

Amid the sun-drenched orange groves of California, childhood friends Tuck Mattice and Emily Swanson shared a bond that seemed unbreakable—until life ripped them apart. Thirteen years later, Emily is a rising pop sensation in need of security, and Tuck, a brooding ex-con, is in need of a fresh start. When fate brings them together once again, Emily hires him on as her new bodyguard. They butt heads and bicker, just like the old days—yet neither can deny the heat rekindling between them.

If society collapsed, could you survive?

When Morgan Carter's car breaks down 250 miles from his home, he figures his weekend plans are ruined. But things are about to get much, much worse: the country's power grid has collapsed. There is no electricity, no running water, no Internet, and no way to know when normalcy will be restored - if it ever will be.

Lily wakes up in a compound in the middle of the desert, along with nine other women. All young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world. Cameras track their every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans. Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey. By sundown on their first day together, each contestant must have chosen a bedmate of the opposite sex or risk immediate banishment. Tasks must be completed, and rewards won to make the residents more desirable to each other.

This is Nadia. She is fiercely independent, with an excellent sense of humour and a love of smoking alone on her balcony late at night. This is Saeed. He is sweet and shy and kind to strangers. He also has a balcony but he uses his for stargazing. This is their story: a love story, but also a story about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow.

Life has hardened Joanna Mercer, and she has spent the past four years since her husband's death preparing herself against the uncertainties of life. After an EMP destroys the nation's power grid, every ounce of that strength will be tested.

After nearly a year and a half without power, Jim Powell’s community has begun to stabilize. The Reset Roadhouse—Jim’s apocalyptic bar, restaurant, and trading post—gave his people something to do and helped expand his network of friends and contacts. The establishment has become a hub of the community and is allowing Jim to better monitor what goes on in the town. Then the promise of electricity changes everything.

It was intended to eradicate the common cold; instead it eradicated most of the human race. A genetically modified virus killer mutates, transforming everyone it infects into zombies. As it rapidly spreads across the globe, small groups of survivors battle to stay alive and escape the growing hordes of flesh eaters.