Apocalyptic Short Stories

A bounty hunting survivor. A Galactic dark elf. A woman who has given up her humanity to become something more. These stories and more are available in the first short story anthology for the System Apocalypse, covering year one on Earth. When the world ends, humanity steps up, finding new ways to survive in a world with Classes, magic and monsters. The anthology features exciting, new stories by five new writers and a new, never publicly released short story by Tao Wong.

While training for a manned mission to Mars, Dr. Sophie Winston and her team of scientists find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped inside a biosphere deep within the confines of Cheyenne Mountain, Sophie and crew discover they are the survivors of a brutal alien invasion. But as they struggle to stay alive, they realize their safe haven is far from safe and that they must team up with other survivors around the world to defeat the aliens before it’s too late for humanity and the Earth.

Disorder and chaos ravage London when thousands are contaminated by the accidental discharge of an experimental bioweapon. The disease robs its hosts of rational thought, giving them a singular desire - find more living flesh to infect.

The new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, featuring never-before-published stories and curated reprints by some of the genre's most popular and critically-acclaimed authors. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive.

In a post-apocalyptic future, 15-year-old Vic wanders the wasteland with Blood, his genetically-altered telepathic dog, in the Hugo Award-nominated and Nebula Award-winning novella, A Boy and His Dog - the basis of the cult classic film. An intergalactic conspiracy infects the minds of the most powerful politicians in the Republican Party - and only one jolly old elf can save them in “Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.” And in the Hugo Award-winning title story, disparate threads of violence, conflict, and conversation weave an intricate tapestry across worlds and times.

Before The Road by Cormac McCarthy brought apocalyptic fiction into the mainstream, there was science fiction. No longer relegated to the fringes of literature, this explosive collection of the world’s best apocalyptic writers brings the inventors of alien invasions, devastating meteors, doomsday scenarios, and all-out nuclear war back to with a bang. The best writers of the early 1900s were the first to flood New York with tidal waves, destroy Illinois with alien invaders, paralyze Washington with meteors, and lay waste to the Midwest with nuclear fallout.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell once wrote of a world where abuse of power begins with an abuse of language and a bastardization of truth. Some of today's most exciting voices in speculative fiction explore the ramifications of those ideas in Ignorance Is Strength.

At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.

Zombie, Indiana explores the impact of an invading zombie horde on a trio of Hoosier protagonists…each of whom have some dark secrets to keep. When the governor’s daughter mysteriously disappears on a field trip, IMPD Special Sergeant James Nolan, scholarship student Kesha Washington, and Governor Hank Burleson must all come together not only to find the governor’s daughter, but also to undertake a quest to redeem the very soul of the state itself…all while under constant attack from the living dead.

In her new collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh delves into the dark heart of contemporary life and life five minutes from now and how easy it is to mix up one with the other. Her stories are post-bird flu, in the middle of medical trials, wondering if our computers are smarter than us, wondering when our jobs are going to be outsourced overseas, wondering if we are who we say we are, and not sure what we'd do to survive the coming zombie plague.

A dismembered body in the park.... Grand Rapids Detective Bill DeYoung is an old-timer riding it out until retirement. A ravaged body in the park and a drunken witness are about to change his plans; so is the end of the world. The events happen concurrently with the first novel, End Time, but it can be heard at any point in the series to get exciting additional content on the origin of a main character.

A bounty hunting survivor. A Galactic dark elf. A woman who has given up her humanity to become something more. These stories and more are available in the first short story anthology for the System Apocalypse, covering year one on Earth. When the world ends, humanity steps up, finding new ways to survive in a world with classes, magic, and monsters. The anthology features exciting, new stories by five new writers and a new, never publicly released short story by Tao Wong.

The EMP has officially crippled the nation and her infrastructure sits in ruin. Can a burned-out DEA agent, a Guatemalan-born cartel daughter, and an estranged brother find their way back to their families, or will they succumb to the perils of a nation in steep decline? The Complete Age of Embers is a no-holds-barred post-apocalyptic adventure series chronicling a nationwide descent into a powerless world. 

Hugh Howey is known for crafting riveting and immersive tales of boundless imagination. Now comes Machine Learning, an impressive collection of Howey's science fiction and fantasy short fiction, including three stories set in the world of Wool, two never-before-published tales written exclusively for this volume, and 15 additional stories collected here for the first time. These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author's note.

Ready for your next audiobook? How about almost 40 hours of non-stop action, brought to life by award-winning narrator Kevin Pierce? A corrupt president...A world without power...A handful of survivors battle impossible odds in the madness. Follow a cast of unforgettable characters as they navigate a societal collapse that threatens their very existence. These three pulse-pounding tales paint a harrowing portrait of a frighteningly plausible future, and are sure to keep fans of A.G. Riddle, Hugh Howey, and Justin Cronin resisting to pause long into the night.

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.

The world ends in a slew of blue notification boxes, bringing with it a game-like existence including monsters and Classes. Now, John has to make his way from Kluane National Park in the Yukon to Whitehorse through monster infested forests. But, that's not enough; because he'll need to help rebuild civilization itself around the System, aliens and monsters. And, as always, humanity will be its own greatest enemy.

Ray Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science-fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

With more than 10 stories from exciting new voices and a few veterans of the universe, the second anthology highlights the lives and struggles of humanity's best and worst years after system advent.

Jack Zombie is a thrilling post-apocalyptic series that follows a tight-knit group of people as they travel the zombie-ridden wasteland once known as the United States. As you follow Jack and his family, you'll soon discover that nothing can rival a human's will to survive.