Dystopian Short

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.

This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Octavia E. Butler. A Necessary Being precedes the events of Survivor, Butler's third (famously disowned) installment in her Patternist series, and includes characters from it, focusing exclusively on the Kohn, aliens who build their social hierarchies on the blueness of their fur. In Childfinder, a black woman with the gift of identifying children with latent psychic ability refuses to share her skill with an organization of white telepaths.

Vitus Adamson is falling apart. As a pre-deceased private investigator, he takes the prescription Atroxipine hourly to keep his undead body upright and functioning. Whenever he is injured, he seeks Niko, a bombshell mortician with bedroom eyes and a way with corpses, to piece him back together. Decomposition, however, is the least of his worries when two clients posing his most dangerous job yet appear at his door looking for their lost son.

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.

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

In a futuristic world where predictive software can map out the lives of every living person and their descendants, Naomi Prynne is on trial. The charge: endangerment by way of a pregnancy. Thirteen jurors will determine whether Naomi is allowed to carry the pregnancy to term, but the jurors are also all plaintiffs, the software having predicted how Naomi Prynne’s child will affect each of them in life-changing ways. 

The perfect addition to the number one New York Times best-selling Red Queen series, Broken Throne features three brand-new novellas, alongside two previously published novellas, Steel Scars and Queen Song. Fans will be delighted to catch up with beloved characters after the drama of War Storm and be excited to hear from brand-new voices as well. This stunning collection is not to be missed.

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.

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award - winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy. An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: A graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind - hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth’s population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed forever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces. Now the virus has reached Britain.... Queen Margaret rules over a country in which such legendary figures as Herne the Hunter, Spring-heeled Jack and Babh, the goddess of war, roam at will.

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light.

A riveting new post-apocalyptic EMP box set that keeps you guessing until the end! EMP masterminds Alexandria Clarke, author of Black Out, and James Hunt, author of Static and Surviving the Collapse, come together in this super box set for the first time! In Blackout, after an EMP bomb detonates over the United States, frying the entire electrical grid, Georgie Fitz decides to take refuge at her estranged father’s cabin in the Rocky Mountains with her boyfriend and his family.

It's been one year since a virus triggered junk DNA and people all over the world started changing, becoming something else, craving blood. It's been 10 months since the word vampire stopped being something from old monster stories and Hollywood movies. It's been six months since our world and theirs erupted into war, two since an uneasy peace was signed, and one hour since that peace was shattered. The war is here again - the vampire war.

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.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond. Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection. As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

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.”

Imagine you’ve woken up in an unfamiliar room with no memory of who you are, how you got there, or where you were before. All you have is the disconnected voice of an attentive caretaker. Dr. Kuhn is there to help you - physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She’ll help you remember everything. She’ll make sure you reclaim your lost identity. Now answer one question: Are you sure you want to?

In The Memory Librarian, music, fashion, film and activist icon Janelle Monáe returns to the Afrofuturistic world of her critically acclaimed album, Dirty Computer, to explore how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, love—become tangled in a totalitarian landscape...and to discover costs of unravelling them.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth’s population was devastated by a terrifying alien virus. Those who survived were changed for ever. Some, known as Jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical deformities; others, granted superhuman abilities, are known as Aces. Wild Cards tells the stories of this world.

China thought it would be a quick war, an easy war. But now, years later, as the insurgency on the streets of Los Angeles escalates but the propaganda never changes, a Chinese officer can’t keep silent any longer. Torn between loyalty to his country and loyalty to his troops, he writes a brutally honest—and possibly suicidal—letter home to unmask the truth. Brooks combines his signature meticulous research with unforgettable characters in this landmark work of speculative fiction.