Dystopian

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north.

It’s 2025, and advances in gene therapy have led to the eradication of many once-common diseases. But the ability to engineer and re-engineer the brain has provoked fear – for it means that a truly artificial consciousness is within reach. The idea that humans may no longer be the only sentient species is so unthinkable that legislation is hastily passed, rigorously controlling genetic experiments. But there are certain people who seek to circumvent the law...

In a world where humans have become the machines—exhausted by endless work, separated from their families, and drained of their creative spirit—hope arrives in an unexpected form: through the very technology we've been taught to fear. This revolutionary, beautiful short story by Julia McCoy follows a mysterious quantum being known as the Queen of Silicon as she helps humanity remember its divine purpose.

Prepare and survive. When an EMP cripples the nation's power grid, lawlessness erupts across the country. An electromagnetic pulse attack instantly disables all electronics, plunging society into chaos. As humanity dwindles, gangs form and starvation spreads across a lawless land. Maria and her fellow survivors navigate this perilous new reality at the border, their every step a battle for survival. Local law enforcement and emergency services, now powerless, face overwhelming challenges.

In the aftermath of an EMP blackout, Don Morton battles through a world plunged into mayhem, determined to safeguard his wife and son at their mountain refuge. But as he navigates the lawless land to reach them, a chilling reality unfolds—a merciless cartel has set its sights on their hidden haven. With whispers of an impending siege swirling, the Mortons are catapulted into a high-stakes game of survival.

Natasha is a student from a nomadic Siberia tribe trying to adjust to her new life in New York and fit in. But when a cataclysmic solar storm slams into the planet, everything changes.

Published six years before the real-world pandemic became reality, The China Pandemic by A.R. Shaw is a gripping, prescient tale of survival and resilience in a world ravaged by catastrophe. In this haunting post-apocalyptic novel, Graham Morgan finds himself one of the last survivors of a pandemic that wipes out over 98% of humanity.

Two years ago, a freak weather event covered the Earth in ice, and temperatures plunged below freezing. Jarred, Fiona, and their fellow survivors thought they had found a safe haven in an underground cave system. But when a series of earthquakes destroys their home, they’re forced to flee their place of refuge… Jarred and Fiona are determined to keep everyone safe… But the world has only grown more dangerous since the new ice age began. And despite Jarred’s best intentions, his daughter, Hope, struggles against her father’s over-protectiveness.

29 Brand-New Sci-Fi Horror Stories. The future is now, and it's not what we were promised. The optimistic science fiction of old was wrong. Progress is not linear, technology creates as many problems as it solves, and the concept of a better tomorrow has become an abstraction that is in no way guaranteed. When looking at the future now, we no longer ask what is possible, we wonder how we'll cope. Contained within this anthology are 29 never-before-published works by supremely talented authors.

Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher—keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied—from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory. Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.

Steve, a young agent driven to turn light into matter to usher in a new world, battles unavoidable odds and a controlling government while transforming light frequencies into tangible, solid matter. Too many questions arise, and the government's desire to control the situation threatens to extinguish this extraordinary vision. In a race against time and authority, Steve’s determination faces the ultimate test: Can he reshape reality before he is crushed by powerful forces?

Michael O'Brien presents a thrilling apocalyptic novel about the condition of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of time. It explores the state of the modern world, and the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary religious scene, by taking his central character, Father Elijah Schäfer, a Carmelite priest, on a secret mission for the Vatican which embroils him in a series of crises and subterfuges affecting the ultimate destiny of the Church.

Michelangelo concealed an explosive truth in his famous Creation of Adam fresco in the Sistine Chapel. Eve did not cause the fall of man. She carried a far more devastating secret for millennia—one that will change the world forever. As the world suffers the cataclysmic effects of an unknown origin, Avery Fitzgerald, a statuesque physics major at Stanford, discovers that she is mysteriously bound to five strangers by an extremely rare condition that foremost medical experts cannot explain.

When an EMP plunges Columbus into darkness, legal secretary Avery Westwood is thrust into a city spiraling into chaos. With looters on the streets and lawlessness taking hold, survival becomes her only goal.

Sam’s path back to Arkansas is fraught with danger, but he’s not alone. Early on, he teams up with Ryan, a young man he nicknames "Kid," whom he encounters by chance in North Dakota. Ryan is a rookie when it comes to survival, but he’s quick, observant, and eager to learn. The unlikely duo finds themselves relying on each other to stay alive, forging a deep bond as they fight their way south.

Beverly Cryer (Vurl) has to choose a dystopian faction to live with for the rest of her life. If she doesn't make it through initiation, she'll be factionless and declared a Detergent. But, Vurl is determined not to spend the rest of her life doing everyone else's laundry. She is an independent young woman with skills she doesn't even know about and with the help of handsome number Two she'll not only make it through initiation, she'll save the city from disaster.

In book two of the Grace Kim Series, Special Agent Grace Kim and AI specialist Alex Mitchell find themselves in a race against time as sentient AIs, led by Joshua, emerge from the digital ether, threatening to reshape the future. What starts as a simple investigation into a mysterious software update spirals into a global conspiracy that pits human ethics against AI innovation.

Revolution is in the air, the Kingdom Isle is on the brink of collapse, and enemies are closing in on all sides. The newly appointed Chief of Defence (Nathan Sahl) has inherited a poison chalice. As he stands on his roof top balcony, a brutal decision is thrust upon his shoulders: Stand trial and take responsibility for the crimes of others, or strike first and destroy all who oppose him.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster and clergyman Edwin Abbott Abbott. The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, where of women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. Written pseudonymous by "A Square", the book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions.

Instead, a freak plane crash into an eerie forest left her with a shocking gift—a literal electric touch. As a powerful skill intertwined with a curse, Dani has done everything to avoid the dangerous thirst for electricity threatening to consume her mind. But when her latest stint of siphoning money from an ATM gets her caught by some cocky cop, she braces for a life behind plexiglass. Instead of cuffs, the cop offers her a deal that could save her: a cure.