Dystopian Comedy

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.

The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don’t collaborate, they only compete...It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don’t despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company!

This brilliant new novel is an urgent bulletin from an all-too-believable near future in which the religious right has come out on top. And where a smart young girl who questions the new order is suddenly a terrorist. By the best-selling author of The Girls and The Mountain Story.

As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody.

From the acclaimed PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of A Naked Singularity, a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles, with equal aplomb, both America’s most popular sport and its criminal justice system. From Paterson, New Jersey, to Rikers Island to the streets of New York, Sergio de la Pava’s Lost Empress introduces listeners to a cast of characters unlike any other in modern fiction: dreamers and exiles, immigrants and night-shift workers, a lonely pastor and others on the fringes of society - each with their own impact on the fragile universe they navigate.

Miles, a lead creative at a midsize virtual reality company known for its "original experiences," has engineered a new product called The Ghost Lover. Wildly popular from the outset, the "game" is simple: a user's simulated life is almost identical to their reality, except they're haunted by the ghost of an ex-lover. However, when a shift in the company's strategic vision puts The Ghost Lover at the center of a platform-wide controversy, Miles becomes the target of user outrage, and starts receiving a series of anonymous death threats.

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.

A kid's book (that's not really for kids) to help you cope with the world's rapid descent into a dystopian societal collapse. Sleep well!

When gumshoe detective, Daxon Steele, finds he’s ankle deep in more than a chewed up wad, he quickly uncovers a sinister plot that sets out to exploit and destroy not just the skink-pushers who hide in the shadows of the Flatpack District, not just the poor guys, gals and others shaking their hips at Shooters & Hooters Club, but the entire population of Bryunsville. Will Dax overcome his prejudice and accept Gaz, a former stripper-bot, as his partner?

Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a person "feels" and "truly believes" is protected under the law, while what is rational, even provable is condemned as heresy. A world where to question ignorance and intolerance is to commit a Crime against Faith. Imagine it. Or just wait until After the Flood.

Set in Rhode Island, Winner of the National Book Award tells the story of twins who could not be more different. Abigail Mather is a woman of passionate sensual and sexual appetites, while her sister, the book-loving local librarian Dorcas, lives a quiet life of the mind. But when the sisters are sought out by the predatory and famous poet, Guy DeVilbiss, who introduces them to Hollywood hack writer and possible psychopath Conrad Lowe, they rapidly become pawns in a game that leads to betrayal, shame and ultimately, murder.

James Kingzett delivers a chilling depiction of a future overshadowed by "The New Dark" - an era marked by the collapse of energy transmission grids and power systems. As society teeters on the brink of chaos, Kingzett warns of the dangers inherent in our current energy landscape, advocating for a shift towards renewable sources such as geothermal energy. Using satire, storytelling, and some digs at the government, Kingzett creates a compelling story that exposes the need to change our centralized grid system or risk facing The New Dark.

Aleya’s world starts to unravel after a café customer leaves behind a collection of short stories. Surprised and disturbed to discover that it has been dedicated to her, Aleya delves into the strange book. A mad scientist seeks to steal his son’s dreams. A struggling writer, skilled only at destruction, finds himself courted by Hollywood. A woman seeks to escape her body and live inside her dreams. Citizens panic when a new city block manifests out of nowhere. The more Aleya reads, the deeper she sinks into the mysterious writer’s work.

When the head of a hovercycle club inexplicably calls in news of his own murder, Detective Simon Grave and his team are drawn in to Crab Cove's hovercycle underworld, a world of loyalty, betrayal, greed, and-yes-irony. As if murder weren't enough, the bombing of an election debate stage has the mayor pressing for a quick resolution to both crimes. It becomes increasingly clear that the crimes are connected, and that the solution will require the unraveling of an elaborate criminal scheme-and more.

In the shifting sands of the desert, near an unnamed metropolis, there is an institute where various fellows come to undertake projects of great significance. But when our sort-of hero, Percy Frobisher, arrives, surrounded by the simulated environment of the glass-enclosed dome of the Institute, his mind goes completely blank. When he spills something on his uniform - a major faux pas - he learns about a mysterious shop where you can take something, utter the command “same same,” and receive a replica even better than the original.

Yang Wei wakes to find himself still a patient at the hospital. Somehow, he’s aged decades overnight and is confined to the geriatric ward on a massive Hospital ship as it floats along a bloodred sea full of unsightly things. But human remains and sea nymphs are perhaps nothing compared to the goings-on belowdecks.

If you could know exactly how and when calamity would strike, would you want to know? And more importantly, would you tell your insurance company? What if it was something smaller, like the next time you were going to get a bad case of athlete’s foot? Would you let them know then? In House of Apollo, they already know. The actuaries have won: Big Data predicts it all.

Dave and Melanie thought an asteroid was going to destroy the planet. For a full seven weeks, so did everyone else on Earth. But then, it missed. Now, along with the rest of humanity, Dave and Melanie have to deal with the choices they made during “The Countdown” and figure out if there are any parts of their old life worth hanging on to after “The Miss”.

In near-future America, film critic Noah Body uploads his reviews to a content aggregator. His job is routine: watch, seethe, pan. He dreams of making his own film, free from the hackery of commercial cinema. Faced with writing about lousy movies for a website that no one reads, Noah smuggles into his work episodes from his trainwreck of a life. We learn that his apartment in Miniature Aleppo has been stripped of furniture after his wife ran off with his best friend - who Noah believes has possessed his body.

Hobart, 2022: a city with a declining population, in the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into the harbor and begins to unload its cargo on the site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA. One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-pitched sound no one has heard for two generations: a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous billionaire Dundas Faussett, is creating his most ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat technology’s dominance over our lives by establishing a new Year Zero: 1948.