Dystopian Science Fiction

One hundred and fifty years ago, global warming brought humankind to the edge of extinction. In a desperate bid for survival, 4,000 genetically enhanced soldiers - the last slice of humanity - were sent to eight space stations. To serve. To protect. Then the Critamal arrived, uninvited. Waves of aliens now work to break through the Orbitos' defenses, the black-shelled creatures seeking to colonize the vacated and barren world. War is their reality. All Romy can do is fight alongside her knot and watch from the mocking midst of the stars as Earth rises and falls in the distance.

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

In the year AD 3000, Earth is a dystopian wasteland, plundered of its natural resources by alien conquerors known as Psychlos. Fewer than 35,000 humans survive in a handful of communities scattered across the face of a post-apocalyptic Earth. From the ashes of humanity rises a young hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Setting off on an initial quest to discover a hidden evil, Jonnie unlocks the mystery of humanity’s demise and unearths a crucial weakness in their oppressors.

The mission to Rio de Janeiro ended in victory, but it came at a dire cost, killing most of those who set out to rescue the stranded survivors. Even worse, the skinwalkers’ leader, Horn, escaped with his demonic crew and is coming to take the throne. Back at the Vanguard Islands, King Xavier Rodriguez has been severely injured in another battle to protect the kingdom. Now an infection threatens to kill the one man who can keep the peace.

Hannah Evans startles awake, covered in gore, in a place she doesn't know. Captured and restrained in the hands of strangers, she struggles frantically to remember who she is. And then she sees the needle she was injected with...and the bodies. Before long, she's thrust into a desperate struggle to survive. Navigating a crumbled landscape, fighting for her breath and her humanity, Hannah clings to the shallow hope that her family is still alive.

Five years after a pneumonic plague killed two-thirds of the world's population, army veteran Marcus Battle is isolated. He's alone with his guns, his food, and the graves of his wife and child. Unaware of the chaos that's befallen everything outside of his central Texas ranch land, Marcus lives a Spartan life. If anyone steps onto his property, he shoots first and never asks questions. But when a woman in distress, chased by marauders, seeks asylum, Marcus has a decision to make.

Three months after an EMP attack destroys the US power grid, starvation and disease have killed millions. With the end of winter finally in sight, the town of Fall Creek, Michigan balances on the precipice of collapse. They have suffered and sacrificed. But to forge a future worth living, they will have to face the darkness within themselves. Each must decide - will they retain their humanity or choose survival at any cost?

Of science fiction and fantasy, guest editor Nnedi Okorafor writes, “There are times when it feels like a box, but within it, technically, you can expect anything.” The twenty stories in this collection simultaneously fulfill and defy expectations of genre, showcasing boundary-pushing...

For dinosaurs, it was a big rock. For humans: Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When the Earth is hit by the greatest CME in recorded history (several times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859), the combined societies of the planet's most developed nations struggle to adapt to a life thrust back into the Dark Ages. In the United States, the military scrambles to speed the nation's recovery on multiple fronts including putting down riots, establishing relief camps, delivering medical aid, and bringing communication and travel back on line. Just as a real foothold is established in retaking the skies (utilizing existing commercial aircraft supplemented by military resources and ground control systems), a mysterious virus takes hold of the population, spreading globally over the very flight routes that the survivors fought so hard to rebuild.

When Conor is called back to work for the first time since the terror attacks, he learns that business is good. With no media and no law, anyone with a score to settle is working hard to take out their enemies before order is restored. A high-end assassin with an impressive resume can set their own price.

It’s 2788 and only the "handicapped" live on Earth. Eighteen-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can't travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She's an ape, a throwback, but this is one ape girl who won't give in.

Sprawling megacities, rogue AIs, black market tech, modded mercenaries, and a pulse-pounding story filled with unexpected twists! A notorious data thief thinks his life of cybercrime is behind him. He couldn't be more wrong.

Best-selling novelist Michael O’Brien returns to the theme of people of faith striving to find their way through a societal collapse during the rise of new dimensions of totalitarianism. Set in the near future, all of North America is plunged into crisis as basic communications and other services suddenly and inexplicably fail. As the tension mounts, a disparate group of people come together from several directions, apparently by coincidence. Many of them are strangers to each other, and some are very young—whom their parents and guardians call “our pied piper children.

Three years ago, a massive solar event shattered life on Earth. The EMP storms that followed wiped out every trace of modern technology, plunging humanity into chaos. Radiation, starvation, and violence claimed billions, and those who survived were left to rebuild—or simply endure. But survival was only the beginning. An unknown alien force has arrived, ruthless and relentless. They can’t be reasoned with. They can’t be understood. And no weapon we have seems to stop them. Entire continents are burning, and hope is fading fast.

As weather conditions worsen and food supplies dwindle, the inhabitants of Bel’Torra Station—isolated on the remote continent of Fis’Alim—struggle simply to survive. But when an unexpected guest arrives, bringing another mouth to feed, a chain of events begins that will threaten their world and everything in it. This first full-length novel from artist and storyteller Gameyy Builds unveils long-held secrets of the world of Aegis and the mysterious Blight that has plagued its people for decades...

After a long and bloody battle, legendary Hell Diver Xavier Rodriguez reigns as the dutiful but reluctant new king of the islands. Advised by a council of former sky citizens as well as Cazadores, he works to assimilate the two societies peacefully. But not all Cazadores have accepted the new order. While X tries to ease tensions at home, a rookie team of divers, led by Michael Everhart, returns to the skies in Discovery, formerly the ITC Deliverance. Their mission: To locate other human survivors throughout the world and rescue them.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art...

In Compound Eleven, the hierarchy of the floors is everything. My name is Eve Hamilton, and on my floor, we fight. Which at least is better than the bottom floor, where they toil away in misery. Only the top floor has any ease in this harsh world; they rule from their gilded offices. Because four generations ago, Earth was rendered uninhabitable—the sun too hot, the land too barren. Those who remained were forced underground. While not a perfect life down here, I’ve learned to survive as a fighter. Except my latest match is different.

Originally published in 1925, Heart of a Dog by Russian author and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov, is a dark, fantastical satire of the failures inherent in the dream of a Communist utopia. When a respected surgeon decides to transplant human body parts into a stray dog, he creates a monster—drunken, profligate, aggressive, and selfish. It seems the worst aspects of the donor have been transplanted as well. As his previously well-regulated home descends into riotous chaos, the doctor realizes he will have to try to reverse the operation, but the dog isn’t so keen.

I live in a world of waifs and shadows. "Live" might be an overstatement. I scrounge and scramble and survive in an atmosphere made thick and gray by the ashes of the Fallen. And sometimes I dream of sunlight. My parents were taken, even though they followed all the rules. Never scavenge at night. Never talk to Shadows. Don't fight the Sweepers. Run. Run. Run. And then I meet "him".