Dystopian Science Fiction

Collected here for the first time is every piece of short fiction from New York Times best seller Mira Grant's acclaimed Newsflesh series, with two new never-before published novellas and all eight short works available for the first time. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, a man-made virus taking over bodies and minds, filling them with one, unstoppable command...feed.

Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer - a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses...well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering.

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.

In the realm of Kravan, children of lower-class citizens are raised in a prison-like structure called "The Tower" from birth until adulthood. Known as the Tethered, they are held in thrall until their powers reveal themselves around the time of their nineteenth birthday. Every year, the Tethered who are tested and deemed harmless are chosen to leave the Tower and join the outside world as servants to live in the households of the ruling class. Those who are deemed threats are taken away—and no one knows what happens to them, though they suspect the worst.

After recovering Patient Zero, Alpha must escape Africa to end the ZA once and for all. But they can feel the hot breath of a reinforced and vengeful Spetsnaz team on their necks - and there can be no escaping the reckoning of an ultimate sniper showdown between Ali and Vasily, and an incomparably brutal iron-cage Texas death match between Predator and Misha. For the first time, all the teams will come together and must fight as brothers for any chance of making it back to Britain. And only one thing is certain - not everyone is walking away from this one.

When society ceases to exist, who can you trust? After the collapse of the nation's power grid, America is under martial law - and safety is an illusion. As violence erupts around him, Morgan Carter faces one of his most difficult decisions yet: whether to stay and defend his home, or move to a more isolated area, away from the prying eyes of the government. He and his family are hesitant to leave their beloved Lake County, but with increasingly suspicious activities happening in a nearby refugee camp, all signs point towards defecting.

When a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strikes Earth, modern life ends in an instant. Power grids fail. Communication collapses. Transportation halts. Within hours, the world descends into chaos—and the fragile threads of civilization begin to snap. What follows is a rapid descent into apocalyptic turmoil as society unravels and survival becomes a daily battle. When the world falls apart, it's not the heroes who rise—it's the unexpected.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. This is just the beginning. Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke 16,000 words a day, but now women only have 100 to make themselves heard. But this is not the end. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

It's been seven months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. It happens in one night. A girl who died now walks among the living; Zil and the Human Crew set fire to Perdido Beach, and amid the flames and smoke, Sam sees the figure of the boy he fears the most: Drake. But Drake is dead. Sam and Caine defeated him along with the Darkness - or so they thought.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one - the great WE. In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge.

As the mana fields continue to grow, the numbers of mutated, and mana created, aggressive creatures grow right along with them. Even though Max is tired of teaching his skill, he accepts one more gig for it, training a double handful of people who have both mechanical and teaching skills. While Alex and Mark's guild has put out a call for members, they have a single qualification. Prospective guild members must make it to the guild hall physically in order to join.

Just when Dan and Holly think things can't get any stranger, a terrifying new presence arrives in their community. Faces smudged with ash. Bodies decorated with mysterious symbols. Crude hides for clothing. Weird rituals conducted in the dark of night.

You have two options. You die, or you Qualify. Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family. If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high-tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis citizenship. And if you are in the Top 10, then all your wildest wishes are granted...such as curing your mother's cancer. There is only one problem. Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd.

In a New York City groaning under the burden of 35 million inhabitants, detective Andy Rusch is engaged in a desperate and lonely hunt for a killer everyone has forgotten. For even in a world such as this, a policeman can find himself utterly alone.

Charlie finds herself caught in the city as it degenerates into chaos following an EMP attack. Charlie, a successful pharmaceutical sales rep, has no background in prepping or survival. Thrust into a do or die situation, she quickly learns that leaders in Washington are working to change the country as she knows it. Her world has become a race to freedom while attempting to avoid capture by the new government's agents.

Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

A nuclear EMP attack would shove the USA back 150 years. Death, chaos, and lawlessness would prevail.... Zack Johnson is no hero, but he does have some valuable prepper skills to help him survive. There is nothing like a nuclear apocalypse to help a man grow up and become a hero as he helps his family and friends survive. He is 2,000 miles from home; the grid and all modern transportation have failed. The country is degenerating into violence and dog-eat-dog scenarios. People are killing their neighbors for a scrap of moldy bread or a sip of water.

A year and a half has passed since the defeat of Charlottesville. The idea of an actual future is starting to take root among the survivors. Jason and Rachel have found a semblance of peace with a family. Pro has found a calling and Pavel has found a place to call home. A dangerous enemy, flying the Stars and Stripes from across the Appalachians has turned their attention to Potomac and everything the survivors have built.

With the tide of dead lapping at the walls of London, Major Jameson must decide whether to roll the dice and lead One Troop on a desperate mission into the fallen Russian Empire, to retrieve a designer pathogen so lethal it even kills the dead....