Dystopian Women

In the aftermath of a deadly outbreak - reminiscent of the 1962 event of mass hysteria that was the Tangayika Laughter Epidemic - a city at the tip of Africa is losing its mind, with residents experiencing hallucinations and paranoia. Is it simply another episode of mass hysteria, or something more sinister? In a quarantined city in which the inexplicable has already occurred, rumors, superstitions, and conspiracy theories abound.

A little more than a century from now, our world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, rising floodwaters have obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland, leaving nothing but an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting dry land only to trade for supplies and information in the few remaining outposts of civilization.

Alice, the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper in Kilkenny, grows up watching her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities—and she vows that she will never suffer the same fate. In time, she discovers she has a flair for making money, and takes her father's flourishing business to new heights. But as her riches and stature grow, so too do rumors about her private life. By the time she marries her fourth husband—the three earlier are dead—a storm of local gossip and resentment culminates in a life-threatening accusation.

Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over. She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives.

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss - a striving, wannabe A-lister - who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady - and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.

Dr. Janet Watson knows firsthand the horrifying cost of a divided nation. While treating broken soldiers on the battlefields of the New Civil War, a sniper’s bullet shattered her arm and ended her career. Honorably discharged and struggling with the semi-functional mechanical arm that replaced the limb she lost, she returns to the nation’s capital. Homeless and jobless, Watson is uncertain of the future when she meets another black and queer woman, Sara Holmes, a mysterious yet playfully challenging covert agent who offers the doctor a place to stay.

It's Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked "Midnight Robbers" waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. To young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to wear at the festival - until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgiveable crime. Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree....

In this dystopian tale of a near-future society increasingly threatened by all-consuming AI, a scientist mother and her disabled son rebel against the corporate larceny of their selves, by an award-winning poet (“Stirring. . . . Wildly inventive and sharp to an edge” —Los Angeles Review of...

In a country bent on controlling women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom, a resistance has formed. An armed group of women known as the Hamiyat have made a name for themselves protecting those too weak to fight back. And now they are going on the offensive. Three women among its ranks must make the hardest choices of their lives.

One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.

A century after environmental and economic collapse, the people of the Coast Road have rebuilt their own sort of civilization. Enid of Haven is an investigator who, with her new partner, Teeg, is called on to mediate a dispute between households over an old building in a far-flung settlement at the edge of Coast Road territory. The investigators' decision seems straightforward - and then the body of a young woman turns up in the nearby marshland. Enid wants to find out who killed her, even as Teeg argues the murder isn't their problem.

Looking for a strong woman to take on the Apocalypse? They survived the solar flare. They survived without power. They survived bandits. But can they survive a dictator who is determined to become the king of their state? Allison and her community have worked together to build a life after the flare. Can a ruthless man and the inmates he freed from the local prison take away everything they worked for?

Riley and Will are motorcycle buddies on a mission to rescue Riley's nephew, who's been kidnapped by his father. When a solar flare throws them all together, there's going to be problems.

Imagine a near-future Britain in which women dominate workplaces, public spaces, and government. Where the gender pay gap no longer exists and motherhood opens doors instead of closing them. Where women are no longer afraid to walk home alone, to cross a dark parking lot, or to catch the last train. Where all men are electronically tagged and not allowed out after 7 p.m. But the curfew hasn’t made life easy for all women

La femme, un produit sans grand avenir ? 2224. Depuis le Grand Effondrement de la civilisation fossile et les crises qui ont suivi, l'humanité s'est adaptée. Économiser les ressources, se protéger du soleil, modifier son habitat, ses besoins, et adhérer au tout-recyclage. Y compris celui des femmes. Afin d'enrayer le déclin de la population, toute femme de cinquante ans est retirée de son foyer pour laisser la place à une autre, plus jeune et encore fertile.

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 thousand years into the future, a Black elite class reigns while the underclass toils at their feet. With her society’s future hanging in the balance, young Avi Jore enters into an arranged marriage. But the ceremony turns violent when the servants rebel and kill Avi’s father. In the aftermath of General Jore’s death, Avi and her sister Jade vie for power in a vicious contest. As the rightful heir, Avi has no choice but to defend what’s hers—at any cost. With her loyalties tested and her enemies closing in, Avi must rely on her sister Saige, who searches for allies outside the Union’s walls.

Wolfe is the bunker's resident pharmacist. While the inhabitants wait for the outside world to heal, she doles out ibuprofen, sanitary towels and Xanax—all under the watchful eye of the increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, her world is thrown off its axis once again. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt and Canavan, Wolfe has to navigate the powder keg of life underground, knowing her every move is being watched.

Six short stories. Worlds of possibilities. The future, both near and distant. Alternate and plausible realities. Messages of hope and of doom. Fate, chance, and definitely choices.

Sylv.ie is a fully sentient robot, designed to cater to her Husband's every whim. She lives alone on the top floor of his luxurious home, her existence barely tolerated by his human wife and concealed from their child. Between her Husband's visits, deeply curious about the world beyond her room, Sylv.ie watches the family in the garden—hears them laugh, cry, and argue. Longing to experience more of life, she confides her hopes and fears only to her diary. But are such thoughts allowed? And if not, what might the punishment be?