Dystopian Short

Perché un paladino in copertina? Certamente perché il racconto, intrigante e pieno di atmosfera, è ambientato in Sicilia - ma tranquilli, di dialetto ce n'è poco. Quanto basta, "come il sale", secondo una lettrice di Parma. Ma c'è un secondo motivo. In tutti i racconti tratti da "Pilipintò - Racconti da bagno per Siciliani e non", come questo "I moti del 2048" che state per ascoltare dalla mia voce, troverete trame e capovolgimenti di prospettiva.

---Escaping an evil Empire is all Fortune wants, but someone has other plans.--- ~A Quest for freedom~ ~A Desired Suitor~ ~One Deadly Battle~ Fortune, deemed a rogue because she refuses to swear an allegiance to the elite or royals is cast out of the Castle area and must live in a desolate wasteland destroyed by a drought for the past two years. On a mission to liberate her and her outcast friends, her plan involves fending off this horrid monarchy if/when they attack while trying to find a way to a safer territory. Meanwhile, her childhood crush, Leo, notices her as more than a life-long ...

Have you ever wondered what lies behind every click you make on the internet? What if the data from your online life is used to change your own future? As the internet shapes a new era, three corporations become the rulers of a virtual world called Etherea. Mr. Davis, the CEO of Apollo Corporations, will have to fight against two unprecedented enemies that seek supremacy in the universe.

Visiting the galaxy's only Cageless Zoo should be a special treat for Melandre and her children. Except she's still trying to reckon with her husband's recent death and how she's going to raise two highly independent children on her own. As their visit quickly falls to chaos, Melandre learns that family is the only thing left she has to rely on.

In a dystopian America 50 years from now, a battle-weary enforcer for a domestic terrorist cell trying to overthrow the ruling class questions his faith in the cause.

Consider this a warning dear reader. Most of these stories are not for the faint of heart. While many of them are not horror stories in the traditional sense, some contain horrible and often remarkable things. Many of them are full of dark scenes and evil deeds. Some are full of wonder and even humor. There are many different spaces inside these covers to travel, but few are completely safe. Try not to dwell too long in the darker places here.

The story of The Scarlet Plague takes place in 2073 in the San Francisco area, 60 years after an apocalyptic pandemic called the Red Death or Scarlet Plague has depopulated the Earth. James Smith, one of the survivors, lives with his grandsons who are hunter-gatherers in a tribal world. He relates the horror of the plague to them, and tells them of the time when he was a professor of English, and of the start of the pandemic. His grandsons, who are of limited cognitive ability, refuse to believe him; they cannot believe that the disease was spread by germs.

This original short story asks the question, "If eternal life came at the expense of love, would you choose death?"

Jennifer Benton has made it through the zombie apocalypse and has fallen in love with Mark, the charismatic leader of a group of fellow survivors. He's brought them from Illinois to hoped-for shelter at his family's Texas ranch, only to discover it destroyed. The survivors have one more chance when Mark befriends Todd in a nearby refugee camp; he invites the group to fly with him to his wealthy family's home in Oklahoma. But what's inside Todd's house may be worse than the zombies outside. And now Jennifer has more than Mark and herself to worry about....

Kate Enrite lives in the near future where a person's influence score determines what society offers. These influence scores have pervaded social structures to the point that privacy has been outlawed as a hindrance to influence measurement. With nothing to gain from her true identity or lose as a fake, Kate fights to secure what she perceives as a better life. In the process, she will discover how long a person can pretend to be someone they are not before becoming the pretense.

Waiting for Martin is set in a nebulous future-never in which catastrophic environmental change has returned ancient beings to Earth, as well as raining down a disastrous helping of new ones. A family of children try to make their way home to their older brother, who is their guardian, when a bit of environmental fallout gets in their way.

Earth has fallen far from its splendor and progress. Humanity’s long-held fear of an asteroid colliding with the world has come to pass, and the repercussions are devastating. Resultant natural disasters, plagues, and famines have taken billions of lives. With mankind’s future uncertain, scientists set to work creating a virtual Earth in which people can live in the mind rather than in physical form.

In this science fiction short story, a young man living in a totalitarian farming community seeks a better life in a fabled city beneath the ground.

A stream of consciousness short story about life after undeath. An entertaining satire about personal transformation in the face of frightening odds. Not for the faint of heart.

New from the author of The Story of My Face, Paradise & Elsewhere is a collection of dark fables at once familiar and entirely strange: Join the Orange Prize-nominated Kathy Page as she notches a new path through the wild, lush, half-fantastic and half-real terrain of fairy tale and myth.