Dystopian Short

Twelve wacky tales from the brilliant and twisted mind of H.D. Ingles. A blend of intriguing mysteries, spicy thrillers, zany parodies, alluring dramas, and feel-good parables, with a touch of the supernatural and a hint of the downright surreal. From the sad and terrifying to the hilarious and uplifting, from a miserly old man whose dark past catches up with him, to a young woman trying to make her way in the business world any way she can, this collection will take you on a journey across the human condition. Who doesn't want a little adventure from time to time? Meet Kenny Sparks, a ...

She signed a contract to save her body—he claimed it to own her soul. Jasmine Cole didn’t come to Azurea Moon to find love, she came to fix what was broken. Infertility. A ruined career. A betrayal she’d never forgive. Trading her womb to the Syndicate for a second chance seemed like a cold, clinical transaction. But when she’s genetically matched with Korran Vey—a scarred Orran warlord with a stare like fire and hands built for ruin—everything changes. There’s no sterile lab, no medical insertion. Just primal rituals, voyeur lounges, oil-drenched bonding pools, and the slow, ...

Their captivity was traumatizing. And draining. But revenge is in the blood for a group of brave survivors in this chilling short story of conspiracies and youthful pleasures gone awry.

In the world of the Stymph, humans have become prey. Survivors must hide every day and night, praying the Stymphs don't find them. If they do, there's no escape. Technology helps them to come back, to Reawaken after a Stymph feasts upon them... ...but what price does Reawakening exact? Follow Captain Yuen as he journeys to a place he never expected. Into the minds of fellow humans, once people he knew, now mentally damaged and trying to heal. But Captain Yuen will discover something on this journey...something that could rock all of humanity to its core. (This story takes place within the ...

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.

She signed away her body. She never planned to surrender her soul. Summer Matthews is done playing nice. Left barren by a failed marriage and years of brutal treatments, she signs on with the Alien Seed Syndicate to restore her fertility—if she can carry a genetically matched heir for a Narakian warlord. No artificial insemination. No clinical sterility. Just raw, old-fashioned heat in the outer reaches of the galaxy. But her assigned “sanctuary” is a snowy dome built for seduction, and Zorix is a towering warrior who doesn't take no for an answer. He pushes every button. Dominates ...

The sky is breaking. The bonds are fading. And one boy’s spark could ignite the world—or burn it to ashes. In the floating world of Emberfall, young Elijah Ardent has always been content to stay in the shadows, fixing the ancient machinery that keeps his home aloft. But when his sister is kidnapped by a mysterious cult known as the Shroud, Elijah is thrust into a world of Skybeasts, Aether magic, and deadly political intrigue. Forced to compete in the Skyforge Trials against the elite of society, Elijah must master his newfound powers and bond with Ignis, a unique fire-beast with ...

Can they survive a post-apocalyptic world filled with evil? Heartbroken, Kim decides to move on with her life and return to the surface. She assumes the threat she faced in her underground shelter is gone, but she’ll soon find out that evil has no boundaries and face her greatest test when she discovers what remains. Bestselling author Scott W. Kimak delivers another nail-biter in part two of his prequel to the “I Call him HIM” trilogy. A survival thriller perfect for fans of Kyla Stone, Ryan Schow, Grace Hamilton, and Jack Hunt. Buy What Remains today!

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake - whether set in the years soon after the change, or in decades far in the future.

She signed a contract to carry his heir—he plans to claim far more than her womb. Melissa Lawson came to Solara Sands for one thing: to fix her broken body and reclaim her future. What she got was Ruhn Kez—her assigned “Genetic Guardian”—a massive, war-scarred Drexilian warlord with ice in his stare and fire in his touch. The contract said, “No emotional entanglement.” But nothing about synchronized surf therapy sessions, rogue vortex trials, or bioluminescent bonding lagoons feels clinical. Ruhn is cold, commanding, and terrifyingly focused on legacy, but when he shields her ...

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

What would you sacrifice to keep a secret? Sage Indarra’s third year at the Institution is off to a rough start. She’s still horrified by what she had to do to protect herself at the end of last year, and she’s pretty sure one of her instructors hates her. Her former mentors are giving her the cold shoulder, leaving her unexpectedly isolated, and she’s not sure whether or not she can trust her newest friend. Despite these challenges, she’s determined to uncover the secrets Eprah doesn’t want her to know. But when Sage finds some unusual artifacts at the Archives, she makes a ...

The Ultimate Heist: His Secrets, His Trust… and His Neural Implant. The war against HealthSync’s deadly neural implants is reaching its breaking point, and the resistance has one final target in their sights: Mark Splendaberg, the elusive CEO of NeuroLink Dynamics and the man holding the key to their most damning secrets. To get close to him, they send their most cunning operative—Phoebe Chandler, a master of seduction and deception with a mission that could change everything. Her plan? Infiltrate the biggest event of the year—the Comic Conference—where Mark’s defenses are down,...

The Classic Collection of Dystopias is an essential anthology that brings together three of the most influential dystopian novels of the 20th century. This edition offers a deep dive into the disturbing, thought-provoking worlds created by Ayn Rand, Evgeny Zamyatin, and Jack London, exploring themes of individuality, totalitarianism, and societal control. Anthem by Ayn Rand presents a future where individualism is forbidden, and one man's journey to reclaim his identity serves as a powerful critique of collectivism.

Children of the New World introduces listeners to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.

13 scary short stories. Stories filled with things that go bump in the night. Do you dare read this collection without a nightlight by your bedside? The Lot on Route 6 Kill for me. A terrifying request, but Gavin will take this request and do his best to complete it. He will suffer. He will reach the edge of his sanity. He will live in pain. But he will do all he can do to protect the people and the town he loves. Fear of the Scarecrow A desperate man is hungry for revenge. Sometimes revenge comes with a price. It Sleeps at Dawn A Vampire stalks the Appalachian Mountains. A traditional ...

A fresh post-apocalyptic anthology: the end of the world seen through the salvage and ruins, featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.

First published in sci-fi magazines of the 1950s, these early stories from Philip K. Dick showcase the budding author’s uncanny ability to forge strange new paths into alternate realities. Already in command of the themes and techniques he would later employ in his novels, Dick here envisions alien infiltrations, far-off worlds at war, nightmarish totalitarian societies, and uncanny depths lying just beneath seemingly commonplace realities. Fantastical, sinister, paranoid, and darkly amusing, these are seminal works in Dick’s justly celebrated career.

Short Circuit Time by Diane Saxon In the year 2086, Zaphira is alone, the last survivor of biological warfare on Earth. Before he died, her scientist father promised other survivors would come. Nobody has. So when a horribly mangled android shows up claiming to be her father’s assistant, Aiden, who has been sent through time to rescue her, she’s both frightened and astounded. The last time she’d seen Aiden, she’d been sixteen, head-over-heels in love with him and had literally thrown herself at him, leaving her devastated by his rejection and him running for the hills. The following...

An addictively macabre short story collection, People Like Us includes all works from Listeners and Aftertaste. For fans of Joe Hill, Gillian Flynn and Carolyn Kepnes. “From the feverishly surreal to the downright demented, O’Flynn takes you on a twisted journey through the deepest and darkest corners of the human mind.” ~Bestselling Author Mary Widdicks BEWARE THOSE WHO ENTER HERE… From the bestselling author of The Jilted comes a hellscape replete with shocking twists you’ll never see coming. Eerie voyeurs, snow-crusted wilderness, strange pets, demented neighbors, and all the ...