Dystopian World

There are some sights you can never unsee. Visions of my brother, my chosen mate, and my friends meeting their individual gruesome ends? That is something that will stay with me forever. The Originals made me experience the faux tragedies, and their message is clear - do things our way or they all die. The problem is that doing things their way could lead to the genocide of all non-gifted humans and suppression of all paranormals. That’s just not something my group and I can accept. Even if it puts our lives at risk, we have to fight for the future - our own and the humans.

Spanning multiple locales and epochs, and rendered in fine detail and vivid color, this transportive collection shows what it means to live as human inhabitants on our one miraculous planet. Lyrical, at times hilarious, and always heartfelt, each of these ten stories is a reflection of individual choice in the face of man-made apocalypse: in a near-future Seoul, where air pollution has become so fatal that the city has been encased in a translucent biodome, a civil engineer charged with its upkeep contemplates an arranged marriage.

Against the backdrop of a ravaged world, Andrew and Jamie have settled in a new community, more in love than ever. Finally they've reached safety and have each taken on roles and responsibilities in this new life. But it's soon clear they want different things.

A blinding flash … then darkness. Bria Ford and her three closest friends are stranded on a country highway in the middle of a November night. No phones. No car. No lights. Helpless and hundreds of miles from home, they put their lives in the hands of handsome Jonah Page and his flinty sister, East, strangers who somehow know Bria better than she knows herself. As the group bonds to adapt to a new, yet old, way of life, the secrets of Bria’s past provide them with the means to survive the extremes of Mother Nature, and the even more frightening extremes of human nature. Quietly suspenseful, The Light explores how the stories we tell ourselves shape the person we present to the world, and what happens to that person when the world falls away.

Each story will plunge you into a whirlpool of TERROR, leaving you gasping for breath and begging for more! Your perceptions will shift, and every moment will crackle with suspense. So, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS, plug in your headphones, and let the madness envelop you. But Remember! Once you dive in, there’s NO ESCAPE from the nightmares that await!

The human race has been divided. The chosen few live in the safety of the domes, watching through their glass walls as those left on the outside suffer and die. But desperation has brought invention. New drugs have the ability to alter humans, giving them the strength to roam the poisoned night unafraid - but survival comes at a terrible price. Seventeen-year-old Nola Kent has spent her life in the domes, training to protect her little piece of the world within the glass. The mission of the domes is to preserve the human race, not to help the sick and starving.

Months after Jess escaped from the set of Stuck in the '90s, the nostalgic reality show she believed was her real life, the teen star is getting to know the outside world for the first time. But she can't outrun her fictional life forever—or the media empire that owns it. After Like-Life Productions tracks her down and forces her boyfriend to return to the show, Jess teams up with an underground network fighting to uncover Like-Life's schemes. To expose the truth, Jess must go back to the set and take Like-Life down from the inside . . . but getting revenge might just cost her everything.

Trapped in a parallel universe where it is illegal to be overweight, Morgan Campbell is dragged out of her house and locked up in a Federally Assisted Thinning (F.A.T.) Center. Bullied by the Enforcers who run the place, and treated like a prisoner, all she can think about is breaking out so she can get back to her world. With her whereabouts constantly monitored by the chip injected in her arm, and not having any access to the outside world, she fears she won't be able to escape and that she will be stuck in this world forever.

The Earth's resources are dwindling. The solution is The Sleep: periods of hibernation imposed on those who remain with only a Janitor to watch over the sleepers. In the sleeping city, elderly Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease that is stealing his wife from him. Outside, lonely Janitor Peruzzi craves the family he never knew. Around them both, dissatisfaction is growing. The city is about to wake.

James Bowers has spent every day for the pasty 40 years on his family’s cattle ranch outside of San Antonio, Texas. It’s hard work, but it’s honest work. And as a fourth-generation rancher, the work is in his blood. But when an EMP is detonated while his wife and son are in the city, rendering all modern conveniences obsolete, James must travel into a chaotic environment filled with danger that will test him in ways that he never thought possible.

Danny and Rebecca are off the grid for three years as they travel to third-world countries after the financial collapse of every leading country on earth. With the ruination of the dollar, the world is scrambling to stabilize a system that just can’t be saved. Danny and Rebecca are trying to show as many non-leading countries as possible a new way of surviving and thriving. Starting in their own community, they instituted a bartering system that allows everyone to use their own skills and labor to ensure they have things they need. Money never enters the equation because, by now, all it ...

Not long from now, in a recognisable yet changed London, Signy and Matthew lead a dull, difficult life. They've only really stayed together for the sake of their six year old son, Jed. But they're surviving, just about. Until the day the technology that runs their world stops working. Unable to use their phones, pay for anything, even open the smart door to their flat, Matthew assumes that this is just a momentary glitch in the computers that now run the world.

Russ and Anne Mathews made their escape from their home, along with family, friends, and new friends they made along the way. Now, they must build a new life for themselves at the Warren farm, without the luxury of electricity and very few traces of the 21st century. The problem: there are a lot of people who didn't prepare for something like this, and some of those people will stop at nothing to take what the group has, by whatever means necessary.

Three years after a heartbreaking defeat, Maggie’s world is unrecognizable. She’s gone underground to hide from Mordecai. Her career as a journalist is over. She’s scrubbing toilets in a seedy hotel just to make ends meet. Mordecai’s vision for bot domination has brought the country to its knees. An attack on Congress and a humanoid army has shrouded Maggie’s city in fear. Maggie, Ping, and Alex are fighting from the shadows, but Maggie can’t escape the wounds of her past. When she receives a message from Tripp, she puts a dangerous plan into motion.

Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple never believed in the evangelical Church of America, unlike her recently devout parents. But when Vivian returns home the night after the supposed 'Rapture,' all that's left of her parents are two holes in the roof. Suddenly, she doesn't know who or what to believe. With her best friend Harp and a mysterious ally, Peter, Vivian embarks on a desperate cross-country road trip through a paranoid and panic-stricken America to find answers.

Theo Miller knows the value of human life - to the very last penny. Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. But when his ex-lover is killed, it's different. This is one death he can't let become merely an entry on a balance sheet.

Rebellion of the Bleeding Hearts is a thrilling tale of love, rebellion, and the enduring fight for justice, set against the backdrop of a world defined by social credit scores. It's a story that explores the power of unity and determination in the face of oppression, leaving listeners with a compelling message of hope and transformation.

The Icelandic Psychological Association has prepared a test. They call it a sensitivity assessment -- a way of measuring a person's empathy and identifying the potential for anti-social behaviour. In a few days' time, Iceland will vote on whether to make the test compulsory for every citizen. The nation is bitterly divided. Some believe the test makes society safer; others decry it as a violation. As the referendum draws closer, four people - Vetur, Eyja, Tristan and Ólafur - find themselves caught in the teeth of the debate.

One afternoon, not long after Kelly Thorndike has moved back to his hometown of Baltimore, an African American man he doesn't recognize calls out to him. To Kelly's shock, the man identifies himself as Martin, who was one of Kelly's closest friends in high school - and, before his disappearance nearly 20 years before, skinny, white, and Jewish. Martin then tells an astonishing story: he's had a plastic surgeon perform 'racial reassignment surgery.'

When an EMP decimates the United States, Lori, a former Marine Raider, must embark on a treacherous journey with her daughter across the former United States from Pennsylvania to a rumored sanctuary in Washington State.