Showing titles in Dystopian

William Allen presents book 2 in the Tertiary Effects series. 

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached. Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us.

Mimi is drowning in the world's trash. She's a waste worker on Silicon Isle, an island off the coast of China where electronics are sent to be recycled. These amass in towering heaps, polluting every spare inch of land. Mimi and thousands of migrant waste workers like her are lured to Silicon Isle with the promise of a better life. They're the lifeblood of the island's economy but are at the mercy of those in power. A storm is brewing between ruthless local gangs warring for control.

Eight years ago, the world as we know it ended. Now, the last US government stronghold has sent a military recon team from Camp David to the bombed-out city of Seattle, but the mission turns deadly when a horde of horrifying mutant creatures are released onto the streets. Oliver Marcus and Trisha Pike, the only survivors of their nine-man team, are rescued by a group of scavengers led by their superhuman leader, River Kingston. Driven by the need to find her lost husband, River is drawn in by Mycroft, the invisible puppet master behind New Texas.

Hobart, 2022: a city with a declining population, in the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into the harbor and begins to unload its cargo on the site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA. One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-pitched sound no one has heard for two generations: a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous billionaire Dundas Faussett, is creating his most ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat technology’s dominance over our lives by establishing a new Year Zero: 1948.

What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on an 11-year-old girl grappling with emotional changes in her own life? One morning, Julia and her parents wake up to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth is noticeably slowing....

Once a top black ops agent, Timberwolf Velez's world shatters when he encounters Kizik, a malevolent psychic alien spider that leaves a lasting mark on his psyche. Haunted by his past, Timberwolf now faces an ominous threat as a religious fanatic unearths a hidden cache of unimaginably destructive weapons. Will Timberwolf rise above his shattered mind and prevent the galaxy from descending into irreversible chaos?

After the longest winter of her life, Vivian is thrilled to have Ginny back at her side. But joy soon turns to shock when the group learns that not only is Hope Springs in contact with other survivors, but that the CDC is working on a vaccine. And Angus could be the last hope for the human race. With an armed escort, the group sets out on a mission to get Angus to Atlanta. But the world proves to be more dangerous than the people of Hope Springs believed, and their lack of preparation ends in deadly results.

Like all citizens since the ruining, Carrington Hale knows the importance of this day. But she never expected the moment she'd spent a lifetime preparing for - her choosing ceremony - to end in disaster. Ripped from her family, she'll spend her days serving as a lint, the lowest level of society. She knows it's her duty to follow the true way of the authority. But as Carrington begins this nightmare, rumors of rebellion rattle her beliefs.

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.

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition.

In 2108, Colony Ship Voyager departed Earth for the planet of Promissa with 18,000 of the world’s best and brightest on board. 250 years and 27 light years later, an arrival is imminent. But all is not well. The probes that they’ve sent ahead to gather the data needed to establish any kind of settlement aren’t responding, and the information they have received has presented more questions than answers. It’s a time when the entire crew should be coming together to solve the problem, but science officer Sheila Jackson can’t get people to listen.

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia.

With three degrees and the highest measured IQ in the Motherlands, Shelly Summers knows that she's socially awkward. It doesn't bother her since as the head engineer for Advances Technologies she has little time for social interactions anyway. When she learns that one of the testers for the sex-bots her company manufactures is her old crush, Marco, she's curious to see if he'll recognize her now that she's 10 years older and no longer has bushy eyebrows and a bad case of acne. A normal person would have said something when Marco doesn't recognize her from his past.

Six months after Noam Álvaro helped overthrow the despotic government of Carolinia, the Atlantians have gained citizenship, and Lehrer is chancellor. But despite Lehrer's image as a progressive humanitarian leader, Noam has finally remembered the truth that Lehrer forced him to forget - that Lehrer is responsible for the deadly magic infection that ravaged Carolinia.

So, the thing is, I come from the world we were supposed to have. That means nothing to you, obviously, because you live here, in the crappy world we do have. But it never should've turned out like this. And it's all my fault - well, me and, to a lesser extent, my father. And, yeah, I guess a little bit Penelope. In both worlds she's the love of my life. But only a single version of her can exist. I have one impossible chance to fix history's greatest mistake and save this broken world.

Richard Royal has a hard life. He lives in a corrupt, church-controlled dystopia, his family is soon broken, and the only joy to be had comes from the escapism of his full-immersion gaming. Introduced to a new and very illegal game, he finds himself in the body of a dragon, on a quest to find a dark and evil power to serve. But the game is more than it seems, and the dragon is more than a beast. Soon Rich's life is far, far more complicated than he ever expected. And the threats against him grow, both in-game and in realspace.

The sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse have destroyed most of the planet…yet out of these waters, Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation, has been miraculously reborn. Listen along as Tanis Parenteau's impeccable narration, capturing the rhythms of Navajo speech, fully envelopes you into the Sixth World. Trail of Lightning follows our heroine as she walks the land alongside gods, heroes of legend, and monsters alike.

Khaim, The Blue City, is the last remaining city in a crumbled empire that overly relied upon magic until it became toxic. It is run by a tyrant known as The Jolly Mayor and his devious right hand, the last archmage in the world. Together they try to collect all the magic for themselves so they can control the citizens of the city. But when their decadence reaches new heights and begins to destroy the environment, the people stage an uprising to stop them.