Dystopian Mystery

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

As a child, Linda Russell was left to raise herself in a 20-acre walled-off property in rural Washington. The woods were her home, and for 12 years she lived oblivious to a stark and terrible truth: Her mother had birthed her only to replace another daughter who died in a tragic accident years before. Then one day Linda witnesses something she wasn’t meant to see.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters...Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost - how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers...to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small.

Lucas embarks on a cross-country journey for what's supposed to be a simple vaccine delivery mission, but which quickly devolves into a battle to survive when he and his team become embroiled in a conspiracy so massive it will change the fate of America.

Cult escapee Wynter Roth and ex-soldier Chase Miller emerge from their bunker to find a country ravaged by disease, and Wynter is the only one who can save it.

Una noche oscura y lluviosa, Eilish Stack abre la puerta de su casa de Dublín y se encuentra a dos agentes de la policía secreta. Están allí para interrogar a su marido, un sindicalista que ha participado en manifestaciones recientes. La casa, la familia y el país que Eilish conocía, y en los que confiaba, están a punto de desmoronarse.

America is falling, ready to join the Roman Empire as a distant memory in the annals of history. The year is 2027. Tired and desperate, the American people are deep in the middle of The Second Great Depression. The Florida coastline is in ruins from the most powerful hurricane on record; a second just like it is bearing down on the state of Texas. For the first time in history, the Middle East has united as one and amassed the most formidable army the world has seen since the Third Reich.

Three months after life as she knows it was decimated, Megan Wolford has only one goal: protect her daughter, Caitlin, at any cost. When a mysterious illness strikes Caitlin down, Megan is forced to forage for medical supplies at a remote lodge. The last thing she wants is help from her fellow survivors when so many in her life have let her down - but soon she'll find herself with no other option.

All he wants is peace. All he finds is war. Marcus Battle is a wanted man. No matter where he goes or what he does, he can't escape those who aim to kill him. But as he fights off one would-be vigilante after another, a new threat emerges. It's a threat worse than the viral Scourge which plunged his world into a dystopian nightmare and it could give rise to second apocalypse. Can Marcus fend off the coming attacks or will he finally fall prey to an enemy he won't see coming?

Publicado em 1949, o texto de Orwell nasceu destinado à polêmica. Traduzido em mais de sessenta países, virou minissérie, filmes, quadrinhos, mangás e até uma ópera. Ganhou holofotes em 1999, quando uma produtora holandesa batizou seu reality show de Big Brother. 1984 foi responsável pela popularização de muitos termos e conceitos, como Grande Irmão, duplopensar, novidioma, e buraco da memória. O trabalho de Winston, o herói de 1984, é reescrever artigos de jornais do passado, de modo que o registro histórico sempre apoie a ideologia do Partido.

For 50 years, the Key Corporation has defended humanity against a deadly virus that spreads through touch. Lovers don't kiss, or even hold hands. Personal boundaries are valued above all. Break the laws, and you'll face execution. Elodie, a talented young nurse, believes in the mission of the Key and has never questioned the laws that control her life. But Elodie is forced to break the rules when she sets out in search of a terminal patient who goes missing while under her care.

Now eight months into a global blackout, the residents of Oak Hollow are trying to cope with the deep winter nights and a gnawing hunger from a food shortage. The struggle to survive can bring out the worst in anyone. A teenage friend of the Brannings has been found shot while hunting, and his slain deer is gone. Suspicions immediately fall on Mark Green, the son of a convicted murderer. Before he can prove his innocence, vigilantes force the sheriff to arrest him.

The world is falling apart. Joshua Jordan’s protégé Ethan March, along with Jimmy Louder and Rivka Reuban, have been left behind in a world that is rapidly coming under the complete influence of the Antichrist. Technology is growing by leaps and bounds with BID-Tag implants, robotic police units, and drone-bots flying overhead . . . all designed to control and dominate those who resist the Antichrist’s reign of evil.

Ten years after the world's oil went sour and a pandemic killed most of the population, Sam Edison is the chief of police of The Little Five, a walled-in community near Atlanta, Georgia. Those who survived share the world with what are known as hollow-heads: creatures who are no longer fully human. A man and a pregnant teenager arrive at the gate and are welcomed into the town. They begin to settle in when suddenly both are murdered by an unknown assailant. In the course of investigation, Chief Edison discovers that the girl was fleeing a life of sexual slavery, and that some members of the community were complicit in the human trafficking network that had ensnared her.

Senior Chief Cotton Wiley thought he had left his days of fighting behind in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the world had other plans. First a deadly virus ravaged humanity and then the attempt at a vaccine turned most of the survivors into genetically engineered cannibals. Now the former SEAL has a new mission: Get his daughter through the wasteland of what was once America and to a place where she has a chance at a future not soaked in blood.

The United States. 2030. John McDean executive produces "Vigilance", a reality game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a "game environment", and the survivors get a cash prize. The TV audience is not the only one that's watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it's like to be on the other side of the camera.

It's been nearly two decades since the Red Allies first attacked New York, and Manhattan is now a prisoner-of-war camp ruled by Rolladin and her brutal, impulsive warlords. For Skyler Miller, Manhattan is a cage that keeps her from the world beyond the city's borders. But for Sky's younger sister, Phee, the POW camp is a dangerous playground of possibility--and the only home she'd ever want.

It's always idyllic in the village until the landlord comes to call. Because the landlord is an Ogre. And Ogres rule the world, with their size and strength and appetites. It's always been that way. It's the natural order of the world. And they only eat people sometimes. But when the headman's son, Torquell, dares lift his hand against the landlord's son, he sets himself on a path to learn the terrible truth about the Ogres, and about the dark sciences that ensured their rule.

It was once named America, but now it is just "the Republic". Following the worldwide implementation of a UN-led program called Agenda 21, the once-proud people of America have become obedient residents who live in barren, brutal Compounds and serve the autocratic, merciless Authorities. Citizens mainly keep their heads down and their mouths shut - but Emmeline is different. When the Authorities took her mother away, she started questioning the world around her.

Die junge Eleria, genannt "Ria" gehört zum privilegierten Teil der Bevölkerung, die nach einer Katastrophe in sogenannten "Sphären" Schutz vor den unwirtlichen Umwelteinflüssen gefunden hat. Eigentlich ist ihr Leben hier perfekt – bis sie Ziel eines Anschlags wird. Gemeinsam mit fünf Kommilitonen flieht sie aus der geschützten Umgebung und muss sich draußen dem Überlebenskampf in der Welt der Clans stellen, wo jeder ihr Todfeind sein kann.