Dystopian Women

Author Clarissa Katsef is struggling to write her next book. She’s just snagged a brand new artist residency in an ultra-modern apartment, with a view of all of Paris, a dream for any novelist in search of tranquility. But since moving in, she has had the feeling of being watched. Is there reason to be paranoid? Or is her distraction and discomfort the result of her husband’s recent shocking betrayal? Or is that her beloved Paris lies altered outside her windows? A city that will never be quite the same, a city with a scar at its center?

One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.

Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage to adulthood. Like every girl, she was born with a set of childhood markings - the freckles, moles, and birthmarks on her body that foretell her future and that of those around her - and with puberty will come a new set of predictions that will solidify her fate. The possibilities are tantalizing enough to outweigh her worry that the future she dreams of won’t be the one she’s fated to experience.

After emerging from a coma, Faye Wills opens her eyes to complete darkness and the feeling of being trapped. Soon she discovers she is in no less than a nightmare world and awakens in the worst place imaginable. She is one of thousands of bodies in a makeshift mass grave that was once a football stadium. Left for dead. There are no signs of life and the only sound she hears is the buzzing of flies that follow the stench of death.

Wolfe is the bunker's resident pharmacist. While the inhabitants wait for the outside world to heal, she doles out ibuprofen, sanitary towels and Xanax—all under the watchful eye of the increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, her world is thrown off its axis once again. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt and Canavan, Wolfe has to navigate the powder keg of life underground, knowing her every move is being watched.

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.

In the midst of a devastating epidemic, how far will a desperate mother go to keep her loved ones safe? There is a deadly virus spreading around the world. At first it is a distant alarm bell in the background of Hannah's comfortable suburban life. Then suddenly, it has arrived on the doorstep. The quarantine traps Hannah, her husband, and their young sons in their home and forces them to rely on their own resourcefulness as water and power supplies are cut, food reserves dwindle, and their formerly idyllic backyard and quiet street become battlefields.

A fun family vacation turns into an apocalyptic nightmare when a couple and their young son find themselves trapped in the Irish countryside during an international crisis. With all contact outside the country gone, all electricity and all non-horse-powered vehicles useless, and desperate bands of outlaws roaming the Emerald Isle, the time has come for one soft American family to reach deep within for the reserve of brains and courage to survive.

Winter is over and Lena is ready to leave the relative safety of Pearl Two, a closed community in Portland. A member of her party is missing. The woman they trusted for months is lying. She can’t be sure of anyone. With each step, she confronts the physical threats lurking in the wilderness and struggles to hold onto her dream of creating alliances to heal their future. Haunted by memories of the past and driven by the hope for a better future, she searches for the strength to built unity from the growing anarchy.

Centuries after the Cutoff, the secluded island of Sansara has perfected the roles of women. All girls attend the Institute where they are ranked, judged, and trained, and their paths are chosen for them. Elora’s destiny is to rise to the top. Rose wants to make her family proud. Odette dreams of happiness. But in a society that eats women alive, even dreams can turn out to be bitter fruit. All are trapped in a system that values their appearances, not who they are. Will they be crushed by the machine that oppresses them, or will they dare to break free and live on their own terms?

Jean McClellan è diventata una donna di poche parole. Ma non per sua scelta. Può pronunciarne solo cento al giorno, non una di più. Anche sua figlia di sei anni porta il braccialetto conta parole, e le è proibito imparare a leggere e a scrivere. Perché, con il nuovo governo al potere, in America è cambiato tutto. Jean è solo una dei milioni di donne che, oltre alla voce, hanno dovuto rinunciare al passaporto, al conto in banca, al lavoro. Ma è l'unica che ora ha la possibilità di ribellarsi.

La granja Golden Oaks está lista, o así lo cree su gerente empresarial, Mae Yu, para convertirse en el nuevo y gran avance de la economía de la fertilidad. Allí, la progenie de los súper ricos inicia su vida en el útero con lo mejor de lo mejor: dietas equilibradas a base de alimentos orgánicos, listas de reproducción seleccionadas en base a su placer auditivo... y matrices jóvenes, sanas (y optimizadas con cortisol) donde gestarse. A sus anfitrionas -es así como se llama a estas madres sustitutas- se les ofrecen contratos de arrendamiento de nueve meses.

In Scotland, in the not too distant future, Elaine, a partially sighted woman in her 60s, enters an exit facility. Down on her uppers, she is in search of a swift, free, and dignified death so that she can preserve her last remaining asset–a small flat–for her daughter to inherit. But once Elaine has checked in and finds her “Exit” delayed, the enforced wait leads her to question her choice and, more importantly, the state’s motives.

O governo decreta que as mulheres só podem falar 100 palavras por dia. A Dra. Jean McClellan está em negação. Ela não acredita que isso esteja acontecendo de verdade. Em pouco tempo, as mulheres também são impedidas de trabalhar e os professores não ensinam mais as meninas a ler e escrever. Antes, cada pessoa falava em média 16 mil palavras por dia, mas agora as mulheres só têm 100 palavras para se fazer ouvir. Lutando por si mesma, sua filha e todas as mulheres silenciadas, Jean vai reivindicar sua voz.

The constant threat of terrorism has left London under round-the-clock surveillance and in the tightening grip of privatised security firms. Journalist Antonia Conti suspects one such organisation—GRM—not only of being behind several women’s disappearances, but of financing the widespread violence it claims to fight. When a gang of hitmen use rampant state surveillance to track Antonia down, she narrowly escapes with her life. But then one of them turns up dead—covered in her DNA—and Antonia finds herself the prime suspect in his murder.

Melbourne, February 2100. Emma Cartwright has 28 days left to find work, otherwise she must report to the Productive Citizens Bureau and accept any vacancy, regardless of location, pay, or conditions. At 70, Emma could opt for voluntary euthanasia, but she has her student son Jack to support. After a chance meeting with the eccentric Cal Ritchie, founder of the clandestine group Citizens’ Voice and supporter of those fleeing repressive laws to live in bush camps, Emma is determined to escape her life of compliance.

London, the near future. GRM, a shadowy company running private prisons, has introduced a programme to alter prisoners’ memories, removing those that led to their criminal behaviour. When journalist Antonia Conti hears rumours that the technology has deadly side effects, she decides to investigate.

Finlandia se ha convertido en un estado totalitario llamado Republica Eusistocratica, que ha priorizado la salud nacional y ha prohibido todo lo que pueda dar placer o causar adicción. Bueno, casi todo: el estado ha creado una nueva subespecie humana: una especie receptiva, sumisa y siempre dispuesta a tener relaciones sexuales. Solían llamarse mujeres. Desde los años 40 varios científicos junto con el gobierno han puesto en marcha un plan de selección artifical que solo permite la reproducción a las mujeres más dóciles.

Life on an ore refining space station is miserable. When sickness spikes and ignites protests, only one cop can find the answers. Sofie Allen is forced to track down the source of the sickness on the Mallet. Her boss is determined to dump the political pressure on her. And worse, she might be a victim as her symptoms escalate. Will Sofie arrest the culprit before the Mallet is destroyed?

Detective Sofie Allen believes anarchy is only a scandal away. With crime lurking around every gangway of the elite-ruled space station, closing cases requires a delicate balance of politics and justice. But she sees the local power equilibrium shifting dangerously when the head of a ruling family is brutally murdered. Facing pressure to pin the homicide on a lowlife, Detective Allen desperately tries to contain the stress that could reveal her hidden genetic medical disorder. But as she pushes the investigation forward, she fears the lethal consequences will rain down on an innocent.