sci fi – dystopian & post apocalyptic

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Summary: The Great Forest and Other Love Stories  is a collection of short stories, with various settings, including an alien planet, an imaginary country, and places in Virginia, and the end of the world. These gay love stories explore the growth of relationships, and the negotiations of various complications and challenges.

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Summary: An unprecedented heat and humidity has fallen upon the city of Bridges. People are dying. Crops are failing. And the Inventors can't find the cause. With all she's learned in our previous chapter, Jacqui has what she needs to unravel the conspiracy against the Four Families. The plans that her old nemesis Jack Diamond has set into motion are all that stands in her way. She's ready to stop him. Warning: Bad language, alcoholism, mental illness, animal abuse/death, smoking, gun violence, rioting, infidelity, sexual situations. This series centers a crime family and is intended for adults. This is the eleventh chapter of a 13-part serial novel: * The Jacq of Spades * The Queen of Diamonds * The Ace of Clubs * The King of Hearts * The Ten of Spades * The Five of Diamonds * The Two of Hearts * The Three of Spades * The Knave of Hearts * The Four of Clubs * The Jack of Diamonds <-- you are here * Book 12 coming March 2026 * Book 13 scheduled for March 2028

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Summary: There are monsters outside the city walls. Harvard is small, anxious, and plagued by a constant tremor, which is not an ideal combination for a desert scavenger. He and his crew are under constant threat of desertwalker attacks, and Harvard is nearly useless against them. When the biggest mistake of Harvard’s life separates him from his crew, he must learn the secrets of the desert beasts in order to survive the dangers of the dusts. Returning to Bastion with a surprising ally, Harvard is forced to choose between saving his crew or allying with the “monsters” who rescued him. Harvard never saw himself as a hero, but when the beasts of the dusts implore him to aid their rescue mission, he holds the lives of crabs and humans alike in his trembling hands. For awesome post-apocalyptic action, where Earth is ruled by gargantuan crab beasts, get your copy of Empress of Dust today!

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Summary: Tormented by memories of past lives and a general distaste for structure, Sloane dropped out of a prestigious magic college to find themself. During their travels, they came across a curious little creature: a chatty spider that fit snugly in their hands. Unbeknownst to Sloane, this wasn’t a harmless garden or cellar spider. The spider had a thirst that mere flies couldn’t quench. It demanded blood and flesh, and when mice failed to suffice, moved on to bigger and dangerous prey. Sloane appeased it as best they could, but as the spider rapidly shot up in size, turned their focus from butcher shops to farms. Together, they concocted a plan to “solve” a manifested loss of cattle. The spider got a steady supply of food, and Sloane got street cred as a “monster slayer”. “What could possibly go wrong?” – Famous last words of any irresponsible pet owner. So now Sloane has a very real infestation to contend with, along with suspicious rangers and wannabe hunters edging in on their turf. “…I’m gonna need a bigger boot.”

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Summary: “IMMORTALITY BYTES: Digital Minds Don’t Get Hungry” by Daniel Lawrence Abrams won “Best Science Fiction: Cyberpunk” in the 7th Annual American Fiction Awards (2024), won “Best Humor/Satire” in the Story Trade Awards (a Reedsy "Best Writing Competition), and the book made the 3rd cut/shortlisted and is still in contention to win Chanticleer's Cygnus Award for Best Science Fiction (2025). Tagline: “Living forever... it's almost worth dying for.” Genre: Sci-Fi/Humor/Political Thriller The Hook: Strives to be a satirical, progressive antidote to Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED. One-line Story Pitch: “When an idealistic hacker’s ex-girlfriend nears inventing digital immortality, an indicted tycoon compels him to steal it.” Back Cover Blurb: “Yay, free money and a life of leisure! Except… only if you never have children. Sure, a cute little version of you (but not yet so screwed up) sounds fun. But with AI robots taking more jobs, who can reject that “bargain” hoping to afford kids someday? Stu Reigns does. He’s an idealistic AI programmer and part-time influencer. His demisexual ex-girlfriend, Roxy Zhang, nears perfecting electronic immortality. Add in billionaire banking rascals, and there’s no more certainty — not even “Death & Taxes.” An old-money Southerner is buying Roxy’s company. This infuriates a sick, rival oligarch — who is about to be rightfully convicted of epic fraud. To escape to this digital eternal life, he compels Stu to steal it. You’ll never guess all the twists, but maybe the reader peering over your shoulder will.” LINKS to accolades and 5-star reviews for "IMMORTALITY BYTES: Digital Minds Don't Get Hungry" by Daniel Lawrence Abrams : - https://www.americanbookfest.com/2024afapressrelease.html - https://2024.storytradeawards.com/ - https://www.chantireviews.com/2024/09/03/the-2024-cygnus-awards-semi-finalists-for-science-fiction/ - https://readerviewsarchives.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/immortality-bytes-abrams-2/ - https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/immortality-bytes - https://sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/immortality-bytes-digital-minds-dont-get-hungry/ BOOK TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/1005688225  

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Summary: Earth on the Cusp of the Twenty-Second Century Just think how the world has changed in the last seventy-six years. In 1948, scientists ran the first computer program, and "the Ultimate Car of the Future," the futuristic, three wheeled Davis Divan, debuted. Since then, a succession of inventions—the personal computer, the internet, the World Wide Web, smart phones and social media—have transformed every aspect of our lives. How might the next seventy-six years change us, in ways we can barely even begin to imagine, as culture, climate change, politics and technology continue to reshape the world? Earth in 2100 will be as unrecognizable to us as today would be to someone from 1948. Eighteen writers tackled this challenge, creating an amazing array of sci-fi possibilities. From emotional AI's to photosynthetic children, from virtual worlds to a post-urban society, our writers serve up compelling slices of life from an Earth that's just around the corner. So dive in and and take a wild ride into these amazing visions of our collective future.

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Summary: The fate of Lida looms. Agetha thought her fate was sealed, pushed to the edge of the colony to die. But with the revelation that the biomass is not only intelligent, but sentient, changes to colony are accelerating, threatening its very existence. Those who were controlled by the biomass once again have free will. Now, the human colonists are raising their voices and for the first time really influencing their new home. The planet-wide consciousness is slipping into a crisis of identity, when it doesn’t even have a sense of self. The wilds surrounding the colony are becoming increasingly unstable, and the colonists find themselves divided into those who have been touched by the biomass and those who are still wholly human. Can one small colony survive its inner conflicts as well as the titanic might of an entire planet?

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Summary: This horror collection graphic novel contains the following stories: “And They Lived Long Enough to Bury Their Dead” is a dark fantasy comic zine about a group of Gen X goth/punk folks growing older and processing the deaths of loved ones. A paranormal urban fantasy, it centers around Billie, a nonbinary African-American alternative rocker from Oakland who develops the psychic ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Their nesting partner, Davis, a formerly homeless African-American transgender man, their twin brother Sean, a ghostcat, and the ghost of their mother are other central characters. In the story Billie, Davis, and their Gen X circle of friends are coming to terms with aging, the declining health (and loss) of their parents, and adjusting to a new post-pandemic world. It is an urban fantasy taking place in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area “Agrippa” is a dystopic near-future tale that takes place in an unnamed industrialized nation very much like the United States. When foreign creditors demand that the nation repay its considerable international debt or face war it enacts the Dulcetta Reforms, ultra-restrictive laws establishing debtor’s prison, and causing a large number of people – many of them seniors – to go to jail or even face execution if not continuously working to pay off their personal debts to the government. Dr. Tine, an expert in geriatric medicine, is desperately searching for employment at the beginning of our tale, having lost her useful functioning in society as the elders she once treated were rounded up and hauled off to the prison camps. Things were so bad she didn't think they could possibly get any worse. How very wrong she was. Dreamworlds: Beyond Somnalia - the author is plagued by a series of increasing demands from their fictional characters who come to take over the writer's life.

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Summary: She escaped Spadros Manor, but her troubles are only beginning. Not even hostile mobs, assassins, drive-by shootings, and an explosive encounter with her worst enemy can stop private eye and mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros. She's on a quest to destroy the Red Dog Gang - before they destroy her. Dark, gritty, violent steampunk crime fiction which keeps you guessing to the very end. If you like crime fiction, noir, Victorian/historical, gritty steampunk, psychological thrillers, hardboiled mystery, hard sf, dystopian, or slow burn mafia romance you will love this series. If made into movies, this set would be rated R for bad language, graphic violence, smoking and alcohol use, pregnancy loss, child injury/murder, animal injury/death, and sexual content (Jacqui is married, after all). This digital box set comprises Act 2A of a 13 part serial novel, which brings us to the midpoint of the story. Included in this set: The King of Hearts: Part 4 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Ten of Spades: Part 5 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Five of Diamonds: Part 6 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Two of Hearts: Part 7 of the Red Dog Conspiracy The Red Dog Conspiracy is one giant book - please read the first three books in the series (start with The Jacq of Spades, or read Red Dog Conspiracy Act 1) before beginning this set.

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Summary: Enjoy the next chapter in this dark, psychological, steam-powered future mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Patricia Loofbourrow. Recovering from the tremendous losses she's suffered in our last chapter, private eye and mafia wife Jacqueline Spadros gets a new case from an unlikely source: her mobster husband. But when a mutual friend goes missing, Jacqui and her husband must join forces on a case which quickly turns deadly.

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Summary: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

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Summary: After a job gone wrong, Special Agent Olgo is trapped within the bowels of Mars with no means of escape. The device that imprisons the trauma within them is about to fail, and the past terrors kept hidden by it must be contained for Olgo’s sanity and everyone's safety. From the darkness comes a tiny voice, and a tinier hope: "Hello?" *** The first book in the ‘Cold Rush' Verse follows Agent Olgo as their corporate masters give them what could be their big break: a mission to Mars. But trying to change the working conditions in the planet's underground cities proves more challenging than the agent could have imagined. When a wearable device Olgo uses to block emotions begins to fail, an unlikely friendship changes everything as Olgo struggles to prevent spilling more blood on the Red Planet.

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Summary: When Peace-in-the-Sky awakens as a captive with a young girl by her side, she only understands one thing: she must escape the tribe who captured her. A brutal head injury makes the past a swirling fog, so she is reliant on the girl—her precocious daughter Anissa—to guide them. She must return Anissa to the Tribes-under-the-Dome to keep her safe from warring and vicious tribes inhabiting the wasted landscape. Every group they shelter with along the way sees something different when they look at Peace-in-the-Sky—a god, a savior, a valuable commodity, a volatile danger. She doesn't know herself, but soon realizes she can protect Anissa with the scorching power of the pillars-of-flame. Only her tender love for Anissa and her mission to return the girl home to the Tribes-under-the-Dome matter. As her body grows weaker, not even the inexorable unraveling mystery of who, or what, Peace-in-the-Sky really is can deflect her from the task. Find out what happens in Peace In The Sky by Caye Marsh!

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Summary: Dwyn is a young man in the small, isolated northern town of Manicouga, son of the Minstor, and betrothed to marry the beautiful Kessa in a few weeks. Mael is shepherding the remains of his own people from Land’s End, a village farther north, chased out by a terrible storm that destroyed the town. Both are trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. When they meet, their love may change the course of history.

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Summary: A single father fights to retain control as he shares his body and mind with an evolving AI. It’s been nine years since the government banned all technology. So, when Joel Lodowick, a young transgender father struggling to support his five-year-old daughter, has an old bionic upload itself into his head, he is faced with a decision: Go to the cops and risk prosecution? Or use the robot’s skills to turn his life around? Scared of losing his daughter, Joel chooses the latter. Heightened intelligence and physical enhancements quickly land him a better job and a brighter future. But things take a sinister turn when Joel realizes his uninvited companion has an agenda of its own, which may or may not include leaving him in control. Unable to approach the government who covered up the truth about AI sentience, Joel finds himself on the run. With his daughter’s life on the line and his own body turning against him, he must find a way to convince the bionic in his head to value his human life before he loses the chance forever. Find out what happens in My Heart is Human by Reese Hogan!

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Summary: To resuscitate his fading celebrity, tech CEO Stephen Lucas would sell his soul for one more hit. When the subspace network for his holographic gaming empire crashes, his hardware guru makes a discovery proving that Einstein was right once again—information can be sent into the past. They accidently created a simple time machine. In a culture built on instant gratification, Lucas is sure he's stumbled upon the next big thing,  the game-changer that will make Wall Street give him the accolades he craves—a device that makes instant delivery possible. Want a pizza now? Send your order back in time 30 minutes. Forgot to make reservations at that chichi french restaurant two weeks ago? No worries now you can make purchases of anything in the past and have it appear when you want it—now. So, buy last weeks PowerBall ticket. Invest in that stock you wish you bought last year. Share a FaceTime call with a loved one that passed away last month. Finally time really is on your side. A time machine for the rest of us. But when he rushes into beta testing, he learns that the stuff dreams are made of can quickly become the stuff of nightmares. It turns out Move Fast and Break Things is terrible policy when developing a time machine.

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Summary: Forty years after landing on Lida, the colony still isn't finished. Agetha has survived many more battles than she anticipated when she first landed on her new home planet. She's older and wiser, has gained family and lost loved ones. And yet her reward for four decades of service is to be pushed to the colony’s outer edges with the other aging Generationals. But that was only the beginning of her adventure. The biomass has spent years studying the intruders who landed on its surface, carving a new home from its very essence. Never satisfied in its attempt to communicate with this new and invasive species, finally it has found a way to express its intentions. The colonists may never be the same. Discover the fate of the colony in the second book of The Biomass Conflux trilogy!

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Summary: If The Little Mermaid were set in the twenty-second century... In the aftermath of climate change, humans have abandoned the flooded coasts. Underwater, people of another kind struggle to rehabilitate the polluted seas. After one rescues a human engineer, she realizes he might hold the key. If she can learn how to interact with the world like a human, if she can understand them, if she can become enough like them, maybe they will help. Maybe he will help. But to reach him, she may need to sacrifice who she is...

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Summary: In this stunning work of speculative urban fiction, Redfern Jon Barrett breaks down the binary between utopia and dystopia—presenting an ambitopian vision of the world’s first gay state. A glittering gay metropolis of 24 million people, Berlin is a bustling world of pride parades, polyamorous trysts, and even an official gay language. Its distant radio broadcasts are a lifeline for teenagers William and Gareth, who flee toward sanctuary. But is there a place for them in the deeply divided city? Meanwhile, young mother Cissie loves Berlin’s towering high rises and chaotic multiculturalism, yet she’s never left her heterosexual district—not until she and her family are trapped in a queer riot. With her husband Howard plunging into religious paranoia, she discovers a walled-off slum of perpetual twilight, home to the city’s forbidden trans residents. Challenging assumptions of sex and gender, Proud Pink Sky questions how much of ourselves we need to sacrifice in order to find identity and community.

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Summary: Is Leif really lucky?  Stranded in orbit, viewing a destroyed civilization on Earth through the screens of a starship almost out of fuel and food, he doesn’t feel that way. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. As the starship Dauntless returns from a successful mission to the planet called Heaven, Earth holds no attractions for Exoplanetary Scout Leif Grettison.  He wants only to complete the mission and leave for another star, along with ace pilot Yang Yong.  In fact, he would be happy spending the rest of his life flying the starways with her. But they and the rest of the ship’s skeleton crew awaken from hibernation to find Earth’s solar system dark and silent—no signals, no responses to their transmissions. When they make orbit, the magnitude of the disaster becomes clear: An apocalyptic war has killed billions and destroyed every last source of power and tech that 22nd-Century humans relied on to survive. Getting down to Earth is only the beginning of Leif’s problems.  Those few who survived the apocalypse are still divided, fighting over what’s left. The disastrous re-entry to Earth leaves him with no resources or allies. He lands in the middle of a makeshift family that needs him more than he’s comfortable with and hears stories—even nursery rhymes—that speak of a lucky starman.  For once, he’s the only person with tech—but if he’s caught using it, they might kill him. Can a man back from the stars end the warfare on Earth, or will he make it worse?  Can he save a family that might become his?  Is he everyone’s lucky starman?