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Apocalyptic & Dystopian Audiobooks in Science Fiction & Fantasy
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A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber - The dark star passed, bringing with it eternal night and turning history into incredible myth in a single generation!
Pa had sent me out to get an extra pail of air. I'd just about scooped it full and most of the warmth had leaked from my fingers when I saw the thing.
You know, at first I thought it was a young lady. Yes, a beautiful young lady's face all glowing in the dark and looking at me from the fifth floor of the opposite apartment, which hereabouts is the floor just above the white blanket of frozen air. I'd never seen a live young lady before, except in the old magazines—Sis is just a kid and Ma is pretty sick and miserable—and it gave me such a start that I dropped the pail. Who wouldn't, knowing everyone on Earth was dead except Pa and Ma and Sis and you?
Even at that, I don't suppose I should have been surprised. We all see things now and then. Ma has some pretty bad ones, to judge from the way she bugs her eyes at nothing and just screams and screams and huddles back against the blankets hanging around the Nest. Pa says it is natural we should react like that sometimes.
When I'd recovered the pail and could look again at the opposite apartment, I got an idea of what Ma might be feeling at those times, for I saw it wasn't a young lady at all but simply a light—a tiny light that moved stealthily from window to window, just as if one of the cruel little stars had come down out of the airless sky to investigate why the Earth had gone away from the Sun, and maybe to hunt down something to torment or terrify, now that the Earth didn't have the Sun's protection.
I tell you, the thought of it gave me the creeps. I just stood there shaking, and almost froze my feet and did frost my helmet so solid on the inside that I couldn't have seen the light even if it had come out of one of the windows to get me. Then I had the wit to go back inside.
Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is an enduring masterwork of twentieth-century American literature-a chilling vision of a dystopian future built on the foundations of ignorance, censorship, and brutal repression. The origins and evolution of Bradbury's darkly magnificent tale are explored in A Pleasure to Burn, a collection of sixteen selected shorter works that prefigure the grand master's landmark novel. With classic, thematically interrelated stories alongside many crucial lesser-known ones-including, at the collection's heart, the novellas "Long after Midnight" and "The Fireman"-A Pleasure to Burn is an indispensable companion to the most powerful work of America's preeminent storyteller and a wondrous confirmation of the inimitable Bradbury's brilliance, magic, and fire.
"An essential addition to the bookshelf of every Bradbury fan, the collection is also accessible to curious readers with a taste for the dark, the strange, and the macabre."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is an enduring masterwork of twentieth-century American literature-a chilling vision of a dystopian future built on the foundations of ignorance, censorship, and brutal repression. The origins and evolution of Bradbury's darkly magnificent tale are explored in A Pleasure to Burn, a collection of sixteen selected shorter works that prefigure the grand master's landmark novel. With classic, thematically interrelated stories alongside many crucial lesser-known ones-including, at the collection's heart, the novellas "Long after Midnight" and "The Fireman"-A Pleasure to Burn is an indispensable companion to the most powerful work of America's preeminent storyteller and a wondrous confirmation of the inimitable Bradbury's brilliance, magic, and fire.
“Tender and healing... I’m prescribing a preorder to anyone who has ever felt lost. Stunning, kind, necessary.” —Sarah Gailey on book 1: A Psalm for the Wild-Built
'This hopeful listen, full of humor, illuminates a world listeners will yearn to return to.' -AudioFile on A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a story of kindness and love from one of the foremost practitioners of hopeful SF.
After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.
Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com
In the not-too-distant future, the United States loses its status as a world Superpower. With the military cut to a barebones level and American leaders focused solely on the nation's internal struggles, the door will open for new powers to emerge on the world stage. In the wake of this power vacuum, China and Russia begin to flex their military muscles and expand their dominance in the world. They have the most up-to-date technological innovations ready for battle: railguns, unmanned drone tank vehicles, exoskeleton suits, and cyber warfare.
Setting the Stage: The border of India and Pakistan has long been one of the planet's most precarious ticking time bombs waiting to explode, and when a scheme to agitate the tensions in that region is successful, it paves the way for powerful men to begin consolidating authority and start building an Islamic Caliphate. Extremists move from random attacks of violence to plots to take control of positions of political influence. America's usual ally against aggression, Europe, is weakened by economic decline; the U.S is facing this new threat without backup.
In these hazardous times, America will need strong guidance. Henry Stein, a new kind of leader, builds a new political party to lead the charge to bring the country back from the brink. His unconventional style is just what the U.S. needs in order to deal with the changing world balance of power and a worldwide Great Depression. As conflicts near and far began to plague the planet, will President Stein be able to prevent a third world war?
In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk & Robot series gives us hope for the future.
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of 'what do people need?' is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot.
Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
A Macmillan Audio production from Tordotcom
A flood of desperate people in search of a haven. The threat of a new plague. Trapped between her ex-husband’s betrayal and a cult leader hiding a deadly secret, can Lena survive?
All Lena wanted was to live in peace. Her new family struggled to create a home in a disintegrating civilization. The dream was almost in her grasp.
Then people fleeing the gang ridden cities come demanding help she can’t give. Brian, her ex-husband, is determined to undermine her family. Scott, her lover, hungers for adventure. And a charismatic leader brings a terrible threat to her doorstep.
Being right about the future of the cities in this post-plague world is not worth the deadly challenges she faces.
A Question of Sanctuary is the third book in the Rebuilding Hops series. If you like stories of strength in the face of adversity, you will enjoy Lena’s final battle for peace.
Buy A Question of Sanctuary today and root for Lena as she struggles through overwhelming challenges to find peace.
More Barliona adventures from the bestselling author of the Way of the Shaman LitRPG series!
Reality is cruel. The rising level of technological development has led to a rising level of unemployment. They're laying off everybody, from teachers to technical servicemen. What's the point of holding onto a person if they can be replaced by an advanced mechanism?
But what are the people to do? How are they to live? Where are they to get money from? There is only one answer-Barliona. The official government project is gathering steam, luring more and more people into its net. Who knows how people will behave when they lose everything?
Brody West is one such person. Unlike most, he doesn't lose heart. A professional project manager with thirty years in the business simply cannot do that. He has a goal, and a clear understanding of how to achieve it. Nobody can get in his way-not the new class, not the strange friend, and not the unexpected foes.
An ingenious novel about art and revenge, insisting on your dreams and hitting on your doctor, told in the form of 80 movie reviews
In near-future America, film critic Noah Body uploads his reviews to a content aggregator. His job is routine: watch, seethe, pan. He dreams of making his own film, free from the hackery of commercial cinema. Faced with writing about lousy movies for a website that no one reads, Noah smuggles into his work episodes from his trainwreck of a life.
We learn that his apartment in Miniature Aleppo has been stripped of furniture after his wife ran off with his best friend-who Noah believes has possessed his body. He's in the middle of an escalating grudge match against a vending machine tycoon with a penchant for violence. And he's infatuated with a doctor who has diagnosed him with a 'disease of thought.' Sapped by days performing the labor of entertainment, forced to voice opinions on cinema to earn his water rations, Noah is determined to create his own masterpiece, directed by and starring himself.
Written by a debut novelist with a rotten wit and a singular imagination, A Short Film About Disappointment is a story about holding on to a scrap of hope in a joyously crummy world of nanny states and New Koreas.
In this gripping sequel to The Line Between, which New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava calls "everything you want in a thriller," 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.
Six months after vanishing into an underground silo with sixty others, Wynter and Chase emerge to find the area abandoned. There is no sign of Noah and the rest of the group that was supposed to greet them when they emerged—the same people Wynter was counting on to help her locate the IV antibiotics her gravely ill friend, Julie, needs in order to live.
As the clock ticks down on Julie's life, Wynter and Chase embark on a desperate search for medicine and answers. But what they find is not a nation on the cusp of recovery thanks to the promising new vaccine Wynter herself had a hand in creating, but one decimated by disease. What happened while they were underground?
With food and water in limited supply and their own survival in question, Chase and Wynter must venture further and further from the silo. Aided by an enigmatic mute named Otto, they come face-to-face with a society radically changed by global pandemic, where communities scrabble to survive under rogue leaders and cities are war zones. As hope fades by the hour and Wynter learns the terrible truth of the last six months, she is called upon once again to help save the nation she no longer recognizes—a place so dark she's no longer sure it can even survive.
Fast-paced and taut, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense about the risks of living in a world outside the safe confines of our closely-held beliefs and the relationships and lives that inspire us.
When famous human musician Melody wakes two thousand years after a nuclear winter, she thinks she’s landed on the right side of a war. Fae are called the Tainted. They’re warped, mutated creatures who hoard the bounty of the new magical land. It’s her job in the human city to sling propaganda in the form of daily songs performed to a select tower of elite.
But this position makes her sought after by many, including a ghastly military man, the evil president of the new world, and an enigmatic stranger who turns up at her doorstep asking for help.
Forrest is the good guy—the elf people go to when they want help, no questions asked. And when he learns he’s the only Guardian with the looks to pass as human, he accepts the job to infiltrate the enemy city and bring a kidnapped fae child home. He never counted on meeting a woman so extraordinary, he hardly believes she exists. Melody—the human harbinger—swiftly captures his heart and tempts him out of a long lifetime of celibacy.
As trouble brews within the ranks of the human elite, Forrest and Melody must come to terms with their forbidden desires… and decide which sacrifice is worth the cost—one of their hearts, or one of freedom.
A Song of Sky and Sacrifice is the first installment in the Season of the Elf, but the seventh book in the Fae Guardians series.
A selection in Parade’s roundup of “25 Hottest Books of Summer 2018”
A Paste Magazine’s Most Anticipated 25 books of 2018 pick
A Medium’s Books pick for We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018 list
Set in a near future Washington, D.C., a clever, incisive, and fresh feminist twist on a classic literary icon—Sherlock Holmes—in which Dr. Janet Watson and covert agent Sara Holmes will use espionage, advanced technology, and the power of deduction to unmask a murderer targeting Civil War veterans.
Dr. Janet Watson knows firsthand the horrifying cost of a divided nation. While treating broken soldiers on the battlefields of the New Civil War, a sniper’s bullet shattered her arm and ended her career. Honorably discharged and struggling with the semi-functional mechanical arm that replaced the limb she lost, she returns to the nation’s capital, a bleak, edgy city in the throes of a fraught presidential election. Homeless and jobless, Watson is uncertain of the future when she meets another black and queer woman, Sara Holmes, a mysterious yet playfully challenging covert agent who offers the doctor a place to stay.
Watson’s readjustment to civilian life is complicated by the infuriating antics of her strange new roommate. But the tensions between them dissolve when Watson discovers that soldiers from the New Civil War have begun dying one by one—and that the deaths may be the tip of something far more dangerous, involving the pharmaceutical industry and even the looming election. Joining forces, Watson and Holmes embark on a thrilling investigation to solve the mystery—and secure justice for these fallen soldiers.
