Dystopian Stand Alone Stories

Everywhere Everything Everyone

by Katy Warner

Set in Melbourne

Even though she lives on the wrong side of town, 14-year-old Santee believes her world is like ours: that running late for curfew will only get you grounded, and that the government tries to keep its good citizens safe and secure. Until one night, everything changes. On her way home from school, Santee takes a detour to the outskirts of town with a boy that she likes, and then finds herself stranded overnight when his car breaks down. When she's finally able to get a lift towards home the next morning, Santee discovers that everything has changed. A 'safety border', a wall, has gone up around her part of town, imprisoning her family and trapping her on the outside. Katy Warner's powerful debut novel is about the importance of hope and standing up for what you believe in. From small cracks, big cracks grow.

After the lights go out

by Lili Wilkinson

Set in Australia

Seventeen-year-old Pru Palmer lives with her twin sisters, Grace and Blythe, and their father, Rick, on the outskirts of an isolated mining community. The Palmers are doomsday preppers. They have a bunker filled with non-perishable food and a year's worth of water. Each of the girls has a 'bug out bag', packed with water purification tablets, protein bars, paracord bracelets and epipens for Pru's anaphylaxis. One day while Rick is at the mine, the power goes out. At the Palmers' house, and in the town. No one knows why. All communication is cut. It doesn't take long for everything to unravel. In town, supplies run out and people get desperate. The sisters decide to keep their bunker a secret. The world is different; the rules are different. Survival is everything, and family comes first

Ursa

by Tina Shaw

'An inferior people, that's what the Director called us at the beginning of his reign, but still useful.' There are two peoples living in the city of Ursa: the Cerels and the Travesters. Travesters move freely and enjoy a fine quality of life. Cerel men are kept in wild camps and the women are no longer allowed to have children. The Director presides over all with an iron fist. Fifteen-year-old Leho can't remember a time when Cerels lived without fear in Ursa. His parents once tried to organise an uprising -- his mother was blinded, and his father was taken away. But now his world is changing. Revolution is coming. People will die. Will Leho be able to save his family?

The Big Lie

by Julie Mayhew

Nazi England, 2014. Jessika Keller is a good girl: she obeys her father, does her best to impress Herr Fisher at the Bund Deutscher Madel meetings and is set to be a world champion ice skater. Her neighbour Clementine is not so submissive. Outspoken and radical, Clem is delectably dangerous and rebellious. And the regime has noticed. Jess cannot keep both her perfect life and her dearest friend. But which can she live without?

Fearless

by Tim Lott

The smartly painted exterior of the City Community Faith School hides a disturbing secret. Behind its walls, 1000 girls are forced to labour in the city's laundry, separated from their families and deprived of their freedom. One of these girls is Little Fearless who never gives up hope that one day she will be rescued.

Internment

by Samira Ahmed

Set in a horrifying 'fifteen minutes in the future' United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin is forced into an internment camp for Muslim-Americans along with her parents.

With the help of newly-made friends also trapped within the camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment questions the imaginary boundaries that separate us and challenges readers to fight the complicit silence that exists in our society today.

My Love Life and the Apocalypse

by Melissa Welliver

Planet Earth sucks. Humans have gone and cities are empty, looked after by bots. But not all robots are machines. Echo is part-human, his heart ruled by an unreliable E-Mote chip which means he's pretty much a normal boy surviving on canned beans. Living his best life. Then a space-pod crash-lands in his neighbourhood with a girl on board. Pandora. She's his last hope, and apparently he's hers - if they really are all that's left alive ...

The Secret Runners of New York

By Matthew Reilly

THE COMING END: When Skye Rogers and her twin brother Red move to Manhattan, rumours of a coming global apocalypse are building. But this does not stop the young elite of New York from partying without a care. CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?: And then suddenly Skye is invited to join an exclusive gang known as the Secret Runners of New York. But this is no ordinary clique - they have access to an underground portal that can transport them into the future. And what Skye discovers in the future is horrifying. RUN! AS FAST AS YOU CAN!: As society crumbles, Skye and Red race to figure out how to use their knowledge to survive the impending annihilation, they soon discover that the chaotic end of the world is perfect time for revenge.

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