AI Apocalypse: A Collection of Science Fiction Stories

by Skyler Ramirez, Jonathan Yanez, Andrew Moriarty

When a mercenary's first mission collides with an AI's rise to consciousness, the results will be…apocalyptic. A dead station orbiting a dead planet and your ex-girlfriend with a gun at your back…what could possibly go wrong? AI's don’t have to be intent on world domination to kill you; sometimes, they just want to save fuel. A half-synthetic, half-biological artificial intelligence wakes to find itself on a mysterious starship in the middle of a fiery rebellion. A brother and a sister get caught up in a security raid, and an unlikely AI ally may be their only hope for freedom. All these exciting stories and more await!

From five of the hottest science fiction authors today comes a thrilling anthology of short stories that explore what it means to be human and what the artificial intelligence apocalypse might look like (it could even be fun). Read about navy officers, mercenaries, rebels, and robot dogs in this epic science fiction collection you won’t be able to put down!

Stories

Daniel Forsaken Mercenary Case Files by Jonathan Yanez

Death The Brad Mendoza Chronicles by Skyler Ramirez

A Herd of A Jump Space Story by Andrew Moriarty

Seeds of Rebellion by Anthony J Melchiorri

A Night Owls Story by Stephen Gay

Hospice by Anthony J Melchiorri

The Mining A Jump Space Story by Andrew Moriarty

A Black Sky Club Story by Stephen Gay

Serena by Skyler Ramirez

409 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2024

About the author

Skyler grew up in Southern California, under the best weather that state has to offer. So, he's shown a little of his insanity over the years in moving to colder, wetter places: New York City; Provo, Utah; Bainbridge Island, WA. He now resides with his family in Texas, which (apart from the humidity) gives him that great weather once again.

Skyler has been and continues to be a leader and executive with multiple Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, working across a variety of functions, both technical and non-technical. In other words, he's very much a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. Maybe that's why he has now decided to be an author as well. In it, he’s finally found the thing he loves to do most.

Mr. Ramirez currently resides in Texas with his wife, Lindsey, and their four children.

Reviews

[Michael Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

AI gone wrong. Short stories saying artificial intelligence can be wrong.

Old friends in new stories, new situations. New friends same. All tales of AI gone wrong, or in a couple situations of AI saving their charges from bad AI. A couple superb stories are from old friends expanding their work with old characters. Some of the new work will lead me to read new authors. That's what I'd hoped for. Altogether, a good read!

[Skip · Rating 5 out of 5]

AI Apocalypse was a book that kept me up very late a couple of nights. The authors were almost all new to me and I enjoyed reading all of the stories. It’s refreshing to find a couple of new writers to follow and I thank the publisher for sending me a beta copy to read.

[Nathan Trachta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read two of the authors works (Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Moriarty) I ended up getting a little bit of a early view of this one and honestly, mixed reviews. There's potential here and some interesting thought though not all the writing styles fit for me. The big plus to me was exposure to different writers and seeing if I liked them. I also found it interesting the outlook/presentation of AI and where these authors saw it developing do on the darker side. Interestingly their views were not that different than what was presented in Do Androids Dream or Electric Sheep (Bladerunner) or Terminator (while neither of those directly address AI, both would require AI with the Teminator movie confronting it more directly than Bladerunner). Rating wise I rounded it up to 4 stars because I found more like in the stories than dislike or ambivolense.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Health warning: If you are a technophobe do not read this book. You will have nightmares.

Some of the stories are very good, the rest are excellent. The book as a whole is scary as hell. The authors are not optimistic about our future as a race but they do seem optimistic about us as individuals.
There are some brilliant ideas in this volume and some very scary tales but they all have some form of optimism in them - for which I am thankful - and all the tales are well told. Although I had to put my Kindle down from time to time (I suffer from anxiety) I loved this book and will be searching out more from all of the authors.

[Dave Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, all anthologies are of course, a variety and there was (only) one story that I found not to my taste both in prose or plot, but it was not what I would consider bad. So in the end, that is better than the average for any half dozen stories thrown at you. There are some delightful small bites here and things do not always follow the usual path. One story could easily could have stopped before the actual end and still packed just as much or more of a wallop. Too much to easily spoil with short stories to bother with details.

[Ricky Cruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

To AI or not to AI

Loved the robust energy by the authors assembled within these pages. The variety of stories speaks for itself. Loved how they played out. And focusing on stand alone tales while giving the tiniest hint of more to come was simply the smart move. Basically, the door is open, won't you come in?

[Chuck Woodbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved these short stories…

From authors that I enjoy. Interesting too is that the theme is AI run amuck. Some of these tales provide backstory to current series, others stand on their one. All were a delight. I particularly loved learning the origin of ‘outstanding’ from Moriarty’s Empire series. Brilliant!

[Susan Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a unique collection of sci-fi stories written by different authors. Each story was a great read. I really enjoyed it. Andrew Moriarty is one of my favorite authors. And now I want to read more books by the other authors who contributed to the book too.

[SOTERO RIVERA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of stories.

These are a set of sci-fi short stories by a group of great up and coming writers.
Well written and well put together. I especially liked the two Skyler Ramirez stories. One of them is a Brad Mendoza story.
I highly recommend this book.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good mix of authors, some of whom I've read. The stories gave me some new authors to try out.

[S Seaberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good stories

Normally I’ve found that books of short stories have about 75% OK stories at best. This book has 100% good stories with many of them outstanding.

[Sidney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Reads

I enjoyed each separate short story. Each was different and fun to read as each author’s sort of developed different scenarios to portray chaos caused by AIs.

[John Deardurff · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent anthology for any sci-fi enthusiast. These stories masterfully explore the fascinating and often chilling possibilities of artificial intelligence. Each story is a unique journey, delving into different aspects of AI, from its potential to revolutionize our world to the darker, more dystopian scenarios.

The authors have done an exceptional job of creating stories that are thought-provoking and imaginative, often leaving you pondering the ethical and philosophical questions surrounding AI long after you've finished reading. It's a brilliant collection that not only entertains but also stimulates deep reflection on the role of AI in our lives. (This review was written by Microsoft Copilot.)