Welcome to Dystopia: 45 Visions of What Lies Ahead

by Gordon van Gelder (Editor)

Brutality, infrastructure collapse, daily threats of war: 45 writers of speculative fiction share their visions of what's to come.

Fighting in the streets, corruption at the highest levels, thuggish police, a daily threat of nuclear war: few of us thought we'd find ourselves here, so far into the 21st century. What's next? Are we really going to be "great again," however that's meant?

In this diverse and vigorous mix of original stories by newcomers and luminaries, writers offer their takes on what life might hold for us in the next few years. The resulting visions of oppression, and daily struggle are sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying, but always thought-provoking.

Including stories by K. G. Anderson, Richard Bowes, Elizabeth Bourne, Scott Bradfield, J.S. Breukelaar, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Becca Caccavo, Don D'Ammassa, Stephanie Feldman, Eric James Fullilove, Ron Goulart, Eileen Gunn, Leslie Howle, Matthew Hughes, Janis Ian, Michael Kandel, Thomas Kaufsek, Paul La Farge, Yoon Ha Lee, Michael Libling, Heather Lindsley, Lisa Mason, Barry N. Malzberg, David Marusek, Mary Anne Mohanraj, James Morrow, Ruth Nestvold, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Marguerite Reed, Robert Reed, Madeleine E. Robins, Jay Russell, Geoff Ryman, James Sallis, J. M. Sidorova, Brian Francis Slattery, Harry Turtledove, Deepak Unnikrishnan, TS Vale, Leo Vladimirsky, Ray Vukcevich, Ted White, Paul Witcover, N. Lee Wood, and Jane Yolen.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Dystopia, Fiction, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2018

About the author

Gordon Van Gelder (born 1966) is an American science fiction editor. From 1997 until 2014, Van Gelder was editor and later publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for which he has twice won the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form. He was also a managing editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction from 1988 to 1993, for which he was nominated for the Hugo Award a number of times. As of January 2015, Van Gelder has stepped down as editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction in favour of Charles Coleman Finlay, but remains publisher of the magazine.

Reviews

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you love dystopian fiction it’s tough to resist a book that literally welcomes you to it. But then again maybe it would have been smart to exercise some caution…because this isn’t quite the sort of dystopia I enjoy. For one thing it’s set predominantly in near present or immediate future. For another it’s all one note, one theme…a nightmarish interpretation of the current US politics. And I’m not saying the world doesn’t need to be warned or cautioned of frightened about the situation. I’m not saying the future isn’t looking scary and bleak. I’m just saying that maybe a 416 page anthology (ok, not any, this particular one) on it was in a way an overkill. Scenario after a nightmarish scenario it spins distinctly plausible realities into existence and the thing is...it isn’t necessary. Reading the news these days is enough. Any functional brain with any degree of imagination can already take you there. I always thought that fiction should do more, fiction should imagine possibilities in a way you can’t or don’t, using allegories and metaphors and clever speculative constructs…and this book has nearly none of it. It just plows on with all the subtlety of a freight train into every easily predictable possibility of a near totalitarian dictatorship. It’s alarmists reading news and producing worst case scenarios. It may be prove to be presciently accurate, it’s certainly timely, but what is it meant to do. It isn’t that entertaining as a book, monotone as it is, and I don’t believe it’ll suddenly charge passive society into streaming into thinking and (gasp) voting intelligently any time soon. So it just seemed like a bunch of authors exorcising their demons by creating what republicans (although I can’t imagine any republican reading this one) might refer to as liberal propaganda. Think of any dystopian book of worth that has withstood the test of time and it probably does feature all those allegories and metaphors and clever speculative constructs this book barely ever tries for. These dystopias, sincere as well intentioned as they may be, don’t get there. At best they coast on a sort of recognition/awareness of a sh*tty situation and subsequent and oh so appropriate depression. If you were at a bar trying to drink yourself into oblivion, they’d match you pint for pint and probably actually pass out before you. Entertainment value alone won’t sell it to classic dystopia fans. Some known names, mostly unknown ones. Read it if your friends don’t care for your ideas and aren’t as disgusted and terrified by modern politics as much as they really should be. Thanks Netgalley.

[The Geeky Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome to Dystopia is a collection of 45 dystopian short stories that are dark, politically charged, and unsettling

I rarely read short stories because they almost always leave me wanting more. It's hard for me to resist dystopia, however, so I had to see what this collection had to offer.

In case the title didn't give readers a hint, the editor makes it plain that the current U.S. president served as inspiration for this anthology and the stories within it. That may dissuade some people from reading this book, but others will probably find it quite interesting.

Each story is set in the near future, and the way in which things have changed for the worse vary. No story has a happy ending, and each of them is chilling in its own way.

Some of the stories I liked best:

♋ by N. Lee Wood
Two women with cancer have extremely different experiences with their cancer treatment. One lives in New Zealand, the other lives in the U.S.)

The Terrific Leader by Harry Turtledove
Despite freezing and scrounging for edibles in the snow to stave off starvation, a girl eagerly looks forward to tuning in to one of the government-mandated channels to hear the Terrific Leader speak about how great everything is, was, and always will be.

Newsletter by Jennifer Marie Brissett
A bookstore owner warns patrons to keep certain books in a safe place, and that their book orders are being monitored.

We All Have Hearts of Gold© by Leo Vladimirsky
An advertising agency is tasked with selling the public on the Goldshirts, an enforcer group that "makes America safe again", as a good thing.

Dangerous by Lisa Mason
Vaginas are dangerous and must be registered with the government.

Designed for Your Safety by Elizabeth Bourne
A high-tech building goes into lock-down mode, trapping employees, who are desperate to get out despite a deadly illness infecting people outside.

While I liked some stories more than others, the book as a whole was unputdownable for me. Anything having to do with politics is a particularly touchy subject these days, so I'll recommend this book to open-minded readers who love dystopia.

I received an advance reading copy of this book courtesy of OR Books via Netgalley.

[nadia | notabookshelf]

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

dnf @ 38%

i don't like leaving books unfinished, especially i feel bad doing so with arcs, but at this point in my life my time is valuable, and i just can't keep pretending like i give a damn about this book anymore.

anthologies are interesting because they contain many different stories tied together by some vague topic. this anthology read like a collection of stories from one specific near-future world. i never felt like i was reading fiction: the stories lacked symbolism and resembled most recent news articles, or friday night news scripts. having only read less than a half of the book, i feel bored with every single story that comes after, because i can already predict the tone, time and place of the story, and that's failure to me. i just really don't feel like going on. if this was any other type of dystopia, i might have considered sacrificing a few more days, but this heavily political collection is not entirely catering to my tastes at all, so unfortunately i'll have to pass.

[Sheehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite adages of making a rap song is don't drop the year in your jammy because it dates the work immediately. This book of short stories, while enjoyable is a bit of a thematic one-trick; compiled in the era of Trump, all of the stories imagine sort of worst case scenarios of the era played out. There were some fun stories in the set, but on the whole it already feels a bit dated/targeted.

Having narrowly navigated the Trump reign, and still digging out the mess nationally, the dystopian futures presented too often had one obvious or implied culprit, Trumpty-Dump. Which is fine, except I think it gives his brand of failing up too much credit; its as if every author was tasked with transforming Trump's brand of modern terrible into the most efficient and effective fascist versions of himself. I think that's why I wasn't a huge fan, I loathe Trump and what he is about. While I appreciate all the thought into ways a more effective/engaged version of Trump could have manifested many of the dystopian outlooks of the book; fast forwarding to speculative version of a Trump that (thankfully) never was, is a drag. Too soon.

It's not the authors' fault, it's mine for not grokking that this collection would be around the one person I have been trying to forget for past few months, that's my bad...

[Elizabeth ♛Smart Girls Love Trashy Books♛ · Rating 3 out of 5]

-POTENTIAL SPOILERS~

I was actually quite excited to read this one. It's a collection of forty-five possible dystopian futures and I'm always up to see different ideas of what makes a dystopia. However, a vast majority of the stories fell flat to me. It was a wild ride reading this in the future year of 2021, a year some of these stories do take place in. The collector of these stories said he originally did so because of how frustrated he felt about Trump winning and wanted to showcase some other authors who were mad about it. That was a bit of a red-flag right there to me. Don't get me wrong, I disliked Trump as much as the next person who....puts the stuff they put in their profile that I also put in mine dislikes him, but when you start your story out with 'now I don't mean to get political but Trump sucks' you're just asking to be dated. I can tell when these stories or a good chunk of them were written and I'll just say this, if this collection was written in 2020 instead of 2017, it would be an entirely different collection.

But all dystopians are inherently political, that's their whole point, right? I can't get mad at dystopians for purely just being political, and I won't. That wasn't really the main reason I disliked it anyway. My biggest issue was, as I said, most of these stories just fell flat to me. A lot of them had interesting ideas but most were written in rushed, convoluted ways that made it confusing to understand the point and relate to any of the characters. A lot of them I didn't even really feel like they were dystopian or what the point was. It felt like they were deliberately trying to evoke one specific political event that I have no knowledge or context of anymore, if I ever did. I was reading some other reviews after I finished the book as I always do and half of the stories I was like 'oh! that's what it was supposed to be about?!' When I can't even tell what you're writing, that's a bad sign.

There were also a few stories that I felt like had nothing to really do with dystopias in particular unless I missed something, which is possible given how some of these were written. Like Birds was a fascinating story about people who can't die but can get injured, and I also enjoyed the unique setting of the Middle East, but what did it have to do with a dystopian government? It was literally just a woman talking to a very-badly-injured man as she stitches him back up.

But were there any stories I liked? Why yes, quite a lot actually. Now usually when I review short story or novella collections I tend to go through them all and review them as their own little thing but I won't do that here for two reasons; one, forty-five is a lot to go through, and two, most of the stories I disliked have the same problem I mentioned above so I don't feel the need to just keep repeating myself forty-five different times so instead of reviewing every single short story in this collection, I'll just review my personal favourites.

Re: Your Wedding: This was honestly what tricked me into thinking this would be a high-rated book. An issue that I remember quite well and being sympathetic to ex-Soviet woes I was worried about this very situation happening to them. I liked the email format, stories written that way are a guilty pleasure for me since it feels more intimate and relatable, and it also does what all good dystopias should do; show how the remainder of the world is affected. A weird thing, but if we did have a President who made so many changes to foreign affairs, other nations wouldn't just....sit there? Stuff would happen to them too so this was a good story from that perspective.

The Adventure of You: Again, another unique format in the style of being written like an instruction manual to someone who is having their first day on the job. Humorously dark and it really felt like this could've felt right in comfortably with some of the greats of the genera, to be honest.

The Terrific Leader: Another darkly humorous one; it seems like the best way to win me over in stories like these is to have a sardonic sense of humor about it, because hey, if you can't laugh you cry and why would you want to cry? Anyway not only was it funny in a dark way but it was also an interesting sort of protagonist you rarely see in stories like these, someone who has totally given in to whatever their government says and believes everything is truly going perfect despite literally everything crumbling down around them.

Two Explicit and Three Oblique Apologies to My Oldest Daughter One Year Before Her Eighteenth Birthday: This one was a bit too close for comfort. A lot of people live their lives now being monitored and giving personalized ads and they think nothing of it. I even encourage people to use personalized ads. Maybe it's not as badly intrusive as this story presents it as...but isn't it?

No Point Talking: I liked this one because it was interesting to see a more liberal sort of dystopia especially in a book like this. I think a lot of people have taken for granted how bad a super liberal government would truly be if they were given full control over everything. It wouldn't be true equality, it'd be just as bad if we ended up in 1984 or something similar, just from the other side. Thus, seeing something like this was like a breath of fresh air.

Glow: This one was very allegorical but that's what it made it so interesting. Instead of aliens in the sense of migrant workers, this time it's literal aliens who are worried about being sent back home to their home planet despite doing everything they could to pass as human beings. It was a really interesting way to write about those issues and to be honest one of the only stories in this I would like to see expanded into a full novel since I feel there's just that much possible potential there for it.

Precaution at Penn Station: Likely the shortest in this whole collection but also the most effective, I think. About how random Muslims will just get gunned-down for 'precautionary measures' and how the story is told entirely from the perspective of someone unlucky enough to get shot in such a fashion.

Statues of Limitations: This was another one I really liked because again, liberal rhetoric. To be honest this was probably one of my ultimate favorites from this whole collection because it was just two people having a conversation with each other and not seeing how hypocritical their beliefs are. You can't have openly bigoted people, fair, but you also can't cherry-pick who you think should be role models. It was effective to me because I know so many people like this. I know people like this on this very site! (No hate) It was also funny but I don't think it was meant to be, like debating whether saying Lin-Manuel Miranda culturally appropriated rap when he himself is also from a different culture was 'bad' or not. I know so many people who would believe that genuinely but I digress.

Notes on Retrieving a Fallen Banner: This was written as a letter from a mother to their daughter and I liked it because despite also being relatively short, you don't really know what the story is about until near the end. Like at first you just think the girl is running away until you get more and more information in the letter and then it just hits you with it. I found that to be a very effective way of telling the story.

Isn't Life Great?: Another one of my personal faves and one of the only times I was like 'oh my God this is literal dystopia to me' I can't imagine a life where there's literally no government support, basically everyone foreign is deported, foodborne illness is rampant because of bad FDA regulations, there's hardy any food anyway, other countries wage eternal wars on each other, businesses can discriminate based on religion, LGBT people are sent away to be 'corrected', literally nobody is safe, nothing is sacred. This is the literal worst-case scenario. The title is painfully sardonic and seems aimed as certain people who feel this is still America today, basically asking 'isn't life great now?' The story would've been fantastic on its own, but that ending that literally came out of nowhere was a literal bang and made me sit there for a second like 'what the heck' I didn't see it coming so I give it a high rating partially for the ending alone.

Designed for Your Safety: This one wasn't one of my faves but I felt like mentioning it on a personal level anyway. It's about people getting locked inside their self-sustaining business while a deadly pandemic wages outside. A pandemic that starts like a cold. That came from China. In 2020. And they say writing can't predict the future anymore! The actual story was actually decent, however this one hit a bit too close to home with comments like 'stay healthy and wear your mask best friend!' 'everyone knows someone who is sick or even died from this disease' Like I said, it's nothing but a coincidence but I felt it was worth a mention for how eerily uncanny and accurate this story ended up being...

Overall, a lot of these stories had good ideas and a lot of the authors clearly had good sense of humor about everything and I did like a majority of the stories, I just felt like others were written too vaguely, were too rushed, or felt too tied into political events that are irrelevant now that it made it too hard for me to properly enjoy a bulk of this collection. As I said before, it's bad when I can't even tell what you're writing about. While I don't mind the politically-charged nature of these stories because dystopia is meant to be like that, and heck I even apologize for needing to be political when it came to reviewing some of these stories, the fact of the matter is, left or right, you still need to tell an engaging story with engaging characters and most of these failed at accomplishing even that. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't full of masterpieces either. Maybe just read the stories I personally selected or pick a collection that hasn't got as many stories? Because either way, you'll mainly feel bored, confused, and let-down by the time you're finished with this whole set.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given a free eBook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review by NetGalley
Welcome to Dystopia is a selection of stories by various writers about the horrors that await us in the near and far future. I really liked the amount of short stories in this book...in the intro, the editor says he chose shorter ones deliberately and I think it was a good idea.
I love a good dystopia and some of these stories were really good. The one page tale of random executions in a train stati on that avoids racial profiling was brutal and brilliant. "Newsletter" was a heartbreaking story for any book lover. And there were two stories about women emailing each other which were quite powerful too.
There is a a lot of variety in these stories but there are some over arching themes and ideas that crop up a lot...immigration, Trump, closing borders. I think it's interesting to see how our ideas of dystopia have changed since Trump, but I thought some of the stories were a little heavy handed with the topics. A little too on the nose with the references to slogans and red hats. I know that this shows the general feeling on the ground, but for me personally it was a bit too much and too often for my tastes.
This book is not for the faint heart or for anyone who needs cheering up...it is relentless horror of our future. Generally, I love this topic! But, as I said, there were certain references that kept cropping up that I got a little bored with. Great for fans of the genre though and worth a look.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a complete sucker for dystopian literature, and for short stories, so a combination of the two should be perfect for me.
Unfortunately these stories aren't really *my* type of dystopia. They're (mainly) all a bit too close to the present and, quite frankly, too American. It's like blinkers are on for every author and none can see past their own country and the absolute shitstorm they're in (I'm British, we're in our own political shotstorm here). I like to read for escapism, not to be reminded of the reality and too possible scenarios that could occur.
Some stories were excellent however, really well-thought out and engaging. Others were not so good, and one even used 'of' in place of 'have' - something that seriously pisses me off anyway when it's spoken, but to see an author use it in their writing is ridiculous and should have been noticed by the editing team.
The anthology itself is a tad too long and with too many stories that are either not very well written, unoriginal or not engaging at all, which really brings the general collection down. This could be a good collection for those who don't read much dystopia, but for hardcore fans, probably best to give it a miss.

An advance reader copy was given by the publisher via the Netgalley

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The number of stories structured as email conversations or letters makes this feel like it collates stories written as part of a creative writing course. It's probably intended to feel intimate, but after the first 3 or 4, the format becomes dull. This feeling of cliche also goes for some of the stories themselves, with several feeling like rip-offs of much better works.

A further problem is how small, yet hysterical, many of the stories feel within just a couple of years of Trump's inauguration. This event looms over most of the stories, but the presumption of instant major upheaval rather than slower more insidious changes makes them pretty unrealistic. It was probably topical, but the collection would have been better if there were more stories from outside the US.

While some of the stories are decent, the overall collection frankly isn't worth bothering with.

[Emily Burke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried sooo hard to finish this mess. But I finally had to throw in the towel around 80%. After the execrable story about the White House dog. I mean, just awful and embarrassing. My creative writing professor would most assuredly had failed me if I had submitted it.

While there were some decent stories, the over-reliance on Holocaust imagery by about 2/3 of the authors shows both a lack of imagination and a lack of respect. (IMO) I simply didn’t need story after story of lazy, mostly poorly written “imaginings” of what life under Trump and his ghouls would be. The fact is, the reality is far more insidious and terrifying than anything these authors threw together.

DNF- ashamed I read so much.

[Amy Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

- Title: Great.
- Individual Authours: Some have some real chops
- Contents in Aggregate: 45 writers penned 45 very short stories, mostly about (and, it feels like, mostly by) Americans who don't like Trumpism, but aren't in communities targeted by it.
- Pros: Clearly written and snappy.
- Cons: Repetitive and superficial
- Fun fact: 13 are written as emails or attachments.
- Conclusion: Browse it in the library if you want to see some new authours

Details:
Some of the stories are clever. Some are very good. The writing is clear, but taken together it turns monotonous and is not interesting, nuanced, or evocative. It feels like someone threw out an idea to jam on, but the combination of the length, topic, submissions, and editing process turned everything cookie-cutter.

To learn for future anthologies:
1. Either:
- Pick a title that reflects your book (45 Anti-Trump Fics and Emails)
OR
-Make sure your book matches your title.

2. If you don't like what's going on in your country:
- Google "transformative fiction," "intersectional American history," and "countries other than the USA."
OR
- Get used to the impression that y'all don't get out much; also, losing.


For example: I get that ICE is terrifying. But how did we get to here? (Wrong answer: "Republicans!") What do we do about it? (Wrong answer: "Public angst!"). Dig into that. Mull. Ask people who live with this or similar problems and who write fiction. Commission five deeply felt and informed stories, favoring authours who have to deal with the problem, and encouraging honest engagement over conformity or sanitization for a reader who might find real life details to be a shock. Make sure that at least four are not written as an email. Repeat that with eight other topics. Make a bangin' second anthology; also, change.

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gordon Van Gelder says in his preface that he wanted lots of short stories for this anthology rather than just a few long ones. He succeeded. There are forty-five tales packed in here and even the most meticulous reviewer isn’t going to cover all of them, though I have read them all. My favourites are listed below in no particular order.

Everyone knows immigrants are the source of all a country’s problems so in the future the crackdown on foreigners - except those needed as cheap labour - will be more severe. The book opens strongly with ‘Sneakers’ by Michael Libling. Two innocent Canadians go south to buy a pair of sneakers, which are cheaper in the United States. Regrettably, things have changed on the border and their situation becomes difficult, even scary. This has a great kick in the tail and may be a warning for those ex-colonials in the savage north. They should have stayed under the rule of good Queen Bess. We Brits would have taken care of them.

‘Glow’ by S.S. Breukelaar has real aliens from another planet who are under threat on election night from Bud Towers and the Humanity First Party. Some actually support him, assuming that Bud is only out to get lowlife aliens and not respectable folks like themselves. Bud’s opponent is an alien-loving woman who will go to jail for financial misdemeanours if he wins. The theme of this anthology invites allegory.

In my extensive reading, I haven’t come across many female protagonists mad for sex (I don’t read those sort of books) but there’s one in ‘His Sweat Like Stars on the Rio Grande’ by Janis Jan. Working for Local Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the famous Wall she meets a hot Mexican, fourth generation with a rare green card. She’s ruthless in pursuit of her libidinous longings but despite her job, this is really about slavery. We do like our cheap food.

A scarier story of slavery is ‘The Adventure of You’ by Paul la Forge. It consists of a list of instructions to John Arnold Arnold, a coal miner. They come from the Synod which forbids certain things, not least among them escaping to the surface which is a myth and doesn’t exist anyway. As dear old Harold Macmillan knew, the best way of keeping the oppressed down is to convince them they’re actually very lucky.

‘Newsletter’ by Jennifer Marie Brisset is in the form of a newsletter to a book group from the community bookstore. It warns them that the state now monitors which books they buy and that certain titles are no longer available. The prospect is chilling for readers but hopefully, things won’t get this bad.

‘Loser’ is by Matthew Hughes who writes many good stories for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Loser 114 is in a camp doing hard labour. He used to work for National Commentator magazine and wrote an interesting piece on how people switched from ‘citizens in a society’ to ‘consumers in an economy’. He’s recruited to betray his old comrades who have fled to Canada with his wife and child held hostage to make sure he complies. This is a thoughtful and interesting narrative from an author more noted for his humour.

‘Dangerous’ by Lisa Mason is a hilarious story about compulsory vagina registration with the Federal government. No mention of male reproductive organs which are presumably free to hang out wherever they like.

‘Statues of Limitations’ by Jay Russell is a conversation between Sal and Bobby in New York. Incorrect statues are being replaced all over the city. Atlas is removed from Rockefeller Center for being ‘an insidious three-dimensional trope for two thousand years of hegemonic patriarchy.’ This was hilarious, the best thing in the book and a warning to look left as well as right when guarding your freedom of speech.

One of the longest here is ‘Burning Down the House’ by Ted White. Nik’s block is burnt down by armed gangs so she goes to see Jonny, a pimp. She won’t work for him but they are, sort of, friends. He arranges for her to meet a One Percenter who’s doing an IQ experiment to prove that poor people aren’t stupid. A sad story of exploitation but Nik’s struggle makes an interesting yarn.

Ron Goulart enjoys himself with ‘The Amazing Transformation of the White House Dog.’ Like FDR and Nixon, the President wants to have a dog but he’s allergic to them. Norbert’s Uncle Josh is an inventor and has made Fido #7, a clever talking robot canine. J. Edgar Nofzinger, head of the Alternative FBI comes to check it out. Fido is approved and will keep the president company in the wee small hours while he tweets. Great fun and a pleasant change from the myriad bleak visions, though I admit there’s a lot to be bleak about.

‘Designed for Your Safety’ by Elizabeth Bourne is told in the form of emails from Sophie Goldstein to Emily Wilson. Sophie has obtained a good job in a fantastic new office building that’s solar powered with a huge roof garden which uses the workers own processed poo as manure. It’s practically self-sufficient which is just as well when the outside world falls apart and they are locked in by the building for their own safety. This is almost an updated Lord of the Flies with adults. The crisis worsens steadily in a clever plot and if it was stretched out a bit it might make a good film.

Overall, this is a worthy anthology. In fact, there wasn’t a duff story in the bunch but as many are very short the book as a whole is a bitty read. The brief to keep it brief led many writers to go the epistolary route, usually emails between parties but also a newsletter and even a story told in Facebook posts. The general tone was inevitably serious - that’s the nature of Dystopian fiction - but the loaf is leavened by bits of humour.

Although not all the stories are about Trump-related issues they are all set in a near future U.S.A. and this is, in general, a howl of rage by the liberals of America against the new president; a feast of fiction guaranteed to make red necks redder. There are brief notes on the authors at the back of the book if you want to find out more about them. I doff my cap to Thomas Kaufsek who has remained ‘true to his resolution not to have his own website’.

Roll on the Midterm elections!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of good short stories in here.

The editor introduces the volume by stating that he decided it would be better to include a large number of very short stories rather than 10-12 longer ones. I'm not sure I agree that that was the right choice. I will admit that reading such short pieces was a nice change of pace - but there were simply too many of them, and most followed the same theme. So, if you want to read 40 short stories about slight variations on how thing could go horribly wrong in the US after a Trump-like dictator takes over and starts building walls, this is the book for you. Personally, I got tired after about 20 of them. (Like I said, they're each really short.)

I do want to note that there were a few stories that broke from this mold. The one that jumped out at me as being the most prescient basically described the current happenings in Ukraine.

Perhaps the reader isn't intended to read an anthology from front-to-back. If not, maybe this book deserves a higher rating. But I rate it based on how I read it.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for short stories and dystopia, and overall this book delivered. Some were too satirical for my taste, and a couple of stories didn't feel like the world was completely thought through, but most of the stories were compelling and made me think of the current American political landscape in a different light. I personally gravitated to more generic dystopian stories like "Burning Down the House" and "Designed for Your Safety." I also liked stories tied into current events like "The Road South" and ""Notes on Retrieving a Fallen Banner." The subtler stories didn't feel as forced, and it's possible the authors of those stories had ruminated more on the general idea of the world they rather than come up with one on the fly for this specific collection. I'd recommend this book for lovers of dystopia, science fiction, and politics.

[Liv M · Rating 3 out of 5]

(dystopia done lazily)

I was disappointed when I finally read this book. Aside from a few stand-out stories (I LOVED Fullilove's "Ticket to Ride) the book mostly felt like the fearful fantasies of privileged, white, liberal authors. The very first story sees white liberals explicitly centered as victims of the dystopian regime. Whatever the author's intentions with this centering, it isn't helpful. Nor is another author's attempt to include the fetishization of men in color in her dystopia by repeatedly having her protagonist masturbate to men of color. Stories like these, which try so hard to bring awareness and empathy to white audiences, have the actual effect of perpetuating the 'otherizing' of minority groups.

See further thoughts on my blog: https://babasbookreviews.blogspot.com...

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book yesterday - all of it, as the stories were easy to read and I liked almost all of them. Most were near-future, a few longer-range. I was not familiar with most of the authors, but the quality of writing was consistently high.

Today is election day 2024. The results are not in yet. The book gave a bunch of possibilities about what could happen if the side I don't like wins - various stages of totalitarianism. Chilling. One side has already advocated relocation camps, mass deportations, reproductive control, harsh treatment for its critics, including the press, and much. A couple of stories went in the other direction, and they were pretty laughable. No parent or state has (or would) ever encouraged immediate sex-reassignment surgery for a 7-year old who decides they are trans.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wide variety of styles on display in this well put together book. Some of them work perfectly at this length; some would make great full length stories, and some are so short I'd barely got to grips with them before I was on to the next. As in all anthologies, the quality varies, but none are less than good and most are very good. Americans might not be too happy with several of them, though.

An interesting read, leaves me with plenty to think about.

Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.

[Delaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was unfortunately let down by this anthology. I was really looking forward to reading it and even asked for it for a gift, so I was really let down by the content. There were a few gems in here with creative storytelling and sharp insight, but the majority of it was dull, overused tropes, unclear plots, or, at its worst, an excuse for male writers to write women being sexually assaulted. Overall I wasn't very happy with this collection aside from a few stand outs, and I don't think I would recommend it as a whole to any other sci fi fan or hopeful writer looking for inspiration.

[Mark Catalfano]

Sneakers (Libling, Michael): Two Canadians are stopped at the US border and harassed.

Re: Your Wedding (Nestvold, Ruth): An email conversation between a family where one of the sisters is living on the Russian border and the other sister can’t get real news about what is going on.

Everything is Fixed Now (Anderson, KG): After whistleblower laws expire, three techs wearing medical devices aren’t told about their crippling heart problems.

His Sweat Like Stars on the Rio Grande (Ian, Janis): After the border wall is built with Mexico, those illegal immagrants left behind essentially become slaves.

Agnosia (Sidorova, JM): Scientists discover a protein that may affect political stance.

The Adventure of You (La Farge, Paul): A worker is encouraged to be happy in his debris sorting job.

♋

(Note: Story title is the unicode symbol for cancer) (Wood, N Lee): Two women with cancer share their experiences, one from America and one from New Zealand.

Birds (Unnikrishmann, Deepak): Anna puts people back together after they fall from construction sites but they can never die.

The Only Constant (Howie, Leslie): The daughter of a scientist taken from the government releases a peace virus.

The Terrific Leader (Turtledove, Harry) Welcome to Dystopia: After starving in the mud, Kim looks forward to aspeech from the Glorious Leader who trumps all others.

Two Explicit and Three Oblique Apologies to My Oldest Daughter One Month Before Her Eighteenth Birthday (Lindsley, Heather): A mother is creeped out by increasingly invasive ads and information sharing.

The Levellers (Olukotun, Deji Bryce): A maple farmer disvovers she is next on the list for ecoterrorism.

No Point Talking (Ryman, Geoff): East and West California secede into conservative and communist blocs.

Glow (Breuketaar, JS): Nervous Aliens watch election night coverage as anti-alien factions win.

Precaution at Penn Station (Kandel, Michael): Instead of being randomly searched, Arabs are randomly gunned down.

Newsletter (Brissett, Jennifer Marie): The local bookstore owner sees that both books and freedom are disappearing.

Statues of Limitations (Russell, Jay): All statues are getting replaced with portraits of Ayn Rand and Rush Limbuagh.

Suffocation (Reed, Robert): As the world suffers from wars caused by Chinese and US aggression, global warming causes anxiety to rise.

Application for Asylum (Gunn, Eileen): White people live in fear from immigrant vigalanties.

Welcome to Triumph Band (Lee, Yoon Ha): A Welcome letter to a militaristic band where weapons traning is mandatory.

Loser (Hughes, Matthews): A former newspaper reporter is taken from a labor camp on the wall and sent to infiltrate the Resistence in Canada.

We All Have Hearts of Gold© (Vladimirsky, Leo): An ad campaign has to sell the public on Trumps bullyboys, the Goldshirts.

Notes on Retrieving a Fallen Banner (Reed, Marguerite): Doctors performing abortions are hunted and in danger.

Ticket to Ride (Fullilove, Eric James): The International Aid from Idaho packs up and moves to Toronto.

Burning down the House (White, Ted): After the 1% start burning the poor out, one street kid gets picked up and brought uptown for a one night stand.

Dangerous (Mason, Lisa): All women are required to register their vaginas with the government.

Class Assignment (Kaufsek, Thomas): A kid told to analyze dystopian Twilight Zone episodes knows real life is even worse.

Walls (Witcover, Paul): The Wall has been built and in fact is used to house dissident prisoners.

The Passion According to Mike (Bradfield, Scott): Mike Pence wakes up in the future to his own personal dystopia.

Bright Sarasota Where the Circus Lies Dying (Sallas, James): A man in a camp tries to write home to his mother.

The Name Unspoken (Bowes, Richard): On the anniversary of blowing up Trump tower, effigys are burned.

The Elites (Feldman, Stephanie): A father gets held up in immigration while his son is sent to an
indoctorated school.

January 2018 (Malzberg, Barry): Barry wonders why Gordon Van Gelder sent him an anthology request where the left has taken over.

Farewell (Mohanraj, Mary Anne): A sri lankan grandmother is deported after living in the US for over fifty years.

The Amazing Transformation of the White House Dog (Goulart, Ron): A robot dog causes chaos by hypnotizing the whole cabinet.

Handmaid’s Other Tale (Yolen, Jane): A poem about women being slaves to men.

Sanctuary (Slattery, Brian Francis): A sactuary city gets invaded by militants.

One Fell Swoop (Morrow, James): The NRA hires four guys to shoot up schools to save the second amendment.

BK Girls (Vale, TS): A girl is kidnapped and raped by MAGAs.

Isn’t Life Great? (D’Ammassa, Don): All of the executive acts leading to poverty are on full display.

The Men will be Hungry Afterwards (Vukcevich, Ray): After a girl tweets out anti presidential stuff she gets punished with a personal grab.

The Road South (Robins, Madeline E. and Caccavo, Becca): Emma tries to escape all the way south to green Antarctia.

Skippy’s Visit East (Kandel, Michael): Skippy visits the radioactive wasteland of USA but keeps optimistic.

Designed for Your Safety (Bourne, Elizabeth): Office workers get trapped in a super high tech building while the world collapses.

Extreme Bedding (Marusek, David): The protaganast sees terrorists everywhere.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting collection of stories and range from humorous to heartbreaking.The stand outs to me are Burning Down The House by Ted White,Loser by Mathew Hughes,Welcome to Triumph Band. By Yoon Ha Lee,Application for Asylum by Eileen Gunn and Newsletter by Jennifer Marie Brissett.I look forward to reading more by these authors.I received an arc from the authors.

[Hoshiotome · Rating 2 out of 5]

这本我觉得应该叫做《乳川普的30余种方式》
乳川浓度太高以至于令人产生不适（X）
综合评价一下的话，一些不怎么样的乳川文学，偶尔几篇有趣的故事，以及更多的是令人摸不着头脑的故事
在川普败选的今天看到把MAGA老头塑造成Satan的恐怖故事只会令人发笑（
听上去像什么奇怪的新兴宗教传道一样
而且就阿美利卡的文艺界风气而言，乳川普真的不需要太多勇气，也就是痛打落水狗的程度

喜欢的几篇
《他的汗珠像格兰德上的繁星》：白人女公务员为了享受性欲把自己的反体制墨西哥裔老公洗脑成了不关心政治的生殖机器。（别问我，我也不懂这是在说什么）
《你的历险记》：描述了体制杀人诛心的机制
《没有意义的对话》：红脖子为了逃离民主世界失去了自己的家庭
《雕塑限制令》：讽刺“进步人士”的思想审查（这本书里最有勇气的一篇）
《课后作业》：“讨论敌托邦的人，没有意识到自己的福分。”

[Amber Sherlock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect for any distopia fan, this eclectic collection of end-of-the-world stories is fascinating and at times, terrifying. A glimpse of potential futures, horrific political landscapes and natural disasters will satisfy any short story lover.

[ErenP · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most stories are incredibly dated and are too obviously about the 2020 election. There are some gems among the coal, most of them touching on other topics and/or being less on the nose about the message and metaphors they are trying to portray.

[Breane Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great bunch of stories about what will happen when different things go wrong. Really liked this!

[Anna Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

All very short and original stories. Political themes mostly. Was good.

[Cüneyt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trump kazandıktan sonra yazılan liberal korkular. İyileri olduğu gibi kötüleride mevcut genel olarak idare eder. Sonuçta hepsi yanıldı

[Rica · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with virtually any anthology, this collection contains gems and duds. Not for the faint of heart.

[AorticReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it'd have been a better book if I read it before his second term, but now it seems to fall short, not entertaining enough to motivate me to keep reading

[Linda Klein · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love short stories, and I love dystopia themes. But—There are some serious flaws in this collection, in spite of a few successful stories. Some were not so much stories but unveiled commentary on the current politics. Some of the authors relied on a much overused trope of a one page memo from some sort of shadow organization. This could have been a much more interesting read if there had been more stringent acceptance standards and tighter editing.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark and witty and smart and depressing stories about a future in which technology controls just about everything, and anything can be done to you, or your friends, or the planet, by technology. The theme is, of course, dystopia, but while the stories are individually mostly good reads, the collection as a whole starts to feel rather Luddite in nature about a third of the way through. The writing throughout is solid, but the repetitiveness of similar ideas dulls.

[Lydia Timpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the majority of stories are America-centric the themes that are in them can be relate-able for all of us. I've read a lot of the reviews and disagree with them.
I found these stories haunting, thought-provoking and quite honestly terrifying.
They are written by people who disagree with Trump's policies or, at least, can see inherent danger in his actions. The short stories have many themes from data protection all the way through to martial law and I found them fascinating. You can see the thought process or many of the writers and the fact that those scenarios are not too far fetched is what is truly scary.