Stories

Dystopian short stories have been around almost as long as the genre itself. One of the oldest examples is the Robert W. Chambers anti-story “The Repairer of Reputations,” first published in his collection The King in Yellow, which forces the reader to ask, Has the world gone mad, or just the narrator?

The list below, as always, is an incomplete and ever growing collection of some of the best known dystopian short stories.

1. “Janitor On Mars” by Martin Amis
2. “Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet” by Margaret Atwood
3. “Pop Squad” by Paolo Bacigalupi
4. “Billennium” by J. G. Ballard
5. “Sacre Du Printemps” by Ludwig Bemelmans
6. “April 2005: Usher Ii” by Ray Bradbury
7. “Frost And Fire” by Ray Bradbury
8. “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury
9. “Resistance” by Tobias S. Bucknell
10. “Speech Sounds” by Octavia E. Butler
11. “Geriatric Ward” by Orson Scott Card
12. “Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs” by Adam-Troy Castro
13. “The Repairer of Reputations” by Robert W. Chambers
14. “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick
15. “The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away” by Cory Doctorow
16. “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said The Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison
17. “Pervert” by Charles Coleman Finley
18. “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster
19. “From Homogenous to Honey” by Neil Gaiman and Brian Talbot
20. “Red Card” by S. L. Gilbow
21. “Ten With A Flag” by Joseph Paul Haines
22. “Machinations” by Shira Hereld
23. “Sultana’S Dream” by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
24. “Peter Skilling” by Alex Irvine
25. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
26. “The New Utopia” by Jerome K. Jerome
27. “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang
28. “Created He Them” by Alice Eleanor Jones
29. “Civilization” by Vylar Kaftan
30. “The Pearl Diver” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
31. “Independence Day” by Sarah Langan
32. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin
33. “Damage” by David D. Levine
34. “Just Do It” by Heather Linsley
35. “A Brief History Of The Trans-Pacific Tunnel” by Ken Liu
36. “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu
37. “We Ate The Children Last” by Yann Martel
38. “Jordan’s Warhammer” by Joe Mastroiammi
39. “Auspicious Eggs” by James Morrow
40. “Personal Jesus” by Jennifer Pelland
41. “Left Behind” by Cat Rambo
42. “The Cull” by Robert Reed
43. “Evidence Of Love In A Case Of Abandonment” by M. Rickert
44. “The Lunatics” by Kim Stanley Robinson
45. “O Happy Day!” by Geoff Ryman
46. “Dead Space for the Unexpected” by Geoff Ryman
47. “Escape From Spiderhead” by George Saunders
48. “Tin Cans” by Ekaterina Sedia
49. “Caught in the Organ Draft” by Robert Silverberg
50. “Examination Day” by Henry Slesar
51. “Arties Aren’t Stupid” by Jeremiah Tolbert
52. “Fade To White” by Catherynne M. Valente
53. “Is This Your Day To Join The Revolution?” by Genevieve Valentine
54. “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn
55. “2 B R 0 2 B” by Kurt Vonnegut
56. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
57. “Welcome To The Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut
58. “El Cantar Of Rising Sun” by Sabrina Vourvoulias
59. “The Funeral” by Kate Wilhelm
60. “Sacrament” by Matt Williamson
61. “Auspicium Melioris Aevi” by Jy Yang
62. “The Cartographer Wasps And The Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu