Presents a collection of speculative science fiction tales that envision the future and reimagine the past in settings ranging from the coal mines of China to the edges of frontier space.

Orla Cadden dreams of literary success, but she's stuck writing about movie-star hookups and influence yoga moves. Orla has no idea how to change her life until her new roommate, Floss - a striving, wannabe A-lister-comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they so desperately crave. But it's only when Orla and Floss abandon all pretence of ethics that social media responds with the most terrifying feedback of all: overwhelming...

A disease surveillance robot whose social programming gets put to the test. A future in which everyone receives universal basic income-but it's still not enough. A futuristic sport, in which all the athletes have been chemically and physically enhanced. An A.I. company that manufactures a neural bridge allowing ordinary people to share their memories. Brimming with excitement and exploring new ideas, the stories collected by the editors of Slate's...

"In a near future where climate change has severely affected weather and agriculture, the North End of an unnamed city has long been abandoned in favor of the neighboring South End. Aside from the scavengers steadily stripping the empty city to its bones, only a few thousand people remain, content to live quietly among the crumbling metropolis. Many, like the narrator, are there to try to escape the demons of their past. He spends his time observing...

A collection of six short stories imagines future lands with new technologies and beings, where in spite of advanced capabilities, people still must confront deeply human problems.

"In 2136 Madison Grace uncovers a key to the origins of Chronos, a time travel agency with ties to her family's mysterious past. Just as she is starting to jump through history, she returns to her timeline to find millions of lives erased--and only the people inside her house realize anything has changed. In 2304 Chronos historian Tyson Reyes is assigned to observe the crucial events that played out in America's civil rights movement. But a massive...

First there was the Setback. Then came the Clawback. Now we thrive. Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior. That's how she met Luciano Pox. Luce is a firebrand and has made a name for himself as a naysayer. But there's more to him than being a lightning rod for controversy....

"Some people call it "abyss gaze." Gaze into the abyss all day and the abyss will gaze into you. There are two types of people who think professionally about the future: Foresight strategists are civil futurists who think about geoengineering and smart cities and ways to evade Our Coming Doom; strategic forecasters are spook futurists, who think about geopolitical upheaval and drone warfare and ways to prepare clients for Our Coming Doom. The former...

"For many Americans, imagining a bright future has always been an act of resistance. A People's Future of the United States presents twenty never-before-published stories by a diverse group of writers, featuring voices both new and well-established. These stories imagine their characters fighting everything from government surveillance, to corporate cities, to climate change disasters, to nuclear wars. But fear not: A People's Future also invites...

"Harris Alexander Pope is the man who ended the Partisan War on Mars. All he seeks now is solitude and a return to the life that was stolen from him. Yet when he learns that the worst war criminals are hiding in other bodies, he is forced into an interplanetary pursuit. Teaming up with other survivors eager for their own brand of vengeance, Harris begins to suspect a darker truth: Maybe what he remembers about the war isn't what happened at all..."--...