dystopias

Free-spirited graffiti artist Maxwell Connors and his friend Dallas are horrified as they watch their classmates become model citizens under New Middletown's obedience policies, and wonder what lays beyond the walled city where their creativity might be appreciated.

In this alternate world, the all-powerful Library of Alexandria censors knowledge to the masses in every city with the use of alchemy--personal ownership of books is forbidden. Jess Brightwell dabbles in illegal books on the black market. When his friend inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess learns that the Great Library values its knowledge more than human life.

"A riveting, beautifully written, fugue-like novel of AIs, memory, violence, and mortality. Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it's still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn't rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It's a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging. Kern has no such access; he's one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city's periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely--the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he's fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead. A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop's screen in her employer's eyeglasses. None are safe as they're pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight. Vivid, tumultuous, and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason's mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut, The Lost Books of the Odyssey. "--.

Salvation is surrounded, monsters at the gates, and this time, they're not going away. When Deuce, Fade, Stalker and Tegan set out, the odds are against them.

Deuce struggles for respect in a new topside town where she is treated like a child and avoided by Fade, a situation that compels her to volunteer for patrol duty and protect topside citizens from an unexpected upsurge in Freak activity.

In a post-apocalyptic future, fifteen-year-old Deuce, a loyal Huntress, brings back meat while avoiding the Freaks outside her enclave, but when she is partnered with the mysterious outsider, Fade, she begins to see that the strict ways of the elders may be wrong-- and dangerous.

While wandering in the desert after a worldwide apocalypse, sixteen-year-old Kid is picked up by a crew of violent raiders--Wolf, Dolly, Tank, and Pretty Boy. They take her in and Kid is thrust into their brutal world of killing "Townies" and taking their resources to live. So, when Saint, a would-be savior of humanity trying to restore civilization, calls for their crew's arrest, the five decide to take the fight to Saint.

Ashala Wolf and her friends, who all hold unexplainable powers, have found safety in the Firstwood. But when Ashala learns that Ember has gone missing, she will risk it all to bring Ember back to Firstwood and the Tribe.