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Fall 2017

Global Dystopias

This issue conjures visions of political, environmental, and gender dystopias, asking vital questions about political and civic responsibility. Guest edited by Junot Díaz.

 

Editor’s Note

Junot Díaz introduces Global Dystopias.
Junot Díaz

Stories

Adrienne Bernhard

After Chernobyl

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Fiction

An aging AI researcher, alone with her robot companion, must make a difficult decision when the android begins to malfunction. Short Story

Sumudu Samarawickrama
Fiction

“The intake process begins with dismantling her personal space, one mantle at a time.”

Charlie Jane Anders
Fiction
“'I felt no hunger but the habit of food struck me intensely. My nightgown was grubby and torn. My limbs were scraped, spotted with yellow bruises, but I felt no pain.” Short Story
Theo Costantino
Fiction
In a lost tale of Casanova, the citizens of a country at the center of the Earth must give up their home—and their women—to colonizers. Short Story
Maria Dahvana Headley
Fiction

Once I learned of the existence of mothers, I decided to order one for myself.

JR Fenn
Fiction
Years after an extinction event nearly wiped out humanity, a team of scientists search Venezuela for signs of life and evidence of what caused the tragedy. Short Story
Mike McClelland
Fiction
In the aftermath of a flu pandemic that kills most of the population, a survivor, barricaded in Alaska, remembers her life while contemplating a grisly choice. Short Story
Maureen F. McHugh

Interviews and Essays

Junot Díaz interviews Margaret Atwood about The Handmaid's Tale, political dystopias, and Drake.

Margaret Atwood, Junot Díaz

From invading Afghanistan to dismantling Confederate monuments, George Orwell has been pressed into the service of all sorts of causes. But the real Orwell remains unknown.

Peter Ross

We live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s.

Henry Farrell

The monotony of slow cinema defamiliarizes our world and enables us to see it critically.

Mark Bould

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