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15 Free Dystopian Short Stories [PDF]

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15 free dystopian short stories to read and download in PDF
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Looking for dystopian short stories you can finish in one sitting? Here you'll find tales of surveillance states, machine-run cities, population control, utopias gone wrong and worlds rebuilt after the collapse.

Long before Ray Bradbury wrote The Pedestrian, E. M. Forster imagined people living underground and talking only through screens. You'll also find Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, H. G. Wells and Jack London, each with a different nightmare about where society is heading.

Every story here is complete and short enough to read in one class or over one coffee. All of them are free to read online or download as PDF.

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Classics

Classic Dystopian Short Stories

These classics set the rules of dystopian fiction: a society that promises order and asks for freedom in return. Most were written before 1940, yet their warnings about screens, crowds and control are more relevant today than when they were written.

  • The Machine Stops

    The Machine Stops

    Humanity lives underground in separate cells, talking through screens and worshipping the Machine that runs everything. Written in 1909, it predicted video calls, online lectures and life inside a network.

    E. M. Forster

    Format: PDF 40 pages 0.6 MB
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  • A Story of the Days to Come

    A Story of the Days to Come

    In the London of the year 2100 the countryside is empty, the rich live in giant glass cities and the poor work in blue uniforms for the Labour Company. Two young lovers try to escape. H. G. Wells's 1899 novella about advertising, hypnotism and class.

    H. G. Wells

    Format: PDF 97 pages 0.49 MB
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  • Anthem

    Anthem

    In a collectivist future the word for a single self has been erased from the language. A short, stark novella about a man who rediscovers the idea of the individual.

    Ayn Rand

    Format: PDF 57 pages 0.98 MB
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  • The Dream of Debs

    The Dream of Debs

    A general strike shuts down San Francisco overnight: no food, no transport, no news, and a wealthy man finds out how long his money lasts. Jack London's 1909 story of class revolt, told from the losing side.

    Jack London

    Format: PDF 26 pages 0.1 MB
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Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut Dystopian Stories

If you liked Harrison Bergeron, these Kurt Vonnegut stories from 1950s and 1960s science fiction magazines share its sharp, funny bite. He imagines a world without old age or disease, then shows you the bill.

  • 2 B R 0 2 B

    2 B R 0 2 B

    In a future without disease or old age, a baby can only be born when someone volunteers to die. A short, dark satire from Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1962.

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Format: PDF 13 pages 0.14 MB
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  • The Big Trip Up Yonder

    The Big Trip Up Yonder

    A drug that stops aging has packed several generations into one tiny apartment, where everyone waits for great-grandpa to give up his bed. Vonnegut's comic 1954 take on overpopulation.

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Format: PDF 16 pages 0.22 MB
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  • Unready to Wear

    Unready to Wear

    Humanity has learned to leave its bodies in storage and drift around as free minds, while a few holdouts insist on staying in the flesh. A sly 1954 satire from Kurt Vonnegut about what people would give up to escape themselves.

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Format: PDF 18 pages 0.47 MB
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Post-Apocalyptic

Post-Apocalyptic Short Stories

What happens after the bombs, the plague or the machines win? These post-apocalyptic short stories by Philip K. Dick, Jack London and H. G. Wells follow the few people who are left.

  • Second Variety

    Second Variety

    After a nuclear war, self-replicating killer robots start building new models that look exactly like people. One of Philip K. Dick's most famous stories and the basis for the film Screamers.

    Philip K. Dick

    Format: PDF 61 pages 0.33 MB
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  • The Scarlet Plague

    The Scarlet Plague

    Sixty years after a pandemic wiped out nearly everyone, an old survivor tries to explain the vanished world to grandchildren who barely believe him. A short, bleak study of how fast knowledge disappears.

    Jack London

    Format: PDF 200 pages 2.46 MB
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  • The Defenders

    The Defenders

    Humanity has hidden underground for eight years while robots fight the nuclear war on the surface. Then a team goes up to see the damage for themselves. A 1953 Philip K. Dick story with a clever twist.

    Philip K. Dick

    Format: PDF 33 pages 0.43 MB
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  • The Gun

    The Gun

    Explorers reach a planet destroyed by nuclear war, and an automatic gun still standing guard shoots them down. A 1952 Philip K. Dick story about a weapon that keeps fighting long after its makers are gone.

    Philip K. Dick

    Format: PDF 21 pages 0.4 MB
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  • A Dream of Armageddon

    A Dream of Armageddon

    On a train, a stranger describes a life he dreamed in the future, where he chose love over power and watched a world war in the air destroy everything. H. G. Wells's 1901 vision of the end of a civilization.

    H. G. Wells

    Format: PDF 25 pages 0.09 MB
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Utopias

Utopian Short Stories

Every dystopia starts as someone's perfect world, and these utopian short stories show that dream up close. Dostoevsky, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Edward Bellamy each imagine a better society, from a sinless planet to a land run by women.

  • The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

    The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

    A man ready to end his life dreams he is carried to a distant planet where no one has ever sinned, and watches what happens after he arrives. Our own Project Aldus edition of Dostoevsky's 1877 story about a lost paradise.

    Fyodor Dostoevsky

    Format: PDF 45 pages 0.97 MB
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  • Sultana's Dream

    Sultana's Dream

    A woman dreams of Ladyland, a country where women run science and government while men stay at home. Written in 1905 by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, it is one of the first feminist utopias and a sharp, funny reversal of purdah.

    Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

    Format: PDF 14 pages 0.1 MB
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  • With the Eyes Shut

    With the Eyes Shut

    A traveler dozes off on a train and wakes in a world where books read themselves aloud, clocks speak the hour and letters arrive as recordings. Edward Bellamy's short 1889 utopia of everyday technology.

    Edward Bellamy

    Format: PDF 13 pages 0.04 MB
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Short fiction is where dystopia hits hardest: one idea, one society, one ending that stays with you for days.

For more quick reads in every genre, explore our full collection of short stories.

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