Second Variety

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

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

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

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