7 best short stories - Dystopia

Dystopian fiction- sometimes combined with, but distinct from apocalyptic literature - is the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos.

The critic August Nemo selected seven classic tales of dystopian scenarios.



- The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

- The Answer by H. Beam Piper

- The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel

- The Empire of the Ants by H.G. Wells

- In The Year 2889 by Jules Verne

- The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

- Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For more books with interesting themes, be sure to check the other books in this collection!



Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 7 June 1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. Many of his novels examined class difference and hypocrisy, including A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924). The last brought him his greatest success. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 different years.

Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 c. November 6, 1964) was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.

Matthew Phipps Shiell (21 July 1865 17 February 1947), known as M. P. Shiel, was a British writer. He is remembered mostly for supernatural horror and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories.

H.G. Wells, in full Herbert George Wells, (born September 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, Englanddied August 13, 1946, London), English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly.

Jules Verne, (born February 8, 1828, Nantes, Francedied March 24, 1905, Amiens), prolific French author whose writings laid much of the foundation of modern science fiction.

Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (11 November 1821 9 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher.