"75" - Abiola Oni (The Guardian, 2016)
The story is set in a future England where every must die no later than the day they turn 75.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Nigerian author

"Acqua Alta" - Ashley Bevilacqua Anglin (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Climate change dystopia in which Venice is under water, and a Venetian theme park has been created. Acqua Alta is the name given to peak high tides in the Veneto region of Italy.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"After We Walked Away" - Erica L. Satifka (Apex Magazine, 2016)
A response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Variations on a Theme by William James)” (1973) in which the world outside is worse in its treatment of its children.
Rpt. in the author's How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters (Bonney Lake, WA: Fairwood Press, 2021), 117-129, with a note on the story on 324-325.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Ajdenia: Let there be sunlight” - Theodoridou, Natalia (Nature, 2016)
Dystopia in which most people live in tunnels in the Earth and only the elite live in the sun.
Rpt. without the subtitle in Best of British Science Fiction. Ed. Donna Scott ([Weston, Eng.]: NewCon Press, 2017), 211-13.
Keywords: Female author; UK author

Americus: Exscendent, Book 1. High Road Cross - [Tamela] [Larimer] (b. 1968) (Indigo Hour Press, 2016)
Post-apocalyptic dystopia where the U.S. has fragmented. First volume in a multi-volume series, with two more volumes expected in this first sub-series.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“As Long as It Takes to Make the World” - Gabriela Santiago (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!, 2016)
Climate-change dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“At the Speed of Life” - Alexis Teyie (Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine, 2016)
A story of gender confusion set in a future Allied Lands of Africa
Keywords: Female author; Kenyan author

“Black, Their Regalia” - Darcie Little Badger (b. 1987) (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy!, 2016)
Fantasy story set in a racist dystopia.
Rpt. in Wastelands: The New Apocalypse. Ed. John Josephs Adams (London: Titan Books, 2019), 176-189.
Keywords: Female author; Native American author

"Blood" - Tania Carter (Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, 2016)
Post-nuclear war dystopia.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; First Nations author

"The Bone-Runner" - Jennifer Campbell-Hicks (Galaxy’s Edge, 2016)
The story is set in a future where much of the western U.S. is desolate with the remains cities composed of the steel of buildings that haven’t yet collapsed. The protagonist is a scavenger hoping to find something in the nearest city valuable enough to pay her way to the east, where life was easier. Some fantasy.
Rpt. in The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2015-2017. Ed. Mike Resnick  (Rockville, MD: Arc/Manor/Phoenix Pick, 2018), 34-50.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Camille Stories: Children of Compost” - Donna Haraway (b. 1944) (Duke University Press, 2016)
The stories trace five Camilles from 2025 to 2425, a period in which the human population, having at first risen from eight billion to ten billion, has dropped to three billion and only half of the species alive in 2015 still exist. Many humans have been modified to take on aspects of other species; in the case of the Camilles, the monarch butterfly.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Career Day" - Nisha VyasMyall (Holdfast Magazine, 2016)
The story is set in a future in which projections are made on what occupations will be needed in the future, and each child has a chip inserted at birth designating their future career. Until year seven, they are given a broad general education, then their chip is read, and from then on their education is narrowly occupational.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Children - Lucy Kirkwood (b. 1984) (Nick Hern Books, 2016)
A dystopian play based on the Fukushima disaster that takes place in a future England where a similar disaster has occurred.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Children of Eden. A Novel - Joey [Joseph Michael] Graceffa (b. 1991); Laura L. Sullivan (b. 1974) (Keywords Press/Atria, 2016)
Young adult dystopia about a girl who is the second child in a society that restricts families to one child. First volume of a trilogy followed by Elites of Eden. A Novel. Keywords Press/Atria, 2017 in which the protagonist of the first volumes finds an entire city of second children but also forms an alliance with one of the girls of the elite. The third volume is Rebels of Eden. A Novel. Keywords Press/Atria, 2018 in which the protagonist temporarily settles in a sustainable community called Harmonia that belies its name by being rule-bound. She then returns to Eden, finds it worse than before, and leads the revolution.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

Children of Exile - Margaret Peterson Haddix (b. 1964) (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016)
Young adult dystopia. The novel opens in a village where children have been sent at birth to be raised by others. Suddenly they are all sent to be reunited with their parents who live in extreme poverty with a continuing war. First volume of a trilogy. The second volume is Children of Refuge. Children of Exile Book 2. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2017 is a typical middle volume where things get worse. The third volume is Children of Jubilee. Children of Exile Book Three. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018. In this volume, the children are made slave labor on another planet and must cooperate with aliens in order to free themselves.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Children of Icarus - Caighlan Smith (Curious Fox, 2016)
First volume in a planned series. This volume is a dystopian derived from the story of the labyrinth and the Minotaur from Greek mythology. The story continues in Children of Daedala. Oxford, Eng.: Curious Fox, 2018 in which a woman struggles to survive and escape after six months in the labyrinth.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

City Ash and Desert Bones - Laurel Myler (Dog Star Books, 2016)
Dystopia with elements of a horror novel set in a future in which most of the U.S. is desert, with Alaska the center of civilization, and a theocracy ruling the country.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The City of Woven Streets - Emmi [Elina] Itäranta (b. 1976) (Harper Voyager, 2016)
The novel is set in a patriarchal dystopia where most women are not permitted to read or write, and dreaming is forbidden. The female protagonist can read and write and dreams. It is set on an island that is divided into sections based on crafts, with the novel focusing on the weavers. The island is slowly being submerged as the surrounding waters rise, and by the end of the novel has mostly been abandoned.
North American ed. as The Weaver. A Novel. New York: Harper Voyager, 2016. Published in Finnish as Kudottujen kujien kaupunki (2015).
Keywords: English author; Female author; Finnish author

“Coca-Cola Birds Sing Sweetest in the Morning” - Elizabeth Tan (Overland, 2016)
A dystopian future Australia where all the bees, birds, and insects have died and been replaced by corporate sponsored mechanical equivalents.
Rpt. in The Best Australian Stories 2016. Ed. Charlotte Wood (Carlton, VIC, Australia: Black Inc., 2016), 155-63.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

"Cold Comfort" - Pat[rice Anne] Murphy (b. 1955); Paul Doherty (1948-2017) (Bridging Infinity, 2016)
Climate change story with most of the focus on an elaborate, and ultimately successful, plan to stop the release of the vast reservoirs of methane in the arctic. The story ends with an apparent eutopia, but with the caveat that billions died before people came to their senses.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

“The Common Tongue, the Present Tense, the Known” - Nina Allan (b. 1966) (Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond, 2016)
The story is set after most of the world is drowned and is the protagonist is a marine biologist reflecting on the past and trying to understand the present and how both humans and the oceans and their inhabitants are responding to the new situation.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Company Town - Madeline Ashby (b. 1983) (Tor, 2016)
The background to the novel is a climate-change dystopia and is set on an oil rig that is now a complete town owned by one company, but the focus of the novel is a young woman hired to protect the heir to the company from those who want to inherit instead.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

“The Culling” - Kelley Armstrong (b. 1948) (Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts, 2016)
The lack of water and, as a result, food, led to the systematic reduction of the population with more and more categories added as the crisis got worse. The story focuses on a girl who hears voices who is chosen for culling.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

"Darkout" - E. Lily Yu (Cyber World: Tales of Humanity’s Tomorrow, 2016)
Dystopia in which everyone can see what anyone else is doing at any time, which was justified as a way of reducing violence, which it did. The story focuses on a man compulsively viewing one woman. At the end of the story, the system goes down.
Rpt. in People of Color Take Over Fantastic Stories of the Imagination Magazine. Ed. Nisi Shawl, no. 239 (June/July 2017): 32-49.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“On Darwin Tides” - Shauna O’Meara (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Environmental dystopia set in Malaysia in which indigenous people and immigrants are not allowed to work unless they have enough money for bribes and the technology that is required.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

“The Day No One Died” - Gwen Bellinger (Islamicates Volume 1: Anthology of Science Fiction short stories inspired from Muslim Cultures, 2016)
The story is set in a future where people who left Earth to avoid its conflicts have returned and religion is outlawed because it is believed to have brought about the last nuclear war, and the protagonist is a believer.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Delight®” - Allegra Hyde (Black Warrior Review, 2016)
Satire on planned communities. In this one absolutely everything is trademarked and is supposedly the ideal 1950s community. At the end, it seals itself off from the rest of the world.
Rpt. in her Of This New World (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2016), 104-09. The collection won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Department of Correction: A lesson learned” - Ninian Tan (Nature, 2016)
Future punishment in which the offender must relive the crime from the point-of-view of the offender for as many times as determined by the court.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Depot 256" - Lisa Allen-Agostini (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!, 2016)
Dystopia of extreme poverty.
Keywords: Female author; Trinidadian author

“Did We Break the End of the World?” - Tansy Rayner Roberts (b. 1978) (Defying Doomsday, 2016)
Young adult dystopia inhabited only by teenagers in which an electrical pulse has destroyed all equipment that runs on electricity, including the “foster mothers,” the robots that have cared for the teenagers. The protagonist is deaf and gay.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

“The Drowned City” - Bo[ukje] Balder (SciFutures presents The City of the Future, 2016)
Climate-change dystopia in which half of The Netherlands has disappeared and the Dutch are building a New Amsterdam on an island they have built on the Australian coast.
Keywords: Dutch author; Female author

"THe Eaters" - Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm (Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, 2016)
Aliens who had earlier visited Earth to other isolate evil aliens return to begin to repair the damage the descendants of those aliens have done by removing all who have retained the characteristics of those evil aliens. The sudden removal of millions upon millions of people, including almost all political and corporate leaders, opens the way for the indigenous peoples of the earth, some of whom were taken, to undertake the process of renewal.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; First Nations author

On the Edge of Gone - Corinne Duyvis (Amulet Books/Abrams, 2016)
Young adult novel about the dystopia brought about by an impending catastrophe and its aftermath. The protagonist is an autistic, mixed race Dutch-Surinamese girl. A related story is her “And the Rest of Us Wait.” In Defying Doomsday. Ed. Tsana Dolichava and Holly Kench [Yokine, WA, Australia]: Twelfth Planet Press, 2016), 1-47.
Keywords: Dutch author; Female author

Edge of Heaven - R[achael] B. Kelly (Liberties Press, 2016)
An overpopulation dystopia set in 2119 in a bi-level city called Creo in France where the dispossessed of the world have been sent to provide more space. The worst conditions at the bottom, where much of the action takes place.
Keywords: Female author; Irish author

“The End of the World” - Nora Salem (Islamicates Volume 1: Anthology of Science Fiction short stories inspired from Muslim Cultures, 2016)
The story is set in a future where a drought has destroyed most plant life and there are few human survivors.
Keywords: Arab-American; Female author

Escaped Alone - Caryl Churchill (b. 1938) (Nick Hern Books, 2016)
Dystopian play in which four old women, “They are all at least seventy,” sit in an apparently peaceful garden and discuss the horrors of the world outside the garden.
U.S. ed. in her Here We Go and Escaped Alone. Two Plays. (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2016), 31-74.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Escapology - Ren Warom (Titan Books, 2016)
Post-catastrophe cyberpunk dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Even Paradise Needs Maintenance” - Bo[ukje] Balder (Futuristica Volume 1, 2016)
After most countries become uninhabitable due to climate change and global warming, Australia becomes a high-tech paradise where the few people have little to do.
Keywords: Dutch author; Female author

Everfair - Nisi [Denise Angela] Shawl (b. 1955) (Tor, 2016)
Alternative history with a flawed utopia, multiracial country established by a combination of British Fabian socialists and African American missionaries within The Congo at its worst in the nineteenth century. Stories set in Everfair are “The Colors of Money.” Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation. Ed. Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland (Nashville, TN: Upper Rubber Boot, 2017), 198-217; “Sun River.” Illus. Clockwork Cairo: Steampunk Tales of Egypt. Ed. Matthew Bright ([UK]: Twopenny Books, 2017), 169-87; and “Promised.” Steampunk World. Ed. Sarah Hans (Dayton, OH: Alliteration Ink, 2017), 53-75. A related story is “Vulcanization.” Nightmare, no. 40 (January 2016). http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/vulcanization/ Rpt. as “Vulcanization From Nightmare Magazine.” In The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017. Ed. Charles Yu and John Joseph Adams (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 128-40.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

Everything Belongs to the Future - Laurie Penny (b. 1986) (Tor, 2016)
Dystopia of a world where the rich can get treatment that extends their lives while the poor die young.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Everything That Isn’t Winter - Margaret Killjoy (b. 1982) (Tor.com, 2016)
The story is set in a post-apocalypse future Cascade mountains in what used to be the state of Washington. It focuses on a self-organized community growing tea that is attacked by a group trying to establish an authoritarian government to rebuild the old, bad system.
Rpt. in her We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories (Chico, CA/Edinburgh, Scot.: AK Press, 2022), 88-105.
Keywords: Female author; Transgender author; US author

“The Final Path” - Genevieve Cogman (Now We Are Ten: Celebrating the First Ten Years of NewCon Press, 2016)
Post-catastrophe (general collapse) young adult dystopia in which the young woman protagonist escapes to join other young people who have run away to an island.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Five Thousand Squares” - Maree Kimberley (Defying Doomsday, 2016)
Climate-change dystopia in which the protagonist, who has rheumatoid arthritis, as does the Australian female author, struggles to save herself and her children.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

Flawed - Cecelia Ahern (Feiwel and Friends, 2016)
Young adult dystopia in which perfection is the standard and anyone flawed is branded with an “F”. The novel focuses on a young woman who risks being labelled flawed by helping someone in trouble. First of two volumes followed by Perfect. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2017 in which, after many more problems, the dystopia is defeated.
Keywords: Female author; Irish author

“Floating in My Tin Can: Lullaby for life” - Gerri Leen (Nature, 2016)
The background to the story is a dystopia that will not allow people to sing.
Keywords: Female author

The Forgetting - Sharon Cameron (b. 1970) (Scholastic Press, 2016)
Young adult dystopia in which annually everyone, except for one girl. in an enclosed city loses their memories unless they have been written down. The girl then explores the basis of the dystopia and escapes with a boy. The Knowing. New York: Scholastic Press, 2017 is described as a companion volume and focuses on a woman who cannot forget anything and searches for the lost city of Canaan and a man from space who is also searching for it.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Future Is Blue" - Catherynne M[organ] Valente (b. 1979) (Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond, 2016)
Climate change dystopia in which so few children survive their first years that they do not get a name until they are ten. The story is continued in her The Past Is Red (2021).
Rpt. in The Best American Science Fiction and FantasyTM 2017. Ed. Charles Yu (Boston, MA: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 167-197; in Wastelands: The New Apocalypse. Ed. John Josephs Adams (London: Titan Books, 2019), 489-511; and in her The Future Is Blue (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2018), 7-28.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Gender Game - Bella Forrest (Nightlight Press, 2016)
The novel is set in a world divided between men’s and women’s lands (Patrus and Matrus). In Patrus, women are completely subservient, but the novel focuses on a young woman who is not subservient who leaves Matrus for Patrus on a quest. First volume of a seven-volume series, followed by The Gender Secret. Np: Nightlight Press, 2016; The Gender Lie. Np: Nightlight Press, 2017; The Gender War. Np: Nightlight Press, 2017; The Gender Fall, 2017; The Gender Plan. Np: Nightlight Press, 2017; The Gender End. Np: Nightlight Press, 2017.
Keywords: Female author

Gifted - H[eather] A. Swain (b. 1969) (Feiwel and Friends, 2016)
Young adult dystopia in which exceptional talents can be purchased by the privileged, but some talents still occur naturally, and one focus of the novel is a young woman who is from the underclass and is musically gifted in a society that outlaws music making.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Give Your All" - Leena Litkitalo (Galaxy’s Edge, 2016)
Dystopia in which people are expected to donate body parts to gain status.
Rpt. in The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2015-2017. Ed. Mike Resnick (Rockville, MD: Arc/Manor/Phoenix Pick, 2018), 197-208.
Keywords: Female author; Finnish author

"Glass" - Megan Dorei (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
Dystopia that focuses on the need for girls to be thin.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Goodnight New York, New York” - Victoria Zelvin (Shoreline of Infinity, 2016)
Climate-change story in which the government has consistently lied about conditions in New York, where even some of the tallest buildings are completely submerged.
Rpt. in the Edinburgh International Science Festival Special Edition of Shoreline of Infinity, no. 11½ (Spring 2018): 91-97.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Great Chasm” - Hildy Silverman; David Silverman (Altered States of the Union, 2016)
In the future, the U.S. has divided into two separate countries, the liberal Blue States in the East that enforce a narrow view of liberalism and the absolutist Red States to the West.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

Hillary Goes to Washington, A Liberals Dream - Kate Griffin ([CreateSpace], 2016)
The novel is about the election of Hillary Clinton to the presidency and her first term, during which the basics of the liberal agenda are passed.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Hiroto’s Legacy” - Lisa M. Collins (Coming Around Again [At the head of the title The Central Arkansas Speculative Fiction Writers’ Group Presents], 2016)
The story is set in a future eutopian Japan that had been achieved through generations of technological innovation, particularly in horticulture. Prequel to her story “The Tree of Life.” Holdfast Magazine, no. 4 (2014). Rpt. in Holdfast Magazine Anthology 2013-2014. Ed. Laurel Still and Lucy Smee (Np: np, 2014); and on Kindle, 2015. 16 pp. in which the culture, now on a generation starship searching for new planets are passing the knowledge to the next generations.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Human Animals - Stef Smith (Nick Hern Books, 2016)
In an unidentified future, the balance of nature has been so upset that animals have overrun parts of London, and the play concerns the way some people respond to the slaughter of the animals. It opened at the Royal Court Theatre May 18, 2016.
Keywords: Female author; Scottish author

I Love You*: *Subject to the Following Terms and Conditions. A Contract Killers Novel - Erin Lyon (Forge, 2016)
In the future, all marriages are specific time-limited contracts, and the novel follows the trials and tribulations of one woman’s search for love.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“I Will Remember You” - Janet Edwards (b. 1958) (Defying Doomsday, 2016)
Dystopia brought about by an alien invasion with the aliens killing off all humans over thirteen days with a few survivors who will rebuild the human race.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Imposter Syndrome” - Mari Kurisato [pseud.] (Love Beyond the Body, Space and Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology, 2016)
The story is set in a future where all “Non-Citizens” are banned from leaving the failing Earth and travelling to newly discovered inhabitable planets. In the story, the Non-Citizen is an alien, but she carries the memories of a First Nations woman who was among those torn from her family and sent to schools designed to strip them of their identity.
Keywords: Female author; First Nations author; US author

"In Equity" - Sarah Gallian (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2016)
A dystopian future in which teenagers are “fostered” for commercial uses.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Infomocracy - Malka [Ann] Older (b. 1977) (Tom Doherty Associates, 2016)
First volume of a trilogy that illustrates the problems of establishing and maintaining eutopia based on a world-wide electoral system that fosters micro-democracies. Among the problems are corruption and political maneuvering among the groups vying for electoral success at the level of global government. The title suggests a central theme, the importance of the control of information. In the second volume is Null States: The Centenal Cycle, Book 2. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2017, three different plots, in Darfur, Geneva, and Central Asia, pose challenges to the system. As the title suggests, in the final volume, State Tectonics: The Centenal Cycle, Book 3. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2018, the various groups vying for power produce something of an earthquake, and, at the end, there is many more sources of information. Whether this is good or not is left unclear.
An excerpt was published in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! Ed. Nalo Hopkinson and Kristine Ong Muslim. Special Issue of Lightspeed, no. 73 (June 2016): 304-10.
Keywords: Female author; Latinx author; US author

The Island Will Sink - Briohny Doyle (Lifted Brow, 2016)
Climate change dystopia in which the world is watching Pitcairn Island sinking below the surface. The novel focuses on a man who makes completely immersive films and puts everything about his life online, which means losing his memories.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

"Islets of the Blessed" - Nidhi Singh (Flash Fiction Press, 2016)
Dystopia set in a rigidly structured society where someone can sell their body to be taken over by one of the wealthy needing a new one.
Rpt. in Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2016), 372-80.
Keywords: Female author; Indian author

“Jericho Blush” - Cat[riona] Sparks (b. 1965) (Dark Harvest, 2016)
The story is set in a future Australia devastated by climate change in an area the has been used for unregulated weapons testing controlled by a foreign company. It takes place in the post-apocalyptic future of her 2017 Lotus Blue. A related story is her 2015 “Hot Rods.”
Originally published in Cyclopean, no. 2 (2016), which is no longer available.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

Judenstaat - Simone Zelitch (Tor, 2016)
Alternative history covering 1945-87 in which, following World War 2, a homeland for the Jews, Judenstaat, was established in Saxony in the eastern part of Germany.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Keepers of Madleen” - Sarah Lyn Eaton (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
An apparent eutopia in a future in which every village has walled themselves off from every other village to protect themselves from an unidentified threat. The village that is the focus of the story must face the fact of a rape, and the story is concerned with how they deal with it.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Knocking on Heaven’s Door. A Novel - Sharman Apt Russell (b. 1954) (Yucca Publishing, 2016)
Post-catastrophe novel (epidemic/pandemic) in which the survivors have created a Paleolithic culture that they describe as a utopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Le Carré rouge” - Claudie Arseneault (Solarpunk Press, 2016)
Dystopian depiction of the future of Québec under a repressive government and powerful corporations, particularly one that, with the cooperation of the government, controls all food production and distribution. The story focuses on the resistance to the dystopia over the lifetime of the protagonist.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Learning to Speak Tiger" - Trina Marie Phillips (SciFutures presents The City of the Future, 2016)
The story is set in a very high-tech future Hanoi with strong eutopian elements but with the technology largely integrated into daily life. The story is about a poor, young girl struggle to find her place.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Leaves No Longer Fall” - Jodi Cleghorn (At the Edge, 2016)
Environmental dystopia.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

“Love in a Lonely City 2050" - Deborah Walker (SciFutures presents The City of the Future, 2016)
The story is set in a very high-tech future London with strong eutopian elements and is about how hard it still can be to find love.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Lutopia: An Ideal City in an Ideal World” - Hilde Heynen (b. 1959) (‘A Truly Golden Handbook’: The Scholarly Quest for Utopia, 2016)
An essay describing a eutopian 2116 Leuven, then known as Lutopia, with an emphasis of blending heritage an ecology. World-wide people have been concentrated into cities to radically reduce the negative impact of humans on the environment. The essay is an expansion of the ideal city tradition, with in addition to the usual architectural and city-layout details, material on the organization of housing, schooling from elementary through university, energy use, transportation, the economy, labor, the social life, and governance. It ends with a brief comment on the remaining problems.
Keywords: Belgian author; Female author

“Luv Story” - Kim Westwood (Dreaming in the Dark, 2016)
A retelling of the story of the Garden of Eden by a girl in a post-catastrophe (climate-change, loss of civilization) dystopia.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

The Mandibles. A Family, 2029-2047 - Lionel Shriver (b. 1957) (Borough Press, 2016)
Dystopia. The novel traces a well-off family through the collapse of the U.S. economy, followed by extreme poverty, and the establishment of an authoritarian government that confiscated all property (they became sharecroppers). The novel ends in Nevada, which has managed to secede from the U.S. and has considerable personal freedom but also has much violent crime and other serious problems.
U.S. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2016.
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

"Masks" - Stirling Davenport (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Environmental dystopia set in an extremely polluted China. Hong Kong has been mostly destroyed by storms. Europe is, if anything, worse off.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Mercy Journals - Claudia Casper (b. 1957) (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016)
The novel is set in a post-catastrophe dystopia in which billions of people have died as a result of climate change.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Metaltown - Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen, 2016)
Dystopia set in a cruel factory town in which the workers are ruthlessly exploited.
Keywords: Female author; Japanese American author

"The Mighty Slinger" - Tobias S[amuel] Buckell (b. 1979); Karen [Antoinette Roberta] Lord (b. 1968) (Bridging Infinity, 2016)
The story begins in a future in which climate change and exploitation of the environment has left Earth uninhabitable. The Moon has been terraformed and the terraforming of Mars is in progress with indentured laborers. The story then follows a musician who has supported the workers and helped develop a project to revitalize Earth far into the future to when he can return to his recreated Caribbean homeland.
Rpt. with Lord as the first author in Sunspot Jungle. Volume 2. [Subtitle on the cover The Ever Expanding Universe of Fantasy and Science Fiction]. Ed. Bill Campbell (Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium Publishing, 2020), 471-95; and in The Best of World Science Fiction Volume 2. Ed. Lavie Tidhar (London: Head of Zeus, 2022), 365-398.
Keywords: Barbadian author; Female author; Grenadian author; Male author; US author; US Virgin Islands author

“A Model Life” - Kim Antieau (b. 1955) (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
A retired couple, both of whom are dissatisfied with their lives, enter a program that purports to find the right life for them and ultimately does. Most of the story focuses on the dystopian testing the man is put through rather than the eutopian outcome.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Monuments" - Pamela Sargent (b. 1948) (Bridging Infinity, 2016)
Climate change dystopia set in a New York City with Brooklyn, Staten Island, and much of Queens under water and many Manhattan streets now canals. Huge drop in world population with “self-deliverance” (suicide) one of the most common forms of death.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Mum’s Group” - Stephanie Burgis (Futuristica Volume 1, 2016)
Dystopia in which women are required to have a mothering implant that constantly directs them about childcare.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Né Łe!” - Darcie Little Badger (b. 1987) (Love Beyond the Body, Space and Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology, 2016)
The background to the story is a future with both eutopian and dystopian elements. Mars has been successfully settled, and various space habitats have been developed with different rules and regulations and some designed for specific ethnic groups, including one Orbiter Diné [Navajo]. But all Native Americans not living on reservations have been forced off their land, and most people still on Earth live in huge megaplexes.
Keywords: Female author; Native American author

Necessity - Jo Walton (b. 1964) (Tor, 2016)
Sequel to 2014 and 2015 Walton. In this novel Zeus has transported all the inhabitants of the Just City to another planet named Plato, and the inhabitants are interacting with aliens and have just been contacted by humans. The relocation has generally been successful, and a number of city states have been established that reflect different interpretations of Plato’s Republic.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; Welsh author

"A New Panama" - Karen [Antoinette Roberta] Lord (b. 1968) (Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, 2016)
Climate change has greatly reduced the islands and coastal areas of the world, and the next stage will be in space. The story focuses on a strong Caribbean woman negotiating over the future of her people.
Rpt. without the illus. in Catalysts, Explorers & Secret Keepers: Women of Science Fiction. Ed. Monica Louzon, Jake Weisfeld, Heather McHale, Barbara Jasny, and Rachel Frederick (Washington, DC: Museum of Science Fiction, 2017), 118-27.
Keywords: Barbadian author; Female author

“New Wild of Generopia: A Hope of New Eaarth” - Julianne Lutz Warren (Talk given at the “Stories of the Anthropocene Festival,” Stockholm, Sweden, October 28, 2016, 2016)
The talk begins with Raphael Hythloday’s depiction of Utopia, moves to Utopia’s adoption of modern methods, which severely damages the country, and continues with Raquel Savetheday’s depiction of a group of Utopians who leave to create an ecological island utopia for the twenty-first century.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"No Fat Chicks" - Cat[riona] Sparks (b. 1965) (FableCroft Publishing, 2016)
The story is set in a future in which genetic mutations mean that all women are obese except for a few who take extreme measures to stay thin as seen from the viewpoint of a man whose ex-girlfriend has become fat. It won the Short story Ditmar Award in 2016.
Rpt. in her Dark Harvest ([Weston, Eng.]: NewCon Press, 2020), 179-92, with a brief author’s note on 192
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

"Nothing to Fear" - Nat Newman (Shoreline of Infinity, 2016)
Brief dystopia set in a society in which the activities for every day and most hours are set centrally.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

Oasis - Eilís Barrett (Gill Books, 2016)
Young adult post-catastrophe (virus) dystopia where the government uses protecting the people as the excuse for imposing complete control over the population. The novel focuses on those young people who work to undermine the system.
Keywords: Female author; Irish author

“An Offertory to Our Drowned Gods” - Teresa Naval (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!, 2016)
Climate-change dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; Filipina American author

“Olènkwáon: we” - Cathy Smith (Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, 2016)
The story is set in a future where Earth’s ecology has been destroyed. Aliens arrive who, because of that, are unwilling to allow Earth to become full members of the galactic federation and gain access to its knowledge and, in particular, a plant that heals and extends life.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; First Nations author

“One Bad Apple" - Holly Schofield (SciFutures presents The City of the Future, 2016)
The story points out that things can still go wrong in a high-tech eutopia but high-tech can solve the problems. The utopia supposedly has no slums, gangs, or homeless, but the protagonist encounters a mugger who steals his watch to sell for its value in metal, but the city’s connectedness means that he will be captured, and the watch recovered.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

"One in Four" - Sarah Hall (b. 1974) (RA Magazine, 2016)
Pandemic story told from the viewpoint of an executive of a pharmaceutical company that marketed a drug they knew did not work.
Rpt. in Madame Zero. 9 Stories London: Faber and Faber, 2017), 147-50. US ed (New York: Custom House/Harper Collins, 2017), 147-50.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Order, Excellence, Prosperity” - Michelle Kaseler (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
Dystopia in which, while most diseases such as cancer have been eliminated, people are given drugs to ensure they focus on what the system has determined they are best at no matter their preferences before being given the drug.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Outliers - McCreight, Kimberly (Harper, 2016)
First volume of a young adult dystopian trilogy in which to avoid war rulers must give one of their children as a hostage. If the ruler goes to war, the child is killed. The novel focuses on two such hostages, a boy and a girl, from different countries. The Scattering: The Second Book in the Outliers Trilogy. New York: Harper, 2017, focusing on the girl, is a typical middle volume in that the situation gets worse. In The Collide: The Final Book in the Outliers Trilogy. New York: Harper, 2018, which still focuses on the girl, she struggles, successfully to find out why the “Outliers” are targeted and who is doing trying to kill them.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Panic City - Madeline Ashby (b. 1983) (Cyber World: Tales of Humanity’s Tomorrow, 2016)
Dystopia of an automated city designed to protect its inhabitants that ends up killing them.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

“Plantation | Springtime: A day in the life of the automated body of the future” - Lia Swope Mitchell (Terraform, 2016)
The setting is a penitentiary in which the prisoners are treated as if they are plants with details on their care, feeding, and punishment followed by the prisoners’ thoughts. In the first reprint these are more effectively side by side columns.
Rpt. without the subtitle or the illus. Big Echo: Critical SF, no. 7, Part 1 (January 2018). https://www.bigecho.org/plantation-springtime; and without the subtitle or the illus. in Terraform Watch Worlds Burn. Ed. Brian Merchant and Claire L. Evans (New York: MCD X FSG Originals/Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Motherboard/Vice, 2022), 198-207.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Portobello Blind” - Octavia Cade (b. 1977) (Defying Doomsday, 2016)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which a blind teenage girl is the only survivor at an island science laboratory and proves to herself that she has the inner resources to cope.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Female author

The Power - Naomi Alderman (b. 1974) (Viking, 2016)
Dystopia presented as a novel within the novel written by a man in a society in which Mother Eve has replaced Adam as the central figure and women are dominant. The Power is an ability that women develop that allows them to treat men as women are treated today. The man’s novel presents a situation with strong men. Female author.
Rpt. London: Penguin Books, 2017
Keywords: English author; Female author

“President John F. Kennedy, Astronaut” - Sandra [A.] McDonald ( b. 1966) (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2016)
The story is set in a climate change dystopia with much of the land flooded.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Product - Marina Fontaine (Subversive Press, 2016)
Authoritarian dystopia in which one drug frees people from the means the government uses to control them. The focus of the novel is a dealer.
Keywords: Female author; Russian-American author

"Project Empathy" - Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2016)
The first of five stories about a future San Francisco and various ways artificial intelligence is used to both enhance and control people. The other stories, all with the same protagonists, are, in order, “Project Synergy.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 40.4 & 5 (483 & 484) (April/May 2016): 70-82; “Project Symmetry.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 40.6 (485) (June 2016): 42-56; “Project Entropy.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 40.7 (486) (July 2016): 40-57; and “Project Extropy.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 40.10 & 11 (489 & 490) (October/November 2016): 124-39.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Quirian and the Earthling” - Catherine Oyiliagu (Brittle Paper, 2016)
The story, really a vignette, takes place on the planet Quron, a pristine planet with Earth described as a planet “of plastic and fog.”
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; Nigerian author

The Race - Nina Allan (b. 1966) (Titan Books, 2016)
The setting of the novel is a climate change dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“The Ravisher, The Thief” - Marian Womack (b. 1975) (Barcelona Tales, 2016)
The story is set in a post-catastrophe dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Spanish author

"The Red Thread" - Sofia Samatar (b. 1971) (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!, 2016)
The story is set in a dystopia after the environment has completely collapsed and people are struggling to survive.
Rpt. in her Tender: Stories (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2017): 262-273; and in Wastelands: The New Apocalypse. Ed. John Josephs Adams (London: Titan Books, 2019), 28-37.
Keywords: Female author; Somali-American author

"Rooting" - Isha Karki (Mithila Review, 2016)
Dystopian future in which supposedly docile servants have been created from the DNA of Nepalese women and are treated as non-human. Slowly, they are beginning to be treated as having rights.
Rpt. in Sunspot Jungle. Volume 2. [Subtitle on the cover The Ever Expanding Universe of Fantasy and Science Fiction]. Ed. Bill Campbell (Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium Publishing, 2020), 317-25. © 2018 PSt 978-1732638808
Keywords: Female author; UK author

The Ruins of Civilization - Penelope Skinner (b. 1978) (2016)
Dystopian play set in an anti-immigrant society facing climate-change. See the note in The New York Times (December 24, 2017): Arts & Leisure, 4.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"The Rupture" - Malka [Ann] Older (b. 1977) (Capricious (Aotearoa/New Zealand), 2016)
The story is set on a dystopian future Earth in which most animals and many plants are extinct, and the Earth regularly has major earthquakes and new volcanoes that become tourist sites. The story is told from the point-of-view of a visitor from another planet who initially visits Earth to attend university.
Rpt. in her . . . and Other Disasters (Baltimore, MD: Mason Jar Press, 2019), 17-35
Keywords: Female author; Latinx author; US author

"Rusties" - Nnedi[mma Nkemdili] Okorafor (b. 1974); Wanuri Kahui (b. 1980) (Clarkesworld, 2016)
The story is set in an African future where robot traffic police with ever-more-enhanced AI capabilities ended the traffic chaos in cities but also could access all personal data from cell phones.
Keywords: African American author; Female author; Kenyan author

The Sewing Group - E[mma] V[ictoria] Crowe (b. 1980) (Faber and Faber, 2016)
The play begins with three women sewing in a setting that appears to be in a village in the 18th century. A new woman joins them and insists on the others making changes in what they are doing and following her directions. This part of the play appears to represent a peaceful, simply life being disrupted, but the play gradually grows darker. At the end, though, it takes a dramatic turn that undermines everything that has gone before. First performed at the Royal Court, London, November 10, 2016, directed by Stewart Laing.
Keywords: English author; Female author; German author

“Shifting Gears” - Mackenzie Reide (Altered States of the Union, 2016)
The Northwest of the U.S. has seceded and formed a new country called Cascadia. The story is about the suppression by U.S. authorities of all contact with Cascadia. See also 2017 Reide.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Signs of the Times” - Carole Johnstone (The Speculative Bookshop EBook, 2016)
Dystopia of poverty and treatment of immigrants in zoos. The immigrants are ancient gods.
Keywords: Female author

"Slumber" - Emeline [Mimie] Morin (The Speculative Book, 2016)
Dystopia in which Earth is an environmental disaster and those who are trying to settle a new planet have been so damaged by the long sleep necessary to travel there, many being blind or dead, half having committed suicide, and most disengaged) that they are unable to do the needed work.
Keywords: Female author; French author; Scottish author

“Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea” - Sarah Pinsker (b. 1977) (Lightspeed, 2016)
The story is set in a climate change dystopia in which there is little land left and the wealthy life on cruise ships.
Rpt. in her Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. Stories (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2019), 33-56.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Squeaky Wheel” - Sara Kate Ellis (Solarpunk Press, 2016)
A dystopia or flawed utopia as seen by protagonists in the story that see the future differently. All safety nets have been removed and everyone is networked with an emphasis on friendliness and sociability with children medicated and socialized to fit in.
Keywords: Female author

“Standing Still” - Lindsay Redifer (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Climate change dystopia set in Madagascar.
Keywords: Female author; Mexican author; US author

"Stewardship" - Holly Schofield (Unsung Stories, 2016)
In the story an AI and a robot are caring for a fenced-off area designed to contain one of the few remaining areas that are in ecological balance.
Rpt. in Little Blue Marble 2018: Stories of Our Changing Climate. Ed. Katrina Archer. Np: Ganache Media epub, 2018.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Stone Seeds - Jo Ely (Urbane Publications, 2016)
Authoritarian dystopia depicting a village ruled by “The General” and his henchmen but ultimately successfully opposed by a few individuals who don’t fit in
Keywords: Botswanan author; English author; Female author

“SunDown” - Acan Innocent Immaculate (Munyori Literary Journal, 2016)
The story is set in a future when the sun is dieing, and most humans have left Earth leaving behind those who are note genetically ideal.
Keywords: Female author; Ugandan author

The Sunlight Pilgrims. A Novel - Jenni Fagan (b. 1977) (William Heinemann, 2016)
A near future climate change dystopia in which Britain has lost the warming effect of the Gulf Stream and is experiencing the most severe winter in 200 years. The novel follows a number of people as they live their normal lives in this dystopia.
U.S. ed. New York: Hogarth, 2016.
Keywords: Female author; Scottish author

“Survival Instincts” - Carolyn Charron (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
Dystopia in which the birth rate has led to an annual contest to be chosen as parents and one young woman’s attempts to ensure her victory.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

"Swallow" - Eden [Victoria Lena] Robinson (b. 1968) (Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, 2016)
The story is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia in which two First Nations boys are trying to survive.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; First Nations author

"Taking Flight" - Una McCormack (b. 1972) (Crises and Conflicts: Celebrating the First 10 Years of NewCon Press, 2016)
The story is set on an isolated planet in a future in which genetically modified people are marked and bonded and bought and sold.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"The Target" - Eliza Victoria (Philippine Speculative Fiction. Volume 10. Literature of the Fantastic, 2016)
The background to the story is a hierarchical dystopia as reflected in extremely high buildings with the higher status, richest people at the top and the poorest in what are called the Shadows at the bottom. The story is about a wealthy man hiring people to kill someone.
Repub. as an ebook. Quezon City, Philippines: Flipside Digital Content Co. and Kestrel IMC, 2017
Keywords: Female author; Filipina author

"Tea Party" - Lauren E. Mitchell (b.1983) (Defying Doomsday, 2016)
Post-catastrophe (Nature strikes back) depicting the survival strategies of a group of physically and/or mentally challenged people.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

"Thirteen Year" - Diana Rose Harper (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Poem set in the underground authoritarian dystopia where humans have retreated from the environmental damage at the surface.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Three Alternative Histories from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth” - Kate Schapira (Reckoning 1: An Annual Journal of Creative Writing on Environmental Justice, 2016)
Providence, Rhode Island, which is located bay that will flood the city as the ocean rises, dealing with climate-change. In one case, there is short-term success but long-term failure. In the other cases, the people achieve temporarily workable solutions. In all cases, the successes depend on community members working together and helping each other.
Rpt. https://reckoning.press/three-alternate-histories/ (January 26, 2017).
Keywords: Female author; US author

Time Zero - Carolyn Cohagan (She Writes Press, 2016)
Dystopia of a Manhattan ruled by religious extremists with particular emphasis on the restrictions on women. The novel focuses on one girl who rebels. Ends with “End of Book One.”
Began as an M.P.W. (Master of Professional Writing) thesis. Southern California, 2013.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Too Like the Lightning. Terra Ignota, Book I - Ada [Louise Grace] Palmer (b. 1981) (Tor, 2016)
A complex novel set in a 25th century technological flawed utopia. Abundance. Much on gender roles. The public practice of religion has been outlawed. Most people belong to world clans that are economic entities in competition with other clans. First volume in a series. The second volume is Seven Surrenders: Terra Ignota, Book II. New York: Tor, 2017. 384 pp. in which certain groups have conspired to maintain stability on the planet through selective murders. The third volume is The Will to Battle: Terra Incognita, Book III. New York: Tor, 2017. 352 pp. in which the utopia has collapsed and turned into a dystopia. The fourth volume is Perhaps the Stars: Terra Ignota, Book IV. New York: Tor, 2021. 593 pp. where war breaks out with devastating consequences, but at the end a better world is slowly being rebuilt. The series has explicitly utopian threads throughout. See https://irradiate.space/worldbuilding/notes-on-oaths-and-laws-from-terra-ignota/utopia/ for the Utopian Oath from volume one.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Trusted Leader" - Pamela Rentz (Red Tape: Stories from Indian Country, 2016)
The story is set in a future in which the U.S. has abrogated all treaties with Native American tribes and are driving them off their lands.
Keywords: Female author; Native American author

“Utopia + 10” - J[acqueline] A. Christy (Now We Are Ten: Celebrating the First Ten Years of NewCon Press, 2016)
Dystopia of extreme pollution and deep rich/poor divisions.
Keywords: Female author

"Virtual Snapshots" - Tlotlo Tsamaase (b. 1989) (Terraform, 2016)
The story is set in a climate changed future where advanced technology allows the rich to redesign bodies.
Rpt. without the illus. in Terraform Watch Worlds Burn. Ed. Brian Merchant and Claire L. Evans (New York: MCD X FSG Originals/Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Motherboard/Vice, 2022), 410-417.
Keywords: Female author; Motswanan author

"Walkers" - Kelsey Shannahan (Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales, 2016)
Dystopia of an apparently unchanging society in which nothing dies, but, because change is essential, periodically turns some parents into “walkers,” part human/part machine beings that then search out and kill their own children.
Keywords: Female author; US author

War: What if it was here? - Janne Teller (b. 1964) (Simon & Schuster, 2016)
The story is set in a future dystopian Britain at war and is designed to show the reader what it would be like to live in situation and then become a refugee. Originally written and published in Danish but completely re-written with Britain as the focus.
Keywords: Danish author; Female author

“Watching the Watchers” - Anya Penfold (Thirty Years of Rain, 2016)
An odd satire about a future society that has many of the appearances of a dystopia but could be considered a eutopia. The ruling party is the “Party in Favour Of Helping People To Do What They Like, As Long As They Don’t Hurt Anyone (And Don’t Take Too Many Sickies)” and the state-sponsored newspaper is The Daily Propaganda: Don’t believe everything you read just because it looks official.
Keywords: Female author; Scottish author

The Waterdancer’s World - L[inda] Timmel Duchamp (b. 1950) (Aqueduct Press, 2016)
A complex dystopia set on a world colonized so that its resources could be exploited, and the novel focuses on the relations among both the colonizers those who want to protect the planet.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Watershed - Jane Abbott (Vintage Books Australia, 2016)
A climate change dystopia set in an Australia with rising sea levels and a years-long drought so that water is the most precious commodity. An authoritarian dystopia controls the remaining population and hires people to search for and kill any dissidents.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

The Way of Water/Natura dell'acqua - Nina Munteanu (b. 1954) (Future Fiction, 2016)
Dystopia in which all water is controlled by one corporation, which, as a result, controls much of the internet.
Rpt. in Cli-fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change. Ed. Bruce Meyer (Holstein, ON, Canada: Exile Editions, 2017), 117-30; in Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction. [Ed. Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso] (Greenbelt, MD: Rosarium, 2018), 50-61; and in Little Blue Marble 2019: Climate in Crisis. Ed. Katrina Archer (Vancouver, BC, Canada: Ganache Media Books, 2020), 26-43.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

"Webs" - Mary Anne Mohanraj (b. 1971) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 2016)
Dystopia in which humans who have not been altered seek out and kill those with genetic modifications.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Well Enough Alone" - Holly Schofield (Shoreline of Infinity, 2016)
The story is set in a high-tech future in which people wear health “minders” that constantly report to hospitals. An elderly woman who had been involved in developing much of the technology but is losing her memory and ability to function independently reprograms hers to assist her suicide.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

“What Happens When Stars Die” - Rebecca Lafond (Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, 2016)
Dystopia of a collapsed environmental system leading to high crime rates, the disappearance of governments, and so forth.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; First Nations author

“When No One’s Left” - Lora Rivera (Reckoning 1: Creative Writing on Environmental Justice, 2016)
Last couple dystopia.
Rpt. https://reckoning.press/when-no-ones-left/ (May 22, 2017). Interview with the author at https://reckoning.press/lora-rivera-interview-when-no-ones-left/
Keywords: Asian-Indian-American author; Female author; Queer author

“When the Cold Comes: Be Prepared” - Deborah Walker (Nature, 2016)
Dystopia in which the common cold has been turned into a bioweapon and sent by a religious dystopia to infect its enemies.
Keywords: English author; Female author

“Who Do You Love?” - Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952-2021) (Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond, 2016)
The background to the story is a climate change dystopia where much of Florida is underwater and there are regular devastating storms that get worse over the years during which the story takes place.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Without Walls" - A. Gislebertus (Solarpunk Press, 2016)
A eutopia of multicultural, multigendered community that encourages individuality that followed a dystopia that rejected all three.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Wolfina” - Giselle Leeb (Reckoning 1: An Annual Journal of Creative Writing on Environmental Justice, 2016)
Dystopia set in a future with an extremely damaged environment. The government has mostly disappeared, and its only function appears to be doling out rations of the remaining gasoline. Voter turnout in the last election was 2.3%. Ocean water is deadly, and most people are dying from mercury poisoning.
Rpt. https://reckoning.press/wolphinia/ (December 29, 2016).
Keywords: English author; Female author; South African author

“Wonder of the World” - Kathryn Blume (Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, 2016)
Climate change fiction in which the survivors live in small communities with limited technology and without a reliable way to kept in touch with other communities. The story, though, is about the resilience of the people.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Aftermath: Beyond World-Mart - Leigh M. Lane (Cerebral Press, 2015)
Sequel to 2015 Lane, The Private Sector and 2015 Lane World-Mart. In this volume genetic engineering and bioterrorism has decimated the world’s population with the novel focusing on the survivors and the life that continues.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“All Along the Mal.” - Chloe [N.] Clark (The Future Fire: Social Political & Speculative Cyber-Fiction, 2015)
The story is set in a future where everyone lives in a huge wall with various subsections, each with a mayor. People must shop constantly earning themselves credits that determine the size and amenities of the tiny room they sleep in between and the standards of the bathrooms they can use while shopping.
Keywords: Female author; US author

All Things Rise - Vaun, Missouri (Bold Strokes Books, 2015)
Lesbian romance set in a future where the rich have left a depleted Earth to establish “Cloud Cities” in space around Earth. There everything is synthetic while on Earth the survivors farm those areas not poisoned or otherwise unusable. Both have negative and positive elements to them. First volume of a series followed by The Time Before Now. Valley Falls, NY: Bold Strokes Books, 2015 in which the protagonist travels across the desolate meeting danger and love. Another lesbian romance set in the same future is the novella The Ground Beneath. Valley Falls, NY: Bold Strokes Books ebook, 2015. The final volume in the series, Valley of Fire. Valley Falls, NY: Bold Strokes Books, 2016, follows a different character that appeared in the first volume, a pilot, who is assigned to fly a member of the ruling elite the cloud city of Miami but is forced to crash land by those who are in favor of a return to earth. Adventure and a lesbian romance ensue
Keywords: Female author; US author

Anchor Point - Alice Robinson (Affirm Press, 2015)
The novel is set against the background of a climate-change dystopia and focuses on a young girl’s struggle to survive and keep her family together with her parents gone.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

Ash: A Destined Novel - Shani Petroff; Darci Manley (Polis Books, 2015)
Young adult dystopia in which every person’s destiny is determined by the government. First volume in a series. In this volume the contrast is set between those chosen for the top and the Ash, chosen for the bottom. The second volume, Ultraviolet: A Destined Novel. [Hoboken, NJ]: Polis Books, 2017, is what appears to be a middle volume in which the two struggle to survive.
Keywords: Female author; US author

At the Beginning: This is the Way It Was - Adrienne Behren Pollock (CreateSpace, 2015)
New Age eutopia that will be brought about by the Brotherhood of the New Light, descended from Atlantis and Lemuria.
Keywords: Female author

The August 5 - Jenna Helland (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015)
Young adult dystopia in which the daughter of a revolutionary who has only known poverty and the son of the dictator who has only known privilege and riches team-up to defeat his father.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Beautiful Bureaucrat. A Novel - Helen Phillips (b. 1983) (Henry Holt, 2015)
Kafkaesque take on a dystopian bureaucracy in a damaged future.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Big Lie - Julie Mayhew (Hot Keys Books, 2015)
The novel is set in the Third Reich with a young woman, who is loyal to the Reich, faced with the conflict between that loyalty and her loyalty to another girl, her best friend, who is a radical. The book includes a “Glossary of German Words and Phrases” ([325-31]), “Historical Notes on The Big Lie” ([333-39]), “Want to know more?” [(341-47).
. U.S. ed. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2017.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Binti - Nnedi[mma Nkemdili] Okorafor (b. 1974) (Tom Doherty Associates, 2015)
First volume of a trilogy in which a young girl of a small African tribe who has exceptional mathematical skills and the ability to bring people together is admitted to the most prestigious university in the universe. In this volume, she helps to end a long-standing war between humans and medusae. See also Binti: Home. New York: Tor.com, 2016 in which Binti returns home accompanied by a medusa with the novel focusing on Binti’s troubled relations with her family and the other tribes in the area, with both eutopian and dystopian elements. The third volume of the trilogy, Binti: The Night Masquerade. New York: Tor.com, 2018. in which war breaks out on Earth because one tribe tries, unsuccessfully to kill the medusa.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

“Black Angel” - Walidah Imarisha (Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, 2015)
Dystopia on Harlem in the near future where both official and unofficial violence is endemic.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

"Blood-Kin" - Diana L. Paxson (b. 1943) (Gifts of Darkover. Darkover® Anthology 15, 2015)
Free Amazon story.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Book of Phoenix - Nnedi[mma Nkemdili] Okorafor (b. 1974) (DAW Books, 2015)
A young woman in the U.S. who had been genetically modified and raised with other genetically modified children escapes from her keepers and travels to Africa and her actions transform both Africa and the U.S.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

Broken Sky - L[ee] A. Weatherly (b. 1967) (Usborne, 2015)
First volume of the young adult Broken trilogy followed by Darkness Follows. London: Usborne, 2016, and Black Moon. London: Usborne, 2017. In this volume society that pretends to bring about eutopia through astrology is, in fact, deeply corrupt. The novel concerns a young woman who discovers the corrupt. In the second volume, the protagonist is in a prison camp that has one rule, obey or be killed. The third volume focuses on the resistance.
Keywords: Female author; Scottish author; US author

"Carriers" - Tananarive [Priscilla] Due (b. 1966) (The End Has Come. The Apocalypse Triptych, 2015)
A post-plague dystopia with the carriers of the plague forced to live outside what remains of civilization with the focus on the protagonist, who, like all the NIs (Naturally Immunes), is a carrier. A Nayima story in the series with 2014 Due, Removal Order,” 2014 Due, “Herd Immunity,” 2019 Due, “One Day Only,” and 2019 Due, “Attachment Disorder.”
Keywords: African American author; Female author

“Charlie, a Projecting Prestidigitator” - Megan [J.] Neumann (Shoreline of Infinity, 2015)
The story is set in a climate-change dystopia.
Rpt. in the Edinburgh International Science Festival Special Edition of Shoreline of Infinity, no. 11½ (Spring 2018): 25-33.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Chasing Freedom - Marina Fontaine ([CreateSpace], 2015)
Authoritarian dystopia and the revolt against it from a libertarian perspective.
Keywords: Female author; Russian author; US author

Children of Arkadia - M. Darusha Wehm (b. 1975) (Bundoran, 2015)
The novel gives some of the history of an attempt to create a eutopia in space as the Earth’s environment and economy collapses. Even though a better society is gradually emerging, various problems arise from the unwillingness of some to people to do certain types of work to political conflicts among the settlers. One theme of the novel is the relations between the humans and the AIs that were created to help build and run the satellite.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Canadian author; Female author

“Children Who Fly” - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (b. 1975) (Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, 2015)
Climate-warming dystopia with LSBT themes.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; US author

The Chimes - Anna Smaill (b. 1979) (Sceptre, 2015)
Dystopia of a country controlled by a religious elite that uses music to limit conversation and eliminate memory.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Female author

City of Savages - Lee Kelly (Saga Press, 2015)
Young adult post World War Three dystopia in which all of Manhattan is a prisoner-of-war camp
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Crazy Bitches: Redefining Mental Health (Care) in the Feminist Utopia” - Tessa Smith (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
The essay is primarily a critique of current practices while stressing that mental illness is real. The main focus, though, is the argument that in “The culture of the feminist utopia must be one in which people experiencing extraordinary mental states can both survive and thrive” (306).
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Day Without Body Shame” - Erin Matson (b. 1980) (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Brief feminist utopia in which all people are accepted for who they are rather than for how they look.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Deadmonton” - Alexandrea Flynn (Pedal Zombies: Thirteen Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories, 2015)
Post-catastrophe (Zombies) dystopia set in Edmonton, Alberta in which survivors have formed cooperative communities to protect themselves.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Defiance - Sarah Jayne [Blythe] Tanner (Meadimania, 2015)
Violent dystopia with deep rich versus poor divisions in which the poor can be sold to the rich so that the rich can switch bodies. The novel follows a young man who is sold but manages to free himself.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Welsh author

“Description of a Video File From the Year 2067 to be Donated to the Municipal Archives from the Youth Voices Speech Competition” - Dara Lind (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Speech describing the changes in immigration policy from rejection to welcome and the awareness of what even so-called unskilled immigrants contribute.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Disconnected" - Vanessa Fogg (The Future Fire: Social Political & Speculative Cyber-Fiction, 2015)
The story is set in a future in which most people have implanted “mods” that allow them to become deeply connected with computers for their work in virtual reality environments and which constantly monitor them both in those environments and at all other times. The story focuses on a woman with mods, her live in one of the few remaining cities, all of which are falling apart, and her interaction with her mother and sister, who could not be modified.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Dispatch From the Post-Rape Future: Against Consent, Reciprocity, and Pleasure” - Maya Dusenbery (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Reflections on the past from someone living in a future where the word “rape” no longer exists.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Dispatches from a Body Perfect World” - Jenny Trout (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Brief depiction of a feminist eutopia where all bodies are considered perfect.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Dove Arising - Karen Bao (Viking, 2015)
Young adult authoritarian dystopia on the moon in which a young woman joins the militia to protect her siblings from the government. First volume of the Dove Chronicles. In the second volume, Dove Exiled. New York: Viking, 2016, the protagonist is on the Earth she had been taught to fear but where she finds the people welcoming until the moon attacks Earth, and she must find a way to bring the two together. In the third volume, Dove Alight. New York: Viking, 2017, the protagonist leads a revolution by people on both the Earth and the moon against the dictatorship.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Each Star a Sun to Invisible Planets” - Tenea D. Johnson (Stories For Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, 2015)
Dystopia of genetic manipulation. Includes a character from 2011 Johnson, R/evolution.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

“Egg Island” - Karen Heuler (b. 1949) (Clarkesworld, 2015)
A pollution dystopia that appears to be evolving to incorporate the plastic pollutants into new life forms seen from the point-of-view of those who themselves have plastic parts to their bodies and are working to help the evolution along.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Embroidering Revolution” - Flores, Verónica Bayetti (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Eutopia in which women’s traditional work is recognized and considered art.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Equity Eats” - Eileen McFarland (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
The eutopian restaurant of the future that is welcoming to all people, has an equality among the staff, and with workers protected by the Restaurant Workers’ Rights Declaration.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Evidence" - Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, 2015)
The story looks back from a future eutopia to the dystopian past of the twenty-first century, known as the period “Before Silence Broke,” with the period “Breaking the Silence” seen as the beginning of the changes that brought about the eutopia. The eutopia which has eliminated capitalism, money, and private property is an open society where everyone is encouraged to develop in their own unique way with a twelve-year-old from the future writing to the author describing a little of the life.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

“Feminist Utopia Teen Mom Schedule” - Gloria Malone (The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future, 2015)
Description of a day in the life of a teenage mother in a society that provides support.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

Find Me - Laura van den Berg (b. 1981) (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015)
Post-catastrophe (disease/pandemic) dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Flamingo Land" - Ruby Cowling (Flamingo Land and Other Stories, 2015)
Dystopia in which a family must meet specified weight standards. If they are collectively too heavy, their wages are cut and if they continue to be overweight, children are removed from the family.
Rpt. in the author's This Paradise: Stories (Norwich, Eng.: Boiler House Press, 2019), 135-60.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Flesh & Wires - Jackie Hatton (Aqueduct Press, 2015)
Complex post-catastrophe novel (alien invasion) that focuses on a small community of survivors, mostly women, facing different aliens who are planning to occupy Earth. The ending suggests that there will be a sequel.
Keywords: Australian author; Dutch author; Female author; US author

The Foretelling of Georgie Spider - Ambelin Kwaymullina (b. 1975) (Walker Books, 2015)
Sequel to 2012 and 2013 Kwaymullina. In this volume, the people with special talents finally win acceptance.
Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2015.
Keywords: Aboriginal author; Australian author; Female author

The Glass Arrow - Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen, 2015)
Young adult dystopia in which girls are marketable products.
Keywords: Female author; Japanese American author

Gold Fame Citrus - Claire Vaye Watkins (b. 1984) (Riverhead Books, 2015)
Climate-change dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

hang - debbie tucker green (Nick Hern Books, 2015)
Play that is best described as Kafkaesque in that it is a trial of sorts in which the victim considers the methods of punishing the perpetrator in her/his presence. The play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, June 11, 2015, directed by the author.
Keywords: Black author; English author; Female author

The Heart Goes Last - Margaret [Eleanor] Atwood (b. 1939) (McClelland & Stewart, 2015)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which some people are given the choice to join Consilience/Positron in which they spend one month in prison and one month in a house, which is used by others when they are in prison.
U.S. ed. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2015.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

Hit - Delilah S. Dawson (b. 1977) (Simon Pulse, 2015)
Young adult dystopia in which a young woman is forced to become a killer by the bank that now owns the United States. The first volume of a series, followed by Strike. New York Simon Pulse, 2016 in which the protagonist of the first volume fakes her death to escape and joins freedom fighters, who may not be much better than the bank, and from whom she also has to escape.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Hollow" - Meg Mingus (Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, 2015)
The story is about a future in which all disabled people (known as U.P.s or UnPerfects) have been sent to another planet where they have created a good life for themselves but are threatened with the Perfects, or the ones who sent them, coming to take over and create a new dystopia for them.
Keywords: Female author; Korean author; US author

“Homing Instinct” - Dani McClain (Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, 2015)
Dystopia in which climate change moves the U.S. government to tell people to move to where they want to live permanently with travel no longer permitted. The story focuses on a woman’s decision on how to respond.
Keywords: African American author; Female author

“An Honest World” - Catherine Lacey (b. 1985) (Gigantic Worlds, 2015)
Dystopia brought about by everyone telling the truth.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Hot Rods" - Cat[riona] Sparks (b. 1965) (Lightspeed Magazine, 2015)
The story is set in a future drought-stricken Australia in which the only work available for those living outside the wealthy cities of Sydney and Melbourne, where work permits are required for the available work as pool boys and white maids, is contract labor on U.S. military bases. It takes place in the post-apocalyptic future of her 2017 Lotus Blue. A related story is her 2016 “Jericho Blush.”
Rpt. in her Dark Harvest ([Weston, Eng.]: NewCon Press, 2020), 7-25, with a brief author’s note on 25.
Keywords: Australian author; Female author

"A House of Her Own" - Bo[ukje] Balder (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2015)
Dystopia that developed among human colonists interacting with the alien life forms that grew into houses. Males were culled to keep their population only at the level needed for reproduction.
Rpt. in Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction. Ed. A[lexandra] M[argaret] Dellamonica & Steve Berman (Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Press, 2016), 85-98.
Keywords: Dutch author; Female author

“In the Valley of the Shadow of the Promised Land” - Robin Wasserman (b. 1978) (The End Has Come. The Apocalypse Triptych, 2015)
Post-catastrophe dystopia seen through the eyes of a very old man who had created the religious basis for the reviving society. Stories that provide background to the dystopia are “The Balm and the Wound.” The End is Nigh: The Apocalypse Triptych. Ed. Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams ([Np: np], 2014), 5-22; and “Dear John.” The End Is Now: The Apocalypse Triptych. Ed. Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams (Np: Np, 2014), 293-315.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Ink and Bone - [Roxanne Longstreet] [Conrad] (1962-2020) (NAL/New American Library, 2015)
Young adult dystopia in which the Great Library of Alexandria has survived into the modern world and controls all dissemination of knowledge with the individual possession of books illegal. The novel focuses on those who illegally own and trade books. The next three volumes continue the fight against the power of the Great Library. They are Paper and Fire. The Great Library. New York: NAL/New American Library, 2016; Ash and Quill. The Great Library. New York: Berkley, 2017; Smoke and Iron. The Great Library. New York: Berkley, 2018. In the concluding volume, Sword and Pen. The Great Library. New York: Berkley, 2019, the corrupt leaders are overthrown but other attempts to take over the library must be defeated.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Intentionality - Rebekah Johnson (Matador, 2015)
Young adult dystopia about a post-environmental catastrophe world where children are brainwashed to conform. The novel focuses on a small number who struggle, successfully, to free themselves and, less successfully, to free others. The ending suggests the possibility of a sequel.
Keywords: Female author