“Invisible” Dystopian Express PDF Arrives, Up-to-Date Table of Contents, Cover

In the email station even as I write, a pdf copy of the Hydra Publications anthology DYSTOPIAN EXPRESS, with my story “Invisible People” (see October 30, et al.), has been received.  And with it has come a table of contents in story order, subject to only last-minute corrections, with mine the third to last car on the train.  “Invisible People” is an early story, first published in the Winter 1992-93 issue of DARK INFINITY, yet one that may still be pertinent today, of what happens when people are so disaffected that society has forgotten about them.  But in this case it’s society itself that has forced them out in the first place.

“Occupy,” anyone?  Well not exactly, but certainly not the movements still within politics either, no matter how loudly they may claim to be excluded.  Nor terrorists either, at least not exactly — for these are people who, if not wishing to be entirely unseen, had found that blending in with the crowd, to not be too noticed, could work as a kind of survival technique.

At least up to now.

And these are the problems of just one world as depicted aboard the DYSTOPIAN EXPRESS.  There are eighteen other worlds that appear with it, as we can see here:

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Table of Contents

Friending, Gregory L. Norris — 1

Republic of Masks, Josh Brown — 4

Greater Good, Jeff Provine — 8

An Unfettered Life, C. Bryan Brown — 17

Surrender, Bob Brown — 32

The Hating, Nigel Anthony Sellars — 39

The Unbinding, M. P. Neal — 59

Cohort 17, Val Muller — 67

Data Crabs, Deborah Walker — 86

The First Price, Benjamin Sperduto — 94

Jötnar, Colonel D. R. Acula — 110

Fudgesickles, Brick Marlin — 122

Scarecrow, Scarecrow on the Hill, Tracy Fahey — 130

The Unnaturals, Michael J. Epstein — 138

Fit to Rule, Stephanie Neilan — 142

When the Wind Blows, Pam Farley — 146

Invisible People, James Dorr — 149

Twenty-One Seconds, Ian Neack — 161

Finding Chidera, Dave Creek — 169