Slipping

In her edgy, satiric debut collection, award-winning South African journalist and author Lauren Beukes (The Shining Girls, Moxyland) never holds back. Nothing is simple and everything is perilous when humans are involved: greed, corruption, struggle, and even love (of a sort).

A permanent corporate branding gives a young woman enhanced physical abilities and a nearly-constant high.

Recruits lifted out of poverty find a far worse fate collecting biohazardous plants on an inhospitable world.

The only adult survivor of the apocalypse decides he will be the savior of teenagers; the teenagers are not amused.

From Johannesburg to outer space, art galleries to subways, even Twilight to Mordor, these are ruthless stories full of surprises. As Beukes warns us, “At least in fiction, unlike real life, you can get justice.”