A Herd of Dread: Science Fiction Short Stories

"A Herd of Dread" contains four literary dystopian sci-fi tales with its vague, and sometimes too honest, dialogue. The leader of the four, Nineteenth of September, lands in Dysa, a country where seven millions robots exist and seven humans govern them. There are seventeen hours a day, twelve of those hours go toward working and the other five is spent on the charger. Thinking is a sin for a robot, it's highly unrighteous. Dailey meets a new worker bot, Adonis Shuttle. He sings. Hums. Thinks. There's something off about him; but according to Adonis, there's something off about Dysa. We reach the second quarter, Death Tastes Bittersweet, in Utah where it's a crime for robots to consume the simple, yet efficient, black coffee. After being captured for disobeying the law, two strangers are tossed in cages with a choice to either face life without black coffee or stay awake for twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes for the next three days. As a consequence for remaining loyal toward their favorite caffeinated beverage, they can only sleep for one minute each day and if they wake up past midnight, they face execution. In lucky number three, The Wise Bakery, everyone wore their masks. The mask replaced faith and currency, as it became everyone's God. There was no color nor shade, it didn't have a mixture of expressions except a smile which had been frozen and portrayed on each mask. Sarah Wise owns her own bakery in Austin, Texas; one morning she shows up beside her employee, Lisa, and realizes that she has shown up to life with a bare face. The final story, Little Robert and those Bells, takes place in a world where it's a crime to believe in yourself, the repetition of bells echo every five minutes as a command to make sure of it. Robert Cofske, a teenage boy, is faced with a choice to either obey the law or become deaf and acknowledge his gift.