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: corruption, greed, 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, these previously uncollected tales are a compelling, dark, and slippery ride.