Waiting on Wednesday (20): Dystopian Standalones

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine.

Standalones have become pretty thin on the ground in YA fiction these days, what with the popularity of trilogies and making three times the money. Fear not, though, because there are quite a few amazing-sounding dystopian standalones coming out in the near future!

Elemental
Author: Antony John
Expected Publication Date: November 21, 2012
Publisher: Dial

Synopsis from Goodreads:
A mysterious and powerful fantasy adventure from a Schneider Award winner.

In the near future, most of the population of the United States has been destroyed by the plague. The few remaining survivors live in colonies on the barrier islands off the East Coast. In one colony near Cape Hatteras, almost all the members have elemental powers and can control wind, water, earth, and fire. All but sixteen-year-old Thomas. When the Guardians, the powerful adult leaders, are kidnapped by pirates seeking to take over their colony, it is up to Thomas and a small group of teens to save them and preserve the mysteries of the island.

 Fast action, strategy, and mystery churn together into a bold and fresh fantasy from an award-winning author.

Revolution 19

Author: Gregg Rosenblum
Expected Publication Date: January 8, 2013
Publisher: Harper Teen

Synopsis from Goodreads:
Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.

Nick, Kevin, and Cass have spent their whole lives in a community in the wilderness, hiding out from the robots that have enslaved mankind. But when the bots discover their location, they barely make it out alive — only to discover that their home has been destroyed and everyone killed or captured. Now, the siblings must risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world.

When We Wake


Author: Karen Healey
Expected Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Synopsis from Goodreads:
My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy.

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027—she’s happiest when playing the guitar, she’s falling in love for the first time, and she’s joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.

But on what should have been the best day of Tegan’s life, she dies—and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.

Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity—even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn’t all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future?

Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

PODs

Author: Michelle K. Pickett
Expected Publication Date: June 4, 2013
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press

Synopsis from Goodreads:
Seventeen-year-old Eva is a chosen one. Chosen to live, while others meet a swift and painful death from an incurable virus so lethal, a person is dead within days of symptoms emerging. In the POD system, a series of underground habitats built by the government, she waits with the other chosen for the deadly virus to claim those above. Separated from family and friends, it’s in the PODs she meets David. And while true love might not conquer all, it’s a balm for the broken soul.

After a year, scientists believe the population has died, and without living hosts, so has the virus. That’s the theory, anyway. But when the PODs are opened, survivors find the surface holds a vicious secret. The virus mutated, infecting those left top-side and creating... monsters.

Eva and David hide from the infected in the abandoned PODs. Together they try to build a life--a new beginning. But the infected follow and are relentless in their attacks. Leaving Eva and David to fight for survival, and pray for a cure.


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