Five Stories Set in Terrifying Sci-Fi Prisons - Reactor

Borders of Infinity opens with Miles Vorkosigan entering Dagoola IV Top Security Prison Camp #3. The prison is essentially a massive impenetrable dome over a barren landscape. Prisoners are provided with a few necessities—basic clothing, a sleeping mat, and a cup—and then set loose. There are no guards and no rules, which means that things often get messy and violent.

Almost immediately, Miles is beaten up and his few possessions are stolen. It’s not a promising start, but our protagonist is whip-smart and quickly begins putting a plan into action—one which he doesn’t fully reveal to the reader. We might be a step or two behind, but there’s method in Miles’ madness and it’s satisfying to watch his progress.

Miles also features in other stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, but this novella can easily be read as a standalone without wider knowledge of the world of the Vorkosigan Saga or Miles himself.

The unnamed narrator of I Who Have Never Known Men has lived in an underground prison for as long as she can remember. She’s the youngest of 40 caged women, but she doesn’t know her actual age, partly because her physical development stalled at the start of puberty. While the rest of the women all have memories of life before their incarceration, they’re reluctant to share. They also have no idea of what the world outside is currently like, with the male guards never letting them out of the bunker.

The narrator’s life is routine, sparse, and monotonous—that is, until a never-before-heard alarm sounds and all of the guards rush out, setting the lives of the captive women on a new course. Although this French novel isn’t very long, it manages to dive deep into themes of anger and isolation, but also of hope and resilience.

A word of warning though: don’t go into this bleak book expecting answers. While some people might find that frustrating, I personally think that the not knowing—and the resulting search for meaning, by both the narrator and the reader—is where the story’s power lies.

Cage of Souls is set in the far future, with civilization in the last stages of decline while the Earth circles the dying sun. The landscape has changed profoundly over the years, with life mutating in an attempt to fit the new environment. Our protagonist is Stefan Advani, who was born and raised in Shadrapar—the last city standing. Advani is an academic-turned-activist who, after getting into trouble with the law, is sent to the Island—a partially-submerged floating prison in a lake in the depths of the jungle.

There’s a lot going on in Cage of Souls—we also traverse the city and the desert in the telling of Advani’s story—but the current timeline is set in the prison. Adrian Tchaikovsky shines when it comes to worldbuilding and he crafts a rich vision of the jungle, which is alive with strange life, and the prison, which is a brutal micro-society. Advani may be a fish out of water in this dangerous environment—both the animals outside the walls and the inmates inside pose a threat—but he’s smart enough to adapt.

(Originally published in Lightspeed and collected in The Best American Science Fiction And Fantasy 2020) Sacrid Henn wakes up paralyzed, without sight or hearing, and with an AI voice in her head. Via a brain implant, the AI explains that she’s been imprisoned in what is essentially a high-tech coffin, where she’ll live out the rest of her days in comfort, but without freedom. As soon as Sacrid calms down, the AI (which she names Shithead) will give her back her senses and she can begin her new restricted, although relatively pampered, life. But Sacrid has a rebellious personality (which partly led to her imprisonment in the first place), and she isn’t about to accept a constrained pod life without a fight.

This short story is largely written in the second person—aside from a few diary entries from Sacrid—which makes it feel immersive. While this prison may seem cushy in comparison to the other prisons on this list—which come with the ever-present risk of bodily harm and even death—being trapped in a box with an AI is most definitely its own kind of hell.

Set in a dystopian future, Chain-Gang All-Stars is the name of an incredibly popular show that pits prisoners against each other in brutal gladiator-style fights. Joining a chain-gang is voluntary, with the incentive being that if an inmate wins enough matches, they’ll eventually gain their freedom. Although joining in this unconventional prison entertainment might be tempting for prisoners with few other options, there’s a very high mortality rate.

We’re mostly led through the story via the perspectives of Loretta “Blood Mama” Thurwar, the leader of a Chain, and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, Thurwar’s next-in-line and lover. Thurwar is just a few fights away from finally walking free, but—to tweak a line from a different death games story—the odds aren’t exactly in her favor.

The fights themselves are bloody and exhilarating, but Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah never lets the reader forget the point of the book: highlighting the dehumanization of the incarceration system. While this theme is woven through the story via the inclusion of protesters against the program and conversations between the fighters themselves, the point is really driven home by footnotes, which provide real-world information and statistics detailing the injustices of the American prison system.