If you loved The Matrix and the question of red pill or blue pill, you'll also love Altersensor's Broken. In this futuristic dystopia, everyone is fitted with an altersensor, generally as a child or even an infant, which makes the world brighter, shinier, its people more attractive. When Clyde's becomes broken, he sees the world as it really is: the bacon on his plate is half burnt, half raw. As he travels into the city to get his altersensor repaired, he bumps his head and his altersensor malfunctions in a new way: his bus is clean, well-kept, and filled with attractive people - from the bottom half of his vision down; from the top half it's greasy, dirty, smelly, and the people are filthy, injured, and missing teeth. The world he lives in is badly decaying, walls and buildings literally crumbling away. Clyde meets a man who realizes his condition, and offers him a choice...

People are becoming infected with deep, incurable depression in The Sadness. They lose all interest in life, and then suicide, in groups of eight unrelated strangers, simultaneously jumping off bridges, or stepping in front of a subway train, slitting their wrists, shooting themselves. Eric has become infected with the malaise, and Madison is doing everything in her power to draw him back.

What would you do if alien, Silver Spiders were trapping you in your apartment so they could pierce your skull and steal your memories? Your only ally is a rat, your only power to run away, or to freeze, and turn into a statue.

Ryan, aka Doctor Two, is an unlikely hero. 40-ish, pudgy, lazy, a pill-popper, more than a little weird, paranoid and jealous of Doctor One, who is handsome, popular; even the ship's computer has a crush on the guy. Per The Victory Rule, the two doctors are not permitted to be together at any time in these routine supply ship runs to the Mars colony, lest there be an accident and no one left alive to tend to the injured crew.

This prohibition doesn't keep Doc Two from spying on Doc One and his weird experiments; he knows the guy is up to no good, but nobody believes him.

None of these four stories offer bright, shiny, feel-good endings. They are dark in tone and theme, but thought-provoking and beautifully written, the kind of story that subtly draws you in, and lingers in your mind, because you've become the character, and you're wondering, what would I do if...? ( )