Announcing UTOPIA/HAVOC's selected authors

Reader, it is time.

We received hundreds of submissions for our most recent short story anthology, UTOPIA/HAVOC. The theme of the anthology was simply 'cyberpunk, solarpunk or a blend of the two' - vague enough to irritate and stimulate the host of authors who submitted.

Choosing stories for an anthology is not easy. The trick is to find stories that form a cohesive point of view - rather tricky when you're looking through works by different authors writing on a vague brief like ours!

Nevertheless, y'all delivered. And how.

So let's cut the bullshit and get to the juice! Here is the full list of chosen stories for UTOPIA/HAVOC. We're so happy to welcome back two existing Mirari authors, and initiate six more into our ranks. These are strange, beautiful, gut-punching visions of what comes next – the hope, the horror, and the hilarious absurdity of being human in a post-whatever-this-is world.

Here's the full list:

• “The Last Snow Protea” by Laurie Janey – Twin brothers on opposite sides of a collapsing planet reckon with love, loss, and the climate crisis’s quiet toll.

• “Perfect Worlds” by Jenna Mervis – A government agent slips into virtual utopia to fish for corruption and finds that perfection has teeth.

• “Small Rebellions” by Joss Wyer – A stealth operative infiltrates a billionaire’s fortress high above a neon city to pull off the perfect act of defiance.

• “Out of Body, Out of Mind” by Luke Fourie – A state telepath navigates psychic warfare and the thin membrane between duty and selfhood.

• “Over the Mountain, Beyond the Barrens” by Nerine Dorman – A woman crosses a shattered landscape in search of love and finds a myth humming beneath the ruins.

• “The Benediction of Gaia” by Ciaran R. Maidwell  – Faith and love collide in a green theocracy where obedience is salvation and doubt is heresy.

• “Buried Alive” by Thandi Rose – A newcomer climbs a mountain settlement that promises rebirth, but the earth remembers everything buried beneath.

• “The Water that Hides in the Waves” by Stef van Staden – On a vast ocean fleet, a single decision ripples outward to test the meaning of mercy in a drowning world.

Each story wrestles with the two halves of our title – the glittering lure of the ideal and the beautiful chaos that follows. Together they form a kaleidoscope of imagined futures, stitched together with hope, grief, and just enough mischief to keep the lights flickering.

UTOPIA/HAVOC will be published by Mirari Press in June 2026. Keep an eye on this space (and your neural implants, if applicable) for cover reveals, launch dates, and interviews with the authors who dared to dream of worlds beyond the inevitable.

From 'Dear Alice' by THE LINE: The solarpunk future this reader is yearning for. Click the image to watch the short film.

Forever #TeamSolarpunk

– Marius du Plessis, CEO and Publisher