Restricted Fantasies — Kevin Kneupper

Grand Prize Winner of the 2018 Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Contest Restricted Fantasies is a Black Mirror-style sci-fi short story collection about the perils of our virtual reality future - and whether we're already living in it. It's a future where you can simulate any fantasy you want. But some people want some very dark things. You can plug into your own private world. Your dreams are indistinguishable from reality. Do what you want, dream what you want, be what you want. It sounds like a paradise. But paradise has its price. And some people's idea of paradise is everyone else's idea of hell. Restricted Fantasies is a Black Mirror-style collection of short stories about lives lived inside and outside of virtual reality. The advent of simulated realities raises questions of philosophy and technology that drive at the core of our nature as humans--and in the tradition of classic sci-fi, the stories in this collection wrestle with these questions and with the shape of things to come. You'll meet a child protective services agent tasked with rescuing children being raised by Neo-Nazis in an illegal simulation of their own darkest fantasies. You'll meet a man who discovers the cheat code to our reality--and watch as it all goes horribly wrong. You'll go on a futuristic Rumspringa with an Amish woman who lives it up in virtual reality for a few years before deciding whether to go home to the last unplugged community on Earth. You'll peek into the lives of virtual reality addicts, aliens, and mad billionaires. And you'll journey into Sim-Sing, a simulated prison with a very unpleasant jailer. Whether you're a fan of classic sci-fi or not, if you've ever wondered whether the things around you are real, whether The Matrix was just a movie, and where the line is between reality and fantasy, you'll love this glimpse into a future that may yet come--and that may already be here.