I’m nearly finished rereading 1984 and my appetite for dystopian books is whetted. What are some other great ones I should check out?
As a slightly different take I’d recommend SS-GB. Technically it’s an alternative history novel whether the Nazis won WWII and conquered the UK… But that’s pretty dystopian in practice, especially when the main character is a policeman.
I don’t know if The Trial counts exactly as a dystopia but it certainly conjures up the paranoia and confusion of being caught up in a beruacratic nightmare like you might find in a police state.
High Rise is a great satire on the class system translated to people moving into the then new high rise blocks in the UK - only the rich can afford the apartments at the top and so on. The first sentence involves the hero having to eat a dog to survive.
A Clockwork Orange has been mentioned already, but it’s easily my favourite. And very different and more brutal than the film, which is also great but more its own thing. Alex is a much nastier piece of work in the book, and the last chapter of the novel isn’t in the film
‘Walt To The End Of The World’ Suzy McKee Charnas. Centuries after the nuclear war, women are treated as slave/chattel because they caused the War. imho much better than ‘Handmaid’s Tale.’
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Very grim, but beautifully written.
Grim and heartbreaking. Good book though.
Jennifer Government by Maxx Barry. In fairness I read it 20 years ago and do not know how it’s aged. It was good back then though.
Do you remember the NationStates site that was set up to help promote the book? Admittedly, I’ve never read it but I spent hours and hours playing on that. Thanks for reminding me of this, will add to my list!
I never knew that existed. That’s awesome.
I read it about 10 years ago and I found it good then 🤷♂️
I read that a few months ago. Still good!
I was going to recommend the same. I remember reading it like fifteen years ago and enjoying it.
The MaddAddam Series by Margaret Atwood.
- Oryx and Crake
- The year of the flood
- Maddaddam
There is a list on wikipedia:
This isn’t exactly helpful or constructive in regards to having a conversation.
Why not? We can all look over the list and discuss the books listed. That’s a great way to start a conversation.
Sorry you think that.
I find it interesting and relevant. It is a good source of ideas for answering OPs question.
Or do you insist that it must only be done from memory?
I have not quite finished the book yet, but Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future is hard-science fiction set in the near future when climate change tipping points start to be reached, and it is so far my favorite book in a long time. It is dystopian, but not bleak or hopeless.
I’d argue this book is a little too hopeful. So many of the solutions to climate change involved every rival economic superpower giving up some of their control to make things better for humanity (e.g. world banks backing a digital currency that rewards removing or preventing the release of carbon from the atmosphere, displacing people from their land to create an unbroken wilderness across the globe, etc.).
I recommend Feed by M.T. Anderson if you wanna see a hopeless dystopia. Schools are run by corporations, young people are apathetic and kept ignorant since they’d rather enjoy a virtual world via brain implants, the oceans are pretty much dead, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war.
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This is almost the opposite of a dystopia, but I think still fits.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin - A character from a utopia returns to dystopian earth. It’s primarily the main character wandering around realizing how terrible things could get on our current trajectory. It’s great!
But at the end he sees behind the curtain of the “utopia” he grew up in and realizes the truth about it. Hence the title of the book.
Anarres is a utopia? Don’t tell Shevek that.
Random Acts of Senseless Violence was a good read.
Metro 2035
I haven’t read 2035, I loved 2033, but couldn’t get through 2034. Should I retry 2034?
2035 is very differrent from the other 2. Its actually not adventure or horror its a political work reflecting on the modern russia under putin
William Gibson’s Sprawl series. Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
Just finished the sprawl series—very fun! I would also add Altered Carbon.
I get plenty of dystopian stuff in the news - I advise reading something to escape reality.
That’s exactly where I am right now with my reading. I love Sci Fi, but I find myself reading a lot of old sci Fi because there was still some optimism about how the world might turn out.
