Dystopian novels

Post Reply New Topic

The Dark Tower series-Stephen King (Think these count as dystopian)

Evelyn Lief : The Clone Rebellion

I eventually disregarded the length and took as much information from each chapter as possible. It isn't so bad if you read each chapter as a book in itself.

Oh, ”The Giver”! It’s among the best books I have read. I read it for the first time ca 15 years ago and was entranced. Last year I reread it – twice. The magic was still there. It is usually considered a book for teens, but don’t let the classification scare you from reading it. It’s breathtaking.
Its two sequels are also interesting although nowhere near the same standard as ”The Giver”.

If you’re into zombies or similar, these are dystopian:
Brian Keene: ”The rising”, ”City of the dead”
Simon Clark: ”Blood crazy”, ”Stranger”
Stephen King: "Cell"


Suzanne Collins: ”The hunger games”
Koushun Takami: ”Battle Royale”
Nevil Shute: ”On the beach”

Anthologies: The undead
The living dead
Beyond Armageddon
Future quartet
A bit off topic but I also recommend ”The Wave” by Morton Rhue, and the movies ”The Wave” and ”Testament” if you can find them.

Dang...there's a good one, fairly old, St. something-or -other (it's a non-Chrisian name, that much I remember), I think. The premise was that monks kept technological documents (blueprints) by copying them over and over, having to leave the white spaces between all that black ink... I think the author's last name starts with an M

There's whole genres of 'post-apocalyptic' stuff out there. One I never managed to finish was 'Dahlgren', which was as thick as Atlas Shrugged...

The Iron Years wasn't too bad; a little realism.

Also, there's a whole Series by Stirling; all Civilization breaks down because all the power sources stop working. Meeting in Corvallis is one of them ,(if you're from Oregon, this is all done in your back yard..., check 'em out.

I'm sure there's more, but I don't have my books any more. Hope this helps...

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.

It's one of the best post-apocalyptic/dystopic books to come out in the last decade. McCarthy has a, for lack of a better word, interesting style of writing that is very enthralling, as well as sick & disturbing. Nonetheless, The Road is one of the best books I have ever read, and I am super excited for the film, which is coming out in the fall.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood

Anthem

The Country of the Blind by H.G. Welles

Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift has some dystopian qualities.

Last edited by Sand on 18 Jun 2009, 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I haven't actually gotten my hands on this one yet but the anthology called "Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse" by Stephen King.
Maybe off-topic but "Apocalypse memories" by Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz (Buffy series).

Jennifer Government features extreme capitalism

Daughters of the North the English government has collapsed and has been replaced by "The Authority". Contains feminist undertones.

Children of Men all the people of the world have gone infertile all the governments of the world have collapsed except for Britain.

Last edited by notbrianna on 20 Jun 2009, 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lois Lowry: ”Gathering blue” and ”Messenger” (sequels to ”The giver”)
George R Stewart: ”Earth abides”
Carol Emshwiller: ”The mount”
J W Ironmonger: ”Daughters of Artemis”

Other good dystopian graphic novels are Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Kingdom Come.

Most of the really good dystopic novels have already been mentioned. About the only other ones I can think of to add are Bladerunner by Alan Nourse (medical care is strictly regulated by insurance companies, which only dispense it to people with money who are good risks; bladerunners provide illicit medical care), and Logan's Run by William Nolan (at the age of 21, everyone is supposed to report for mandatory euthanasia; one of the enforcers, a Sandman named Logan 5, reaches the magic age and decides to try to escape his fate).

I agree on Children of Men and Lathe of Heaven. JG Ballard's novels are also dystopic. I esp. like Super-Cannes.

I recommend Fredric Jameson's Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. It is not a novel, but a treatise on science fiction and utopia/dystopia. I haven't read this one by Jameson yet, but I'm saving to buy this book in the near future.

A summary of the book is here:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/ ... eolo.shtml

"A Canticle for Leibowitz"

Fabulous story that outlines how history repeats over and over, with the Catholic Church surviving as an ongoing element. It goes from a Dystopian past into a Dystopian future.

oy, i'm reading this ^ right now.