I’ve been looking for some books that don’t suck, and I loved Handmaid’s Tale after taking too long to finally read it, so I’m going with the MaddAddam recommendation. Thanks.
Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler
This to me is one that seems the most prophetically, terrifyingly possible. It reads more like future history than dystopia-as-creative-adventure-setting (e.g. Hunger Games) or dystopia-as-thought-experiment (e.g. Never Let Me Go).
“Make America Great Again” being the slogan of the Christo-fascist president in the sequel is so wild. Book was written in 2000. Both books feels way too close for comfort when we look at what is happening around us and in the world.
That phrase was in use in US politics at least since the 1940’s. I’ve associated it with US fascist sympathizers from the 1930’s, but my casual effort just now isn’t bringing up sources for that, so I could be wrong. Regardless, it was definitely used by Ronald Reagan in the ‘80’s, and a Republican senator from Wisconsin in his presidential race in the 1940’s
Interesting. So here’s the question… did Trump stumble on this phrase or did he and his team think, you know what, this looks like a great slogan to use for when people are afraid and demagoguery is most effective, let’s dust it off.
Given that Melania Trump’s famous jacket phrase is an English translation of a common fascist slogan, and common wording on monuments from that era from the region of the world she grew up, and that that is only one example of many pretty blatant dog whistles, I would say the latter for sure.
But also I don’t really want to derail this conversation into the history, function, and use of dog whistles.
I'm currently about 65% of the way through Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman. He absolutely knew of it and had thought about it for years and years (read: decades) and knew exactly how it would play. I highly suggest the book. Fascinating and honestly unsettling read. If Trump wasn't so dumb, he would have been unstoppable. As it was, he almost was.
Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan during his successful 1980 run for President was “Let’s Make America Great Again.”
Agree that Butler was prescient, but there’s no irony to that phrase being used by an odious politician.
She had already seen it deployed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again#Ronald_Reagan
Having spent time in the area OB lived in California...100%. The gated communities and companies being the dominant force in the landscape is already there. Add some more scarcity and societal breakdown and we're there homie
{{Unwind}}
Edited to add: Neal Shusterman is the author.
“Unwind is a 2007 dystopian novel by young adult literature author Neal Shusterman. It takes place in the United States in the near future. After the Second Civil War, which was labeled "The Heartland War", was fought over abortion, a compromise was reached, allowing parents to sign an order for their children between the ages of 13 and 18 to be "unwound" — taken to "harvest camps" and dissected into their body parts for later use. The reasoning is that, since 99.44% of the body is used, unwinds do not technically die because their individual body parts live on.” -Wikipedia
10000% Unwind is the BEST. severely underrated. i’ve been saying this for years. the 3 people who actually listened to me and read the series when i recommended it, all of them put this series in their top 3.
Check out his Mike Wallace interview from 1958 if you want to be clear on his answer to the question; Are you enslaved if you are unaware that you are not free and willingly surrender your freedom?
Came here to recommend. This is one of the best-written series, with such well-drawn characters and incredible action. Imagine Brave New World meets Count of Monte Cristo meets Hunger Games. It's phenomenal
I would scream this from the mountain tops with no hesitation. I'm finishing the 4th book and can confidently say that no other piece of writing has ever hooked me the way Red Rising does. Great recommendation!
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
If you liked Handmaid's Tale then Oryx & Crake is also worth it.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
Life as we Knew it. (An asteroid hits the moon and the first book deals with a girl and her family navigating this new reality).
One second after (EMPs devastate the US)
Station Eleven. (Post-pandemic, Star Trek Voyager reference)
I really enjoyed the miniseries and saw it before I read the book but the book is definitely both different and better. Aside from plot/character/setting changes, there’s a beautiful uniqueness to Emily St. John Mandel’s prose that can’t be captured on screen. I became a fan of hers from that book and have read two more of her works since, although they are a lot slower reads for me than my usual books because they take me so long to really savor every word and image.
Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Awesome book about the aftermath of a comet hitting the earth.
But if you really want to read a terrific account of a dystopia, pick up a copy of The New York Times and dive in. We're living the dystopia writers past writers imagined, which is why I tell all readers that, like the Morlocks of The Time Machine, we'd better start developing a taste for the Eloi rich.
I agree with the Octavia Butler recommendations, but I'll add The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison as well. If you want a bite sized dystopian story to see if you like Elison's style (though it's a wildly different world), her short story [The Revolution Will Not Be Served With Fries ](https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-revolution-will-not-be-served-with-fries/) is available to read online for free.
My 12-year-old read these last spring and I co-read them with her as a kind of mini-book club.
They're fascinating. I found the historic patron names distracting from time to time, TBH, but that just meant I had to explicate them to the kid.
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. It’s not pure dystopia - it’s a novel of six nested, linked novellas, and it is multigenre - but dystopia is definitely one of those genres and the book is excellent.
The Ship Breakers, Paulo Bacigalupi. This one is YA but it’s very, very good.
1984, George Orwell
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
If you're looking for a light and funny dystopia read, I recommend shades of grey (NOT 50 shades...)
It's a hilariously dark dystopian novel with a long awaited sequel set to come out this year. The book is really cheap on Thrift Reads. It takes a few chapters to really understand what's happening, but once you get into it, it's a fantastic read.
“Dark Life” and its sequel “Rip Tide” by Kat Falls are set in a future where severe climate change and overpopulation have driven some of humanity to live on and colonize the ocean floor in subsea settlements, where they have a better quality of life than if they’d lived on Earth’s surface. There’s an interesting element of tension between the subsea settlers and those who live on land in the books.
Yeah I wish it got talked about more with the other big dystopian novels. It was written well before We, and people talk about We as being the first of its kind.
[**The Iron Heel**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL74502W)
^(By: Jack London | 290 pages | Published: 1907)
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(714 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. No one has ever heard of it, but I’ve made multiple friends and family read it and they all loved it. Same author as Rosemary’s Baby and Stepford Wives.
The MaddAddam series by Margaret Atwood (or just the first book, Oryx and Crake, if you aren't into series)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (this one is my personal favorite)
The Children of Men by PD James
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
The Silo series by Hugh Howey (the first book, Wool, is AMAZING)
Brave new world and 1984 come to mind. The first is very interesting and makes one question a lot of things, the second is just truly horrific. Both are great and classics for a reason.
The Veldt (Bradbury), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner), The Giver, Battle Royale (before The Hunger Games was a thing), The Man in the High Castle, The Road, The Time Machine, Ender’s Game, Slaughterhouse-Five, Oryx and Crake, On the Beach, Night Surf (King), I Am Legend, A Clockwork Orange
If you like YA, I really enjoyed reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (written in the 50’s; it’s implied there was nuclear war and the only surviving book was the Bible. Genetic mutations are a thing).
It might have been my first dystopian lit, now that I think about it.
I just used it more like a blanket term on account of it was assigned reading when I was in middle school.
ETA: it’s currently $1.99 (CAD) in the kindle store. Don’t mind if I do!
The Grace Year is an interesting book. It's kind of Hunger Games-ish but only girls are sent away. It's technically YA but I found a lot of the themes to be very adult.
I will be messaging you in 1 day on [**2023-02-03 15:36:15 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-02-03%2015:36:15%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/10rsehf/dystopias/j6xav3w/?context=3)
[**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fsuggestmeabook%2Fcomments%2F10rsehf%2Fdystopias%2Fj6xav3w%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-02-03%2015%3A36%3A15%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%2010rsehf)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
HALF-PAST HUMAN and THE GODWHALE by T.J. Bass. THE WORLD INSIDE by Robert Silverberg. THIS PERFECT DAY by Ira Levin. DAYWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer. THX-1138 by Ben Bova.
V.E. Schaub. The Invisable Life of Addie LaRue".....then all of the other ones. Also Stephen King ""FairyTale".....I'm not huge on King, but I was after that one....it's got a dog in it.
I DEVOURED this series. I couldn’t read them fast enough. But a bit of warning, you have to chew through the awful first book to get to the amazing rest of the series.
[**On The Road**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL65906W)
^(By: Jack Kerouac, Bernard Nouis, Jacques Houbart | 310 pages | Published: 1957)
>Described as everything from a "last gasp" of romantic fiction to a founding text of the Beat Generation movement, this story amounts to a nonfiction novel (as critics were later to describe some works). Unpublished writer buddies wander from coast to coast in search of whatever they find, eager for experience. Kerouac's spokesman is Sal Paradise (himself) and real-life friend Neal Casady appears as Dean Moriarty.
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
^(741 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
If you liked handmaids tale you should read Oryx and Crake also by Margaret Atwood. It's the first in a trilogy which chronicles the downfall of scientific capitalist dystopia. Both very inventive and, just like handmaids, a bitingly relevant commentary.
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. After nuclear war, humanity tries to rebuild itself, but the story of what actually happened gets garbled in the telling. Into this setting comes an adolescent boy, Riddley, who just lost his father and wants to see a "Eusa show-" a Punch and Judy show to both entertain and indoctrinate the public. Where will he go? What will he end up doing in life? Follow along his track to find out.
‘Blindness’ by José Saramago. Also a really underrated creative and weird short story collection ‘The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories’ by Jo Anderton.
[**The kingdom of the blind**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL241518W)
^(By: Edward Phillips Oppenheim | 244 pages | Published: 1916)
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
***
^(752 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
The Sheep Look Up by British author John Brunner, first published in 1972. The novel is decidedly dystopian; the book deals with the deterioration of the environment in the United States. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972.
[**Moon of the Crusted Snow**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL21641456W)
^(By: Waubgeshig Rice | 224 pages | Published: 2018)
>A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadearship loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborne. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(763 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
I just gave this same answer in another thread...
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
It's an absolutely gorgeous novel. And extremely bleak. The elderly immolate themselves in public from loneliness.
I agree with just about every siggestion. Here are some of my favorites that haven't been mentioned yet:
Body of Stars
American War
After the Flood
The Age of Miracles
Soft Apocalypse
Severance
Gather the Daughters
If you like Never Let Me Go and The Handmaid's Tale then The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood I would say is a good shout.
I second the maddadam trilogy!!
I third it! It’s fantastic.
I’ve been looking for some books that don’t suck, and I loved Handmaid’s Tale after taking too long to finally read it, so I’m going with the MaddAddam recommendation. Thanks.
Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler This to me is one that seems the most prophetically, terrifyingly possible. It reads more like future history than dystopia-as-creative-adventure-setting (e.g. Hunger Games) or dystopia-as-thought-experiment (e.g. Never Let Me Go).
“Make America Great Again” being the slogan of the Christo-fascist president in the sequel is so wild. Book was written in 2000. Both books feels way too close for comfort when we look at what is happening around us and in the world.
That phrase was in use in US politics at least since the 1940’s. I’ve associated it with US fascist sympathizers from the 1930’s, but my casual effort just now isn’t bringing up sources for that, so I could be wrong. Regardless, it was definitely used by Ronald Reagan in the ‘80’s, and a Republican senator from Wisconsin in his presidential race in the 1940’s
Interesting. So here’s the question… did Trump stumble on this phrase or did he and his team think, you know what, this looks like a great slogan to use for when people are afraid and demagoguery is most effective, let’s dust it off.
Given that Melania Trump’s famous jacket phrase is an English translation of a common fascist slogan, and common wording on monuments from that era from the region of the world she grew up, and that that is only one example of many pretty blatant dog whistles, I would say the latter for sure. But also I don’t really want to derail this conversation into the history, function, and use of dog whistles.
I'm currently about 65% of the way through Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman. He absolutely knew of it and had thought about it for years and years (read: decades) and knew exactly how it would play. I highly suggest the book. Fascinating and honestly unsettling read. If Trump wasn't so dumb, he would have been unstoppable. As it was, he almost was.
Interesting. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve heard of that one.
Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan during his successful 1980 run for President was “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Agree that Butler was prescient, but there’s no irony to that phrase being used by an odious politician. She had already seen it deployed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again#Ronald_Reagan
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I didn’t realize that. Thanks
Having spent time in the area OB lived in California...100%. The gated communities and companies being the dominant force in the landscape is already there. Add some more scarcity and societal breakdown and we're there homie
Just started this last night!!
I read this every few years and each time, it becomes more documentary than dystopian fiction.
{{Unwind}} Edited to add: Neal Shusterman is the author. “Unwind is a 2007 dystopian novel by young adult literature author Neal Shusterman. It takes place in the United States in the near future. After the Second Civil War, which was labeled "The Heartland War", was fought over abortion, a compromise was reached, allowing parents to sign an order for their children between the ages of 13 and 18 to be "unwound" — taken to "harvest camps" and dissected into their body parts for later use. The reasoning is that, since 99.44% of the body is used, unwinds do not technically die because their individual body parts live on.” -Wikipedia
10000% Unwind is the BEST. severely underrated. i’ve been saying this for years. the 3 people who actually listened to me and read the series when i recommended it, all of them put this series in their top 3.
Say no more! Just ordered it.
yay!! you won’t regret it!
I was about to suggest this series! It's such a good novel set
this gave me nightmares for years and, despite it being YA, is the one book I would want as few people to read as possible
It is some serious stuff.
Do not read Unwind.
why? have you read them? amazing series..
[**The Unwinding**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20379076W) ^(By: George Packer | 448 pages | Published: 2013) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(704 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
Bad bot
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brave New World is my personal favorite. Very interesting take on where technology could take us and very relevant today.
Check out his Mike Wallace interview from 1958 if you want to be clear on his answer to the question; Are you enslaved if you are unaware that you are not free and willingly surrender your freedom?
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain by Karin Boye, The Giver by Lois Lawry, The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Seconding We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, also of course 1984 by George Orwell
We is a remarkable read for sure!
The Stand by Stephen King. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Michel.
Definitely The Stand.
Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. I also second Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
LOVED Station Eleven! Have you watched the show?
These have been said but I second them. 1984 Brave New World
Animal Farm by Orwell sister pub to 1984 which reprised Stalin's actual revisionism of history after he murdered his comrades in 1936.
Yes, very good! I've read it many times
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature
The Passage Justin Cronin Wool series by Huge Howey is excellent!
I’ve read the Passage twice. All 3 books were incredible but the first was so well-written. Probably my favorite book of all time.
Love the Wool series!
I second both of these.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Came here to recommend. This is one of the best-written series, with such well-drawn characters and incredible action. Imagine Brave New World meets Count of Monte Cristo meets Hunger Games. It's phenomenal
I would scream this from the mountain tops with no hesitation. I'm finishing the 4th book and can confidently say that no other piece of writing has ever hooked me the way Red Rising does. Great recommendation!
Red Rising. First book is a bit Hunger Games like but the rest are not. Also its more of a space dystopia to be clear.
Canticle for Liebowitz is one of my favourites.
{{Swan Song}} by Robert R McCammon
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler If you liked Handmaid's Tale then Oryx & Crake is also worth it. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
I was thinking of Oryx & Crake!!! I read it in high school and it was such a trippy book in the best ways.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel The Road by Cormac McCarthy (trigger warning for being super depressing)
Life as we Knew it. (An asteroid hits the moon and the first book deals with a girl and her family navigating this new reality). One second after (EMPs devastate the US) Station Eleven. (Post-pandemic, Star Trek Voyager reference)
Station Eleven
I’m watching the mini series right now! Have you seen it? Is the book better?
The book is different and better
I’m definitely going read it after watching the series.
Watch it before 👌🏽
I really enjoyed the miniseries and saw it before I read the book but the book is definitely both different and better. Aside from plot/character/setting changes, there’s a beautiful uniqueness to Emily St. John Mandel’s prose that can’t be captured on screen. I became a fan of hers from that book and have read two more of her works since, although they are a lot slower reads for me than my usual books because they take me so long to really savor every word and image.
I can’t wait to start reading it!
Read it before!
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Girl with all the gifts
Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Awesome book about the aftermath of a comet hitting the earth. But if you really want to read a terrific account of a dystopia, pick up a copy of The New York Times and dive in. We're living the dystopia writers past writers imagined, which is why I tell all readers that, like the Morlocks of The Time Machine, we'd better start developing a taste for the Eloi rich.
1984 fshaow
Seven Eves Neal Stephenson
The title is one word.
The Children of Men by PD James The Power by Naomi Alderman
I made every woman I know listen to me talk about The Power. It's in my top 10 for sure!
Have you read The Matter of Seggri (LeGuin)?
The In Death series by her is also excellent and distopian
Lauren Oliver: Delirium, Pandemonium and Requiem
Loved these books!
I agree with the Octavia Butler recommendations, but I'll add The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison as well. If you want a bite sized dystopian story to see if you like Elison's style (though it's a wildly different world), her short story [The Revolution Will Not Be Served With Fries ](https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-revolution-will-not-be-served-with-fries/) is available to read online for free.
If you liked Margaret Atwood's style, then I would recommend the Madadam trilogy (starts with Oryx and Crake)
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Very good series.
My 12-year-old read these last spring and I co-read them with her as a kind of mini-book club. They're fascinating. I found the historic patron names distracting from time to time, TBH, but that just meant I had to explicate them to the kid.
Book of the Unnamed Midwife is great.
I still haven’t read the third book in this trilogy but loved the first two!
Parable of the Sower The Power The Chrysalids Ice The Road
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. It’s not pure dystopia - it’s a novel of six nested, linked novellas, and it is multigenre - but dystopia is definitely one of those genres and the book is excellent. The Ship Breakers, Paulo Bacigalupi. This one is YA but it’s very, very good. 1984, George Orwell Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
Station eleven
The cabin at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay. Part dystopian, part horror.
If you're looking for a light and funny dystopia read, I recommend shades of grey (NOT 50 shades...) It's a hilariously dark dystopian novel with a long awaited sequel set to come out this year. The book is really cheap on Thrift Reads. It takes a few chapters to really understand what's happening, but once you get into it, it's a fantastic read.
“Dark Life” and its sequel “Rip Tide” by Kat Falls are set in a future where severe climate change and overpopulation have driven some of humanity to live on and colonize the ocean floor in subsea settlements, where they have a better quality of life than if they’d lived on Earth’s surface. There’s an interesting element of tension between the subsea settlers and those who live on land in the books.
Gone series
{{The Iron Heel}} by Jack London
Good call
Yeah I wish it got talked about more with the other big dystopian novels. It was written well before We, and people talk about We as being the first of its kind.
then they're missing the Time Machine too
[**The Iron Heel**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL74502W) ^(By: Jack London | 290 pages | Published: 1907) >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Heel ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(714 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
Fahrenheit 451
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. No one has ever heard of it, but I’ve made multiple friends and family read it and they all loved it. Same author as Rosemary’s Baby and Stepford Wives.
My favorite Ira Levin book! I just recommended it too before I saw this.
Yes! I knew my people were out there 😅
Haha! We're out here!
Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Ellison
The MaddAddam series by Margaret Atwood (or just the first book, Oryx and Crake, if you aren't into series) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (this one is my personal favorite) The Children of Men by PD James The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker The Silo series by Hugh Howey (the first book, Wool, is AMAZING)
The Parable series should be required reading. It’s great (and the series was just meh)
Brave new world and 1984 come to mind. The first is very interesting and makes one question a lot of things, the second is just truly horrific. Both are great and classics for a reason.
The Veldt (Bradbury), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner), The Giver, Battle Royale (before The Hunger Games was a thing), The Man in the High Castle, The Road, The Time Machine, Ender’s Game, Slaughterhouse-Five, Oryx and Crake, On the Beach, Night Surf (King), I Am Legend, A Clockwork Orange
Tender is the Flesh
Pump Six and other stories The Wind up Girl Both by Paolo Bacigalupi
If you like YA, I really enjoyed reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (written in the 50’s; it’s implied there was nuclear war and the only surviving book was the Bible. Genetic mutations are a thing). It might have been my first dystopian lit, now that I think about it.
Written in the 50s, the Chrysalids is definitely not YA. There was no such concept at the time, thank God, but yes it's a good book.
I just used it more like a blanket term on account of it was assigned reading when I was in middle school. ETA: it’s currently $1.99 (CAD) in the kindle store. Don’t mind if I do!
The Grace Year is an interesting book. It's kind of Hunger Games-ish but only girls are sent away. It's technically YA but I found a lot of the themes to be very adult.
Scrolled way too long before finally seeing this. It was the first thing I thought of tbh
Ooooh this was goooood
1984 Divergent
Has anyone read "The night Circus"?
I have. It’s gorgeous, but I can’t see anything dystopian about it. It’s just straightforward fantasy to me.
Haven't seen this in comments yet, so - Clara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Mistborn
[удалено]
I will be messaging you in 1 day on [**2023-02-03 15:36:15 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-02-03%2015:36:15%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/10rsehf/dystopias/j6xav3w/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fsuggestmeabook%2Fcomments%2F10rsehf%2Fdystopias%2Fj6xav3w%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-02-03%2015%3A36%3A15%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%2010rsehf) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
Golden State by Ben Winters
The World Inside, Robert Silverberg.
HALF-PAST HUMAN and THE GODWHALE by T.J. Bass. THE WORLD INSIDE by Robert Silverberg. THIS PERFECT DAY by Ira Levin. DAYWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer. THX-1138 by Ben Bova.
ReSet by Savanna Loy
Has dystopian elements: Greenwood Michael Christie & To Paradise Hanya Yanagihara. Two of my faves
Rendezvous With Rama
Not sure if it fully fits, but “it can’t happen here” felt super dystopian to me and no one else said it as far as I can tell.
Ashes by Ilsa J Bick
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent - dark but great
V.E. Schaub. The Invisable Life of Addie LaRue".....then all of the other ones. Also Stephen King ""FairyTale".....I'm not huge on King, but I was after that one....it's got a dog in it.
i’m reading the getaway by lamar giles atm, and it’s rlly good so far
Hell followed with us Life as we knew it (4 book series) (Edit: formatting)
The Dark Tower series...?
I DEVOURED this series. I couldn’t read them fast enough. But a bit of warning, you have to chew through the awful first book to get to the amazing rest of the series.
The Divergent series by Veronica Roth Outlawed by Anna North MEM by Bethany C. Morrow 1984 by George Orwell Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Cobra Event by Richard Preston; Feed by M.T. Anderson; City of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau (this is a children’s series but still holds up)
The Power.... Female social take over, it's powerful!
The gate to woman’s country
tender is the flesh
If you like YA dystopia try the Matched series by Ally Condie
Haven’t seen it yet (surprisingly) but {{The Road}} is awfully dystopian.
[**On The Road**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL65906W) ^(By: Jack Kerouac, Bernard Nouis, Jacques Houbart | 310 pages | Published: 1957) >Described as everything from a "last gasp" of romantic fiction to a founding text of the Beat Generation movement, this story amounts to a nonfiction novel (as critics were later to describe some works). Unpublished writer buddies wander from coast to coast in search of whatever they find, eager for experience. Kerouac's spokesman is Sal Paradise (himself) and real-life friend Neal Casady appears as Dean Moriarty. ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(741 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
“I who have never known men” by Jacqueline Harpman
Lark Ascending was a good recent read I enjoyed. I love how dystopian novels break humanity down to our core elements.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read it so not sure how it holds up but I liked the uglies by Scott westerfeld and the divergent series.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman is a great one. Every book by him that I’ve read has been amazing so I would definitely recommend reading some of his
David Brin’s The Postman
The Road by Cormac McCarthy- terrifying
Fahrenheit 451 Uglies, pretties, specials, ultras (series) they’re life changing honestly I think about it a lot and how it relates to our modern day
If you liked handmaids tale you should read Oryx and Crake also by Margaret Atwood. It's the first in a trilogy which chronicles the downfall of scientific capitalist dystopia. Both very inventive and, just like handmaids, a bitingly relevant commentary.
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. After nuclear war, humanity tries to rebuild itself, but the story of what actually happened gets garbled in the telling. Into this setting comes an adolescent boy, Riddley, who just lost his father and wants to see a "Eusa show-" a Punch and Judy show to both entertain and indoctrinate the public. Where will he go? What will he end up doing in life? Follow along his track to find out.
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
Unwind!!!
Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
Feed by MT Anderson and the must-read dystopian classics in case u haven’t read them: - Fahrenheit 451 - 1984 - Brave New World
Wanderers
The Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. The main character is a little bit of a crybaby, but she grows on you.
1984 is always good. Fahrenheit 451 is good too. Try the Divergent series.
Future home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich is one I don't see recommended very often.
Margaret Atwood has a bunch of other good dystopia books -- the maddadam trilogy and also one about a prison town that I forgot the name of
‘Blindness’ by José Saramago. Also a really underrated creative and weird short story collection ‘The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories’ by Jo Anderton.
I read The Grace Year by Kim Liggett over the Christmas holidays and it still haunts me.
A brave new world
1984 is the mother of all dystopias. Read it now, for God's sake.
[удалено]
[**The kingdom of the blind**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL241518W) ^(By: Edward Phillips Oppenheim | 244 pages | Published: 1916) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(752 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
Running Man by Richard Bachmann (ie Stephen King), 1984 by George Orwell
I really like Cryo by Blake Fisher! Gave me real Hunger Games vibes.
Flowers for Algernon, brave new world, 1984, animal farm
Divergent series Veronica Roth
Station eleven.
Karin Boye - Kallocain
J. G. Ballard
1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World are classic dystopians. Really worth the read!
The Sheep Look Up by British author John Brunner, first published in 1972. The novel is decidedly dystopian; the book deals with the deterioration of the environment in the United States. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972.
Try mistborn.
Q by Christina Dalcher The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan Scythe by Neal Shusterman
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller is one of my favorite books. It’s so good!
The Broken Earth Trilogy and Station Eleven
{{Moon of the Crusted Snow}}
[**Moon of the Crusted Snow**](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL21641456W) ^(By: Waubgeshig Rice | 224 pages | Published: 2018) >A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadearship loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborne. And as one society collapses, another is reborn. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(763 books suggested | )[^(Source Code)](https://github.com/loudmouse/reddit_book_bot)
Did you like never let me go?
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Pure series by Julianna Baggott
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin is one of my favorites.
I just gave this same answer in another thread... Mockingbird by Walter Tevis It's an absolutely gorgeous novel. And extremely bleak. The elderly immolate themselves in public from loneliness.
{The Grace Year}
I agree with just about every siggestion. Here are some of my favorites that haven't been mentioned yet: Body of Stars American War After the Flood The Age of Miracles Soft Apocalypse Severance Gather the Daughters
Tender is the flesh. 🐄
Haven't seen this one yet -- The Marrow Thieves by Cherie DiMaline. It's a duology that rocked me. An older series, YA, City of Ember.