D = Dystopia
“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.” Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Dystopia - an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.Science fiction often likes to bring us visions of the future. Flying among the stars, robots, cloning, utopias... But dystopia has really taken off in recent years, providing us with visions of the future where humanity is struggling to survive or the government has taken away our rights and imposed cruel and sometimes unusual laws upon us. Sometime there are monsters, sometimes there's disease. It's become so popular there is now an end of the world scenario for almost everyone.
For young adults there's Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, where the government has created a superficial world where teens are forced to undergo plastic surgery, and the wildly popular The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins where kids are forced to fight to the death.
If monsters and horror are what you're after, then you might enjoy Justin Cronin's The Passage, a story where winged monsters rule the world and humans struggle in the dark. Or World War Z by Max Brooks where a zombie outbreak throws the world into chaos.
Maybe you're happiest when your books mirror problems in the real world, that spine-tingling place where reality and fantasy blur. Then Eric Barnes' The City Where We Once Lived, a story of global warming or Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, whose characters sleepwalk across a country that's tearing itself apart with social and political strife, might be what you're after.
And if Hopeless Romantic is your middle name, the The Host by Stephanie Meyer or Plus One by Elizabeth Fama might entice you.
Of course, there's always the classics, like 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, where the government has become the terror in the night.
Regardless of what you are into, the end is clearly nigh.
Do you like dystopia? What's your favorite?
(All links redirect you to my reviews.)
I generally don't like dystopia because it's too depressing. However, I just read "Tyger" by SJ Said that I liked.
ReplyDeleteThey can be; i know The Passage by Justin Cronin just about sucked the life out of me. I couldn't bring myself to read the sequel.
DeleteThe dystopian genre is one of my favorites. Where do I start? Fahrenheit 451 is a classic I read long ago. I read The Hunger Games triology before it became popular and the first book is one of my favorites. Gabriella Zevon's YA novel series starting with All These Things I've Done is another (the second book also), but my absolute favorite is Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. One other novel that had a lot of promise but was a DNF for me was The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman. In the right hands, I think this story had a lot of potential.
ReplyDeleteI just read Fahrenheit 451 in 2025, it was excellent. Station 11 has been on my to-read-list forever but i haven't gotten around to it yet.
DeleteI read The Passage and hated it! Not sure why I even finished the monstrous thing. But I have enjoyed other books that touch on the dystopian concept, such as King’s 11.22.63 (loved it!).
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wasn't a fan The Passage either. It was too dark, there was no way for a happy ending, and i was told the sequel was even darker so i didn't bother to read it.
DeleteI love reading and watching dystopia. Margaret Atwood is good at writing dystopia.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Atwood yet, but I'm interested in seeing what she's all about.
DeleteI am not a fan of dystopia. I like escape in my fiction. But, one of the schools I work at, the 7th graders read The Hunger Games. Assigned reading. Have been reading it for several years now. (And I actually know a kiddo named Ender. Yup, he was named after the book.)
ReplyDeleteI love a good dystopian once in awhile, but I never read the Hunger Games. i get kind of squirmy with bad things happening to kids...probably why i didn't love enders game.
DeleteDystopia feels inevitable some days. Like some people mistook some of the books and movies (Idiocracy) for instruction manuals. Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen seems to actually be a dystopian written far in the future (minor spoiler for the end of book 1).
ReplyDelete“Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.” - Anaïs Nin
J (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) @JLenniDorner ~ Speculative Fiction & Reference Author and Co-host of the April Blogging #AtoZChallenge international blog hop
the pessimist in me tends to agree. i turn on the news some days and go "holy cow, is that whats happening in the world?" but as its said, this too shall pass. (i hope.)
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