I’m nearly finished rereading 1984 and my appetite for dystopian books is whetted. What are some other great ones I should check out?

  • Lvxferre
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    1 year ago
    1. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s a must read if you’re into dystopia. Unlike Orwell, Huxley doesn’t focus on politics of his time. Specially good to read alongside Island, an utopia of the same author, dealing with similar topics (society, drugs, the human condition).
    2. Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. It has some satirical vibes, but it is not a good book to read if you’re feeling down (content warning: sexual violence). It focuses on a teen gang leader in the near future, and talks about themes like the impact of free will on morality.
    3. William Golding’ Lord of the Flies. Technically not a dystopia, but it “scratches” the same itch. It’s about a bunch of kids dumped in an island, without adult supervision, and the resulting nasty proto-society that they build from it.
    4. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We. It’s perhaps one of the grandparents of the genre; it talks about individuality on a society controlled by a state that managed to conquer the whole globe.

    There’s also Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I don’t recommend it - the book is basically a “if Orwell was right-wing, soapboxing instead of trying to explain what’s going on, and with poor writing skills”. Seriously.

    • minorsecond@lemm.eeOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah if never been interested in Atlas Shrugged, after learning it’s very conservative leaning.

      Great suggestions!

      • Lvxferre
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, the whole book boils down to “the hand of the market will solve errything!”. Except that Rand doesn’t know that the hand of the market has Parkinson’s.

        • breckenedge@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          She also kills off every character she sees as weak through their generosity. The book just hits you so hard over the head with her philosophy rather than letting you think.

      • Lvxferre
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Fuck. How could I forget mentioning it? I love this book, and the political implications of the story - with powerful States being nuked into mutants, and the little NZ in the middle of nowhere, completely forgotten, is saved by its own lack of relevance. The whole idea of a story within another story, with non-human apes doing human activities (to drive the idea that we are behaving like the other apes too) was genial.

        Thanks for mentioning it!

        • BreadOven@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          No problem. I’m glad you liked it as well. I definitely read it right after brave new world around high school age. I should really re-read it. It’s been a long time.

    • dom@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I dont know why I could never get through brave new world. I tried reading it once when I was in my early 20s and tried the audio book this year and couldn’t do it.

    • tram1@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I read We before I read 1984 when I was young and I thought it was amazing. I would add that it’s also kind of sci-fi.

  • Fenzik
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The Handmaid’s Tale

    Brave New World (kind of dystopian…)

    Fahrenheit 451

  • TheNumberOfGeese
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    I found “A Canticle for Leibowitz” an astounding read. More apocalyptic than dystopian, but solid.

  • fomo_erotic
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think Le Guins “The Dispossessed” belongs here. Its a dystopian/ utopian comparative about an anarchist planet and a capitalist planet. Highly recommend. I’ve got a signed copy somewhere.

  • Vinegar@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Someonelol
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • gianni@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Just finished the sprawl series—very fun! I would also add Altered Carbon.

  • ninetynine@lemmy.film
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    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!

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I get plenty of dystopian stuff in the news - I advise reading something to escape reality.

    • JoeyJoJoJuniour
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.