I'm really interested in books with a sort of Dystopia theme. Dystopian literature investigates how the human impulse to create utopia (a perfect world) goes awry when it meets the power to make such a place a reality.

A Handmaid's Tale
1984
The Giver

These are just a few that I've read with this sort of theme. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations for books that I would like that relate to this sort of society gone awry?

Lots of great reads in this genre. Some are crossovers into the post-apocalypse genre.

We.
Brave New World.
Anthem.
Swan Song.
Farenheit 451.
A Clockwork Orange.
Battle Royale (Japanese Author).
Children of Men.
The Road.
The Purple Cloud.
Oryx & Crake.
Walden Two.
Kallocain.
Bend Sinister.
A Canticle for Leibowitz.
In the Country of Last things.
Parable of the Talents.
Snow Crash.

Many more...

If you think about it, almost any world that a writer creates is going to be dystopian. A world of perfection, a utopia, by its very definition is without conflict.

A story that may not be dystopian, but I find has the very clash you refer to is Ecotopia by Earnet Callenbach. It is a little dated not, I believe it was written in 1975, but a worthy read.

I am most definitely not a Stephen King reader (OK, I get scared very easily thus no horror for me) but I've heard The Stand is great, and I plan on reading all 1,100 pages of it someday.

Thanks so much. These are all great. I can't wait to start reading the ones that you've listed. I've heard of A Brave New World..and it's on my to read list but I'm definitely adding these others.

Thanks again.

Lori, I felt the same way about Stephen King before I read some of his books. The Stand is really great and there are some others that I would not put in the category of horror- they are more Fantasy or SCI-FI:The Talisman, Black House,(These two are co-authored with Peter Straub, The Dark Tower series, The Eyes of The Dragon, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile series. I'm like you -I don't really like blood & gore-type horror!

I would add "The Supernaturalist" by Eoin Colfer to the list.

I haven't seen Camp Concentration
by Thomas M. Disch mentioned yet, so I'll do so now.

I'd consider Blindness a good one. Just read it and couldn't put it down!

Oh and The Stand is what got me hooked on King back in college. Such a great story if you like reading this stuff!

Oh I never thought of Blindness as Dystopian. I can't remember - wasn't it just that city that was affected? But what a brilliant book. I usually have problems with novels that have no quotes with alot of dialog, since I usually read when I relax and figuring out who is talking is too much work! But Blindness was no problem. Says something for it.

Thanks for the great ideas, dystopian fiction is a favorite of mine. Here are a few that I absolutely love:

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk this is my all time favorite book set in post-apocalyptic California, with two dueling sides.... The racist, patriarchal, warlike culture of Angel City vs. the progressive, diverse, community oriented San Francisco.

The Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. GREAT young adult novels about a future where plastic surgery is the norm, and so is having your brain surgically dumbed down to control the masses.

Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin. This book's hard to find! Future where women are completely 2nd class citizens with no rights whatsoever, and are secretly revolting by means of creating a new language.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonneget

Most anything by Octavia Butler, especially the Parable books (starts with Parable of the Sower)

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (more of a Utipian, not dystopian novel)

Nightmare in Silicon by Colette Phair

I can't wait to read what other ideas you all have!

Yeah, you're probably right, but for some reason it felt dystopian to me! I agree, I usually get very annoyed with that style, but it really lent itself to the hectic nature of the content.

One of my favourites is This Perfect Day by Ira Levin.

Wiki has a pretty good list, though a few have already been mentioned: Dystopian Fiction.

Great Dystopic novel and study of gender is the Novel Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon. A very interesting and compelling read.

Perhaps the saddest and most dystopic book I ever read is:


The author, Jack Womck, has written several other books in the same vein. I have waiting in my to read collection.

I know its been a while since the OP, but to continue this thread, there is a Dystopian fiction Group on GR - I'm sure there are plenty of suggestions for reading in there! http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1016...

I would also add the Holdfast Chronicles books by
Suzy McKee Charnas to your list.

Another dystopian study that i recently read and enjoyed:


Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

A great piece of short fiction in this concept is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin. A critical look at utilitarianism at work in an isolated society.

A Scanner Darkly and Do androids Dream of Electrical Sheep are good. They're both by Philip K. Dick. They both make ya question your self and the future.

Another with a sort of dystopic view would be Ender's Game and the series which follow, considering character development as dystopic.

Just came back to this thread, and realized that Stephen Lawhead's Empyrion duology would fit this genre. Haven't read it for ages myself, but liked it as a teenager.

Blind Faith by Ben Elton is probably the most recently published book with a dystopian theme, a little like Brave New World but written from the perspective of the 21st Century with it's internet in particular.

Suzana wrote: "Blind Faith by Ben Elton is probably the most recently published book with a dystopian theme..."

Actually Robert Charles Wilson just published a dystopian novel back in June, namely Julian Comstock A Story of 22nd-Century America.

Overwhelmingly dystopic and a 5 star book. Incredible.
The Hunger Games

Jed, Hunger Games sounds really interesting. I see it's classified as YA, for what age range would you say? Do you think adults would dig it too?

Well, Uglies was classified as YA but...

Look, Cindy, The Hunger Games has been read by everyone I know and we're age group 20 something and everything in between up to me at 66. There's nothing YA about this book except, blessedly, an absence of gratuitous graphic sex scenes. It will leave you breathless and with tear tracks.

This is the best book I ever read by a Female author and has a solid position in the top 10 books of my lifetime. I purchased the sequel hot off the press and devoured it as well.Catching Fire

Trust me (:-) you should get this book tonight even if you have to break into a closed bookstore.

Wow, that's quite an endorsement. All 15(!) copies at my local library are checked out. So, if you hear of a one-book bookstore robbery tomorrow it wasn't me! Thanks for the recommendation!

Hey Jed :)

The Hunger Games is fantastic. Jed and I are apart of a local Sci-fi book club and we choose dystopia novels often. Our book this month is the Hunger Games and it was amazing. I can't praise this book highly enough.

Some other great (in my opinion) dystopic books :

Alas, babylon
Anthem
Childhoods End (my favorite book ever!)

Childhood's End as a dystopia novel? Is there another one I've never heard of?

I've always thought of Alas, Babylon! (which I really like, too!) as a post-apocalyptic novel, rather than a dystopian one per se. Of course, I guess that a civilization which ends up blowing itself to pieces in a nuclear war is arguably pretty dystopic....

I also think of Alas, Babylon! and the new Cormac McCarthy book The Road to be post-apocalyptic (but not dystopian), because they are both about survivors dealing with the aftermath of a catastrophe, but no real society has emerged at that point.

Werner wrote: "I've always thought of Alas, Babylon! (which I really like, too!) as a post-apocalyptic novel, rather than a dystopian one per se. Of course, I guess that a civilization which ends up blowing itself to pieces in a nuclear war is arguably pretty dystopic..."

Not really. A dystopia is sustainable, it's just very unpleasant.

Marc wrote: "Childhood's End as a dystopia novel? Is there another one I've never heard of?"

(spoilers)

I guess it is how you view dystopic. In Childhood's End, the overlords come and take control of the human race and bring tranquility and peace to all. However, with this "utopia" and transformation, Humans no longer stretch forth and dream for anything. They stagnate. Then the humans lose there children as they are taken over and transformed. Human adults have nothing and eventually perish. So I tend to view this as dystopic. But, I can understand how this can be disputed. The novel's main themes in essence are not driven towards being distopic, but more about humans reaching and end point and transforming.

Actually, my series of novels deals with a dystopian future following a U-topian one, and the protagonists' fight against it! Between 2600 and 3705 A.D., mankind has to deal with the yoke of subtle oppression brought on by insidious usurpation. The center of it all is the fight for continued sovereignty of the Mars colonies that also hope to liberate the tyranically controlled Earth of the late 3rd millennium! Please read:

The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
Almagest
3700
The Avedon Question

Thank you.

Stephen H. Turner

I just read the saddest story EVER last night: "The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bagigalupi, from his collection "Pump Six". Seriously creative, and heartbreaking. It describes people who have lost all dependency on nature, and so all respect for it as well.

Feed is one of my favorite dystopian novels. It's a YA novel about a society where everyone has a mini computer, or a 'feed', implanted in their brain. It's sad, but really intriguing, and it makes you think about how involved we are with the internet.

My favorite is This Perfect Day. Another that I simply will not read is 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas', by Ursula LeGuin. The perfect utilitarian community and horrible.