BEST OF 3: Dark Days by @writers_hq

Times are good for writers of dystopian fiction, which happens to coincide with bad times for the climate, for politics, for general global sanity BUT YOU KNOW LET’S GLOSS OVER THAT RIGHT NOW at least we have our books, eh? Too bloody right. Here are three of the finest shit-just-got-real dystopias to grace our book shelves:

1) Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

A dude writing about the end of the world meets the offspring of the man who built the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima, who happen to own an isotope that will take out every molecule of water on Earth. Gloriously ridiculous, horrifyingly hilarious, science v religion and all the rest. The world is built on lies, and happiness only comes from embracing them. Too blinkin’ true. MORE: Writing Tips From Kurt Vonnegut

2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 

You know how it goes: darkly secretive sect take over America, force the few remaining fertile women to conceive and carry babies for the monied elite.

A glorious object of readerlust, but also remarkably prescient. Islamic terror attacks causing political turmoil, the vulnerabilities of digital finance, oppressive control over women’s bodies. Sounds familiar, eh?

3) The Power by Naomi Alderman

A new contender on the block, and a world in which women develop a superpower that makes them stronger than men may, for many of the fairer sex, sound like a utopia. But Alderman is on the toppest of top form, and after a year or two being coached by Atwood, she is not particularly sympathetic to man nor lady. The world with women on top is not the caring, sharing, gently-gently paradise you would imagine!

BIO: Sarah Lewis is one half of Writers’ HQ, an organisation for badass writers with no time or money. WHQ has just launched a range of online creative writing courses designed specifically to fit around your embarrassing Netflix habit and your crippling debt. Find out more, HERE.