The Dystopian Timeline to The Hunger Games [INFOGRAPHIC]

Jennifer wrote: "I hope the next big trend is: corporations controlling the government."

Yes! But no one will want to publish those!

prettybooks wrote: "Hannah wrote: "Women prefer the society of The Handmaid's Tale? Really? Are you sure?"

I think it means whether men or women enjoyed/read the book more (I may be wrong though...)."

I certainly don't think I'd enjoy that society. But i definitely did enjoy reading about it.

What a great post, thank you.

I think The Hunger Games is an excellent dystopian, as well as Uglies and Unwind, also. What I think makes these books so great is that they can appeal to both genders, which is fantastic in my opinion.

Very cool. I too have listed my own trilogy dystopian, as post-apocalypotic fiction, it plays right into the dystopian genre.

Very interesting! There seem to be a lot of dystopian books in the 1920s though - wasn't that one of the better times of the century? Not sure why it is coming back but I'm sure we will see a lot more novels with the same theme (I mean look what happened after Twilight)

Wow, I love this graphic! I really think the future will be dystopians that explore class and economic collapse. At least that's what I'm hoping.

--SunHi Mistwalker
www.sunhimistwalker.com
The Shelter
After The Darkness: Episode One

What about Battle Royale!? It came out before the Hunger games around 2000 awesome novel not aimed at teens!

This is brilliant, and terrifyingly so. I agree w/someone else who said link this so we could use. I remember reading Hunger Games AGES ago and thinking it was incredible, then wondering if perhaps I was just overly enthusiastic. Then it started getting noticed. Now it's on this list of The 13 Best Dystopian Novels right alongside Brave New World (!), and I'm kind of stunned. Now of course, I'm into Battle Royale, so if nothing else, I've discovered BR thanks to the Hunger Games.

This is lovely. Might I borrow it for my discussion on Dystopian literature over on my site?

Love this!!!

Very interesting. Still, I think now is a bad time to write a new dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic type novel. I predict that once the so-called "apcoalypse" goes the way of the Y2K scare (remember that?), a new genre will swoop in to take the #1 spot.

Will it be an old-school Sci-Fi? A Super Happy Warm and Fuzzy Story where everything is just peachy? A romance about Vampire-Zombie hybrid (they're both the undead, right?) who love shape shifting were-unicorns? A wacky tale about a boy who runs away from home because his mom makes him eat sauerkraut every single morning (oh wait...I think that's been done.)? Something else entirely? Only time will tell.

Still, thanks for posting this. It's quite interesting and a great reader advisory tool to use while people still want Hunger Games read-alikes.

If you're looking for corporations taking over the government (as I saw in a previous post), you need to read Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood, both by Margaret Atwood.

If the right wing Evangelicals took over America it would look like this: http://www.amazon.com/Rabbletown-Unit...

Alissa wrote: "Very interesting. Still, I think now is a bad time to write a new dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic type novel. I predict that once the so-called "apcoalypse" goes the way of the Y2K scare (remembe..."

I don't see how apocalypticism will ever go out of vogue. It's been in fashion as long as people have been alive, and has kept pace with the growth of sci-fi for over a century. And unlike Y2K, it's not something that can simply pass us by. With every age, there are new chances for us to kill ourselves off.

Just to clarify, are you saying the old-school sci-fi was happy by comparison? Because it really wasn't. In fact, I did a research series on dystopian versus utopian sci-fi, and the balance sheet was VERY one-sided, like at least 5 to 1.

I think dystopian is a genre that is well over do to be explored. Because once you read a single book of this genre, your brain begins to explore all of the possibilities that dystopian holds. Then you start to tie in the themes of the book to your everyday life. The scary thing is that there are plenty of similarities. It makes you think... Are we going to be living a dystopian life soon? It is a very fascinating topic, ready to assist us to destroy everything we know.

That's incredible!
I hope the next trend will be climate change, because it's something we're having right now. It's important to discuss it, even in the frame of fiction.
Anyone knows of climate change novels?

Ihaveshineyboots wrote: "What annoys me again and again and again is that people brand The Hunger Games as some amazing, unique, ground breaking masterpiece. No. It's Battle Royale for children, and I think it is a great s..."

You are completely right. It's exactly battle royale! I can't believe no one published it and confronted Collins!

I love this!

Amazing. Love finding new information when it pertains to reading. Thank you.

You forget all the dystopian book that came out in other languages, some which influenced 1984 and BNW, namely "We" by Zamyatin. The future dystopian novel will follow what tracks were laid down before: namely theocratic dystopias, environmental ruin, totalitarian states. Its all happening now, Islamism is alive and well and may swallow Europe, as it has Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia,environmental degradation occurs everywhere, a strong despicable state is lurking on the horizon for much of the world.

Wow really interesting post.

Fantastic article! Dystopian readers unite! enjoy the new facebook page "dystopian fiction" https://www.facebook.com/readystopian.
wall photos of Dystopian books are being added daily check us out!

Such Nice Jacket The Hunger Games Leather Jacket

The Hunger Games Leather Jacket

Great Post!!

Patrick,
My 10th grade class is reading "Brave New World", "Farenheit 451", and "1984". I would love to use your visual graphic for a bulletin board on dystopia. Is that possible?

Wool should definitely be on here!

While Hunger Games may garner more sales or reviews, but it absolutely pales in comparison to 1984 in terms of literary merit. I doubt it will withstand the test of time, we'll simply have to wait and see. Plus, Hunger Games is virtually a complete rip off of the Japanese film Battle Royale.

Could you also not argue that Katniss's anxieties and fears around childbearing and what having a family would mean for her as a District 12 inhabitant constitutes reproductive issues in some sense? Just a thought... Goes to show how all-encompassing and well considered Collins' novels are! Fantastic infographic - I've been looking for a summary like this for a while for my undergrad dissertation so I'll be citing this!

Ihaveshineyboots wrote: "What annoys me again and again and again is that people brand The Hunger Games as some amazing, unique, ground breaking masterpiece. No. It's Battle Royale for children, and I think it is a great s..."

Battle Royale is great but even this is just a rehash of the Theseus and the Minotaur mythology. Collins only discovered the comparison after having been published as she hadn't seen or read Royale. She did however heavily reference Theseus, Spartacus and the Greek and Roman political structure in the trilogy. Katniss is also likened to the Greek Goddess Artemis. All stories have their root in some kind of historic or mythological narrative, however you argue it.

Wool by Hugh Howey

Jennifer wrote: "I hope the next big trend is: corporations controlling the government."

Jennifer, have you read He, She, and It by Marge Piercy? Great book with this theme (and others). Can't recommend it highly enough.

I think the science-fiction types are the new dystopia trends. Interesting post. Thanks! :)

Sharon wrote: "I'd argue that Brave New World -- with its biologically engineered social caste system -- is about biological, reproductive, and economic issues, in addition to its other themes."

That's what I was thinking too. Biology is one of it's main themes.

I wonder what the graph at the end would look like now, considering the Hunger Games and Divergent movies gave publicity to the books, and 1984 sales spiked when Edward Snowden revealed the NSA's data collection.

That is awesome!!

I love this! What a fascinating look at dystopian texts throughout history! My only critique is that putting novels such as Uglies, Divergent, Matched, and The Hunger Games under one category of "romance" is a bit disingenuous to the actual novels. Sure, they're all written for teenage audiences and they all have romances in them, but so too did Brave New World and 1984. I can't speak for Delirium or Matched, as I have not read them (though I do know Matched's actual dystopia is closely tied to romance), but the love story is hardly the most important element of Uglies, Divergent, and The Hunger Games. In fact, The Hunger Games goes out of its way to show romance as a distraction, something that keeps the people numb to the real horrors of their society. I don't think it's a bad graph by any means (as I said, it's a very interesting topic), but I felt the need to stand up for the more recent novels, as I've so often seen them pushed under the rug as not being "serious" enough because they're about things teenagers are concerned with.

You're all losers with no life. Read Manga, that'll help... Yyyyeeeeaaaahhhh...

Yeah, an internet troll is certainly qualified to tell other people they have no life.

Would be nice to see how the graph evolved since then!