Dystopian and Utopian

[Julie]

I love the other worldly feel of a good dystopian or utopian novel. I really enjoyed 1984, and Brave New World was also really good.

Does anyone have a personal favorite that would be good to add to my "library" of books?

[Bill]

Certainly Little Brother.

[Lauren]

I'd recommend The Giver!

[Maggie]

Currently reading Battle Royale which I've described as The Hunger Games for grown ups. It certainly is dystopian.

A class of 42 Japanese students are taken to an island where they are instructed to kill each other, and they do. Not overly violent but does contain some. I'm very very nearly at the end. It's a long book, and the names get a bit tricky.

It was published well before the Hunger Games stories, but the similarities are striking.

Has anyone else read this book?

[Bill]

If something like that is Dystopian, Maggie, then I suppose another classic would be Lord of the Flies.

But, I think of dystopian as a subgenre of speculative fiction.

[Julie]

Thanks for this list. I've read Lord of the Fies, The Hunger Games trilogy, and The Giver. I mostly enjoyed them all. I have not yet read Battle Royable, but I will have to try that one.

Has anyone read House of Stairs?

[Aaron]

Kallocain is very much in the vein (and era) of 1984. I recommend it.

I've read some of the manga of Battle Royal, but I didn't really like it. The film is great, but stay away from the sequel.

[Bill]

Some other dystopians that just popped into my mind: I Am Legend, Day of the Triffids, When Worlds Colloid, its sequel After Worlds Collide, Flood and Arc by Stephen Baxter and Make Room Make Room

For one man's 'utopia' I can recommend Ethan of Athos

[Mary JL]

Julie: I have read House of Stairs. It is quite good.

[Chris]

I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Devastating and so very plausible.

[Mark]

A few more must-reads for the list: A Canticle for Leibowitz, WE: A XXI-century Translation, and Cat's Cradle.

And if you're interested in an anti-utopian book, which features a dystopia that works for its citizens, you may want to check out my own book, The Amadeus Net. (It also features an immortal, jazz-piano playing Mozart, a sentient city, and more robots than you can shake a stick at.)

[Library Lady 📚]

The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer, is one of my favorite books of all time. I think it qualifies as dystopian. It's a futuristic novel featuring clones, drug lords, etc. I believe it's classified as YA, but it's much thicker and more mature than say, The Giver.

Lena Hillbrand
The Superiors (my own dystopian novel)

[Cheryl]

Lena, I just looked at the blurb for your book and it snagged my interest. I've added it to my wish-list.

[Julie]

Lena, I have never read The House of the Scorpion, but I remember hearing one person say that it was the most unique dystopian book that they had ever read. I'll try to get it at the library.

[Library Lady 📚]

If you like audiobooks, they have a wonderful reader for it. Definitely worth your time to read or listen.

I'll avoid rambling on about my love for this book, if you want to check out my 5-star review it's here. http://lenahillbrand.blogspot.com/201...

[Robert]

Barry B. Longyear's Sea of Glass is one of the finest dystopias ever written. It's incredibly depressing, as well, so be prepared. In his future, population controls are enforced by sending illegal children to concentration camps, and the novel follows one of these children as he grows up in a world that is bent on killing him.

[Sandy]

Hi, Julie, you might enjoy my The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy which is similar to 1984 and Brave New World, occurring in a police state the day before a nuclear meltdown. It's won 2 national awards so far. Red Adept Reviews just gave it 5 stars. The reviewer said, "The story was ultimately a fascinating and gripping tale about survival and the desperate measures that some—on earth and elsewhere—would take to ensure their survival." You can read the review here: http://redadeptreviews.com/?p=5463 You can get it in print, Kindle, Nook, Sony & iBook formats.

[Julie]

Robbie wrote: "Barry B. Longyear's Sea of Glass is one of the finest dystopias ever written. It's incredibly depressing, as well, so be prepared. In his future, population controls are enforced by sending illegal..."

Sea of Glass sounds really interesting. I might get that one from the library.

[Robert]

Julie, I warned about the depressing quality of Sea of Glass, but forgot to warn that it is also very violent - but still well worth the read.

[Richard]

I highly recommend "The Heirloom". It deals with an actual ongoing problem that could be apocalyptic and will be at the least very problematic.

I am the writer of this book and would love to hear from anyone who reads it--you know, did you like it, what it made you think about your current situation and how it relates.

[Suzy]

The Handmaid's Tale is one of my all-time favourites. I read it for English Lit at college and was blown away by it. I would certainly add it to your list!
Suzy Turner

[[deleted user]]

Maggie wrote: "Currently reading Battle Royale which I've described as The Hunger Games for grown ups. It certainly is dystopian.

A class of 42 Japanese students are taken to an islan..."

Just finished it yesterday but have known the Battle Royale theme for a while now through the movies and manga. It is indeed awesome dystopian literature. I'd also add A Clockwork Orange to the list and maybe the V for Vendetta graphic novel, which I've yet to read but if it's anything like the film, I guess it would be and great addition.

[Marc]

Flawless Ruins My wife and her brother have been raving about this one, really pushing me to read it. YA Dystopian.

[Cheryl]

Kernos wrote: "Some other dystopians that just popped into my mind: I Am Legend, Day of the Triffids, When Worlds Colloid, its sequel After Worlds Collide..."

Day of the Triffids is fantastic! I love that book so much that I keep re-reading it over and over again. Another good one by John Wyndham is The Chrysalids.

[Bill]

Cheryl wrote: "...Day of the Triffids is fantastic! I love that book so much that I keep re-reading it over and over again. Another good one by John Wyndham is The Chrysalids."

I agree Triffids is a classic with relevance today. I got a HC omnibus of Wyndhn novels which includes: The Day of the Triffids ; the Kraken Wakes ; the Chrysalids ; the Seeds of Time : Trouble with Lichen ; the Midwich Cuckoos.

I've only read Triffids. The Midwich Cookoos is the novel that the movie Village of the Damned was based. A young Thomas Dekker of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, severl Star Treks and Kaboom was in the 1995 version of the movie.

@François - Definitely A Clockwork Orange!

[Robert]

Wyndham also has Consider Her Ways, which is kind of dystopic - I can't give away the surprise that makes it so, but it fits in this trope.

[Chris]

Kernos wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "...Day of the Triffids is fantastic! I love that book so much that I keep re-reading it over and over again. Another good one by John Wyndham is The Chrysalids."

I agree Triffids is..."

I must lay my hands on that omnibus!

[C.R.]

How about the Uglies or Skinned both series by wonderful authors.
More in the YA category, but I very much enjoyed the Uglies and am reading Skinned now.

[Scott]

I'd recommend THX 1138 by Ben Bova and George Lucas. It's both a movie and a book, but I think the book is better.

I'd also recommend This Time of Darkness by H.M. Hoover. This one is a YA book, but adults will enjoy it too. It's about two children in an underground society who try to escape to the surface.

[Bill]

Scott wrote: "I'd recommend THX 1138 by Ben Bova and George Lucas. It's both a movie and a book, but I think the book is better."

Good suggestion! I think the book is better too. The movie is strange, but fascinating in an odd sort of way. I wonder how it would play today? The movie was 1971, the book the same year. I wonder if the book came 1st or was written from the screenplay?

Which reminds me of Farenheit 451, a better movie and book, IMO. We usually watch these 2 movies together.

Which remind's me of another suggestion: the Logan's Run trilogy. Great movie. I have yet to read the trilogy Logan: A Trilogy

[Robert]

I read the book Logan's Run after seeing the movie - one of those instances where Hollywood took the title of the book and a couple of character names and threw EVERYthing else out the window. It's almost comical how different they are. But, yes, they are good dystopias, too.

[uh8myzen]

I love dystopic and post-apocalytpic fiction... here's my top 10 in no particular order:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
The Rifters Series by Peter Watts
Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter
The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
On the Beach by Nevil Shute

[Stephen]

WHAT?? No "1984"?? What dystopian list is complete without THAT one??

OR "Amimal Farm"...?

However, I agree with you on "Canticle for Liebowitz"..... it's plot is convoluted, but you're reminded of "Fahrenheit 451" and "On The Beach" so much with it,....


BTW, a shameless plug here....my "Cassiopeia" series deals with a dystopian situation after the subversive collapse of a U-topian society after the distraction of a Universe-wide pehnomenon focuses everybody's attention elsewhere....

Check it out....
The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
Almagest
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The Avedon Question

[uh8myzen]

Stephen wrote: "WHAT?? No "1984"?? What dystopian list is complete without THAT one??

OR "Amimal Farm"...?

However, I agree with you on "Canticle for Liebowitz"..... it's plot is convoluted, but you're remin..."

I'll defintely check out your Cassiopeia series! Sounds interesting!

There are so many books I love, that just narrowing it to 10 was hard. 1984 and Animal Farm are among my favorites.

I included Canticle and The Chrysalids over others because those two books are the reason I am into both Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction. I read them in in the summer before highschool while at the same time playing Black Sabbath's album Paranoid over and over... Good times!

Electric Funeral lyrics for your morning Dystopian fix:

"Electric Funeral"

Reflex in the sky warn you you're gonna die
Storm coming, you'd better hide from the atomic tide
Flashes in the sky turns houses into sties
Turns people into clay, radiation minds decay

Robot minds of robot slaves lead them to atomic rage
plastic flowers, melting sun, fading moon falls upon
dying world of radiation, victims of mad frustration
Burning globe of oxy'n fire, like electric funeral pyre

Buildings crashing down to a cracking ground
Rivers turn to wood, ice melting to flood
Earth lies in death bed, clouds cry water dead
Tearing life away, here's the burning pay

Electric Funeral (repeat)

And so in the sky shines the electric eye
supernatural king takes earth under his wing
Heaven's golden chorus sings, Hell's angels flap their wings
Evil souls fall to Hell, ever trapped in burning cells!