Dystopian / Utopian book recommendations?

[cargalmn]

Hi -

The Hunger Games trilogy is still with me months after I read them, which is unusual for me.  I think it might be because they're the first books (at least I think they are) that I've read that fall into the "Dystopian" genre...so I'm wondering what some other good ones might be.

Thank you - I get such good recommendations from KB!   

[Pinworms]

My 2 favorites:

1984 by George Orwell

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

[nogdog~6op6ou]

Unfortunately not enKindled, but I highly recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr; one of my all-time favorite books.

[foreverjuly]

The Handmaid's Tale is an classic dystopian work, which I enjoyed.

I guess the other trendy new one is the Pretties, Uglies, etc. series, but I can't say that one has any appeal for me at all.

[scottnicholson]

Hard to find and not on Kindle but Ira Levin's This Perfect Day is my favorite of that subgenre. And Lord of the Flies is an early version of the Hunger Games idea.

Scott Nicholson

[cargalmn]

Hard to find and not on Kindle but Ira Levin's This Perfect Day is my favorite of that subgenre. And Lord of the Flies is an early version of the Hunger Games idea.

Scott Nicholson

I forgot about Lord of the Flies, to be honest - I think I'll see if that's avail for Kindle. 

I hadn't heard of the Uglies til today, so I'll see if that's up my alley too.

Thank you! 

[DaronFraley]

You might try THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner (very popular), and MATCHED by Ally Condie (new).

[lacymarankevinmichael]

There's a new YA series called Matched that's supposedly picking up steam.  It's supposed to be like a Hunger Games/Twilight hybrid type deal.

[Geoffrey]

Unfortunately not enKindled, but I highly recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr; one of my all-time favorite books.

I picked up an ebook copy of Canticle here.  It's a large print version but I ran it through calibre and made a new copy with a resized font so it looked like any other kindle book.



Another choice for a dytopian tale which is another favorite of mine is The Gate to Women's Country

[Pinworms]

Hard to find and not on Kindle but Ira Levin's This Perfect Day is my favorite of that subgenre. And Lord of the Flies is an early version of the Hunger Games idea.

Scott Nicholson

I'd say the most similar book to The Hunger Games is Battle Royale, which was originally published in Japanese in 1999, and translated into English a few years ago.  They have so many similarities- young teenagers isolated in an arena divided into zones, forced to kill each other where there can only be 1 survivor, by a corrupt government who uses this as a method to control its citizens.

I loved Battle Royale, but hated The Hunger Games.  I think part of the reason why was because when reading HG, I felt like I was reading a Young-Adult, sanitized version of BR with Mary Sue characters.

[cargalmn]

Thanks everyone!!  I've more or less added all the recommendations here to my TBR pile.  And Geoffrey, thanks for the link to the Canticle - I'll definitely be getting that one. 

THANK YOU!

[jesscscott]

1984 (George Orwell).

Neuromancer (William Gibson).

Books here @ http://lostvioletpress.com (not my website)

And anything "cyberpunk"

[Steve Silkin]

Try Paul Auster's "In the Country of Last Things." I think that qualifies as 'dystopian.' A woman travels to the wreckage of a country to find her brother, a journalist who disappeared there. The infrastructure is crumbling and there is very little left of civilization as we know it.

[Thalia the Muse]

Dystopian, which becomes post-apocalyptic: Oryx & Crake and Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, both available on Kindle. I think these are much superior to The Handmaid's Tale.

Dystopia: Super-Sad True Love Story, Gary Steyngart

[purplepen79]

I second the recs for 1984 and Brave New World.

I would like to add Ayn Rand's novella Anthem - New Century Edition with DirectLink Technology about a futuristic totalitarian society that has devolved to a medieval level of technology and knowledge.  Any expression of individuality is stamped out.  Even the use of the word "I" has been forbidden. 

Another book you might enjoy is Lois Lowry's Giver.  This YA book about a future society where all pain and fear has been eradicated brought me to tears.  It's beautifully written and a compelling read as the main character Jonas, a 12-year-old boy, gradually realizes the truth about the "perfect" society he lives in. 

[StaceyHH]

Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury  Near future Big Brother Dystopia
Children of Men - P.D. James  Near future Big Brother + endocrine disaster
Minority Report - P.K. Dick - More Big Brother - ethics of preventing future crimes
The Last Gasp -  Trevor Hoyle - Ecological disaster, kind of pulpy 80s take on the government and citizen response to global warming
Little Brother - Cory Doctorow - Near future, DHS control and young hackers (young adult, with a "hopeful" resolution, but still a great read)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - P.K. Dick - dystopia overdrive and the inspiration for Blade Runner. For something really unique, put down the Kindle and check out the graphic novel version. It's beautiful.
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells - one of the earliest examples of "dying earth" fiction

Just a few of my favorites. Others have already mentioned the classics 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, and Canticle.

My favorite genre.

Also, Dune (Frank Herbert) is widely considered dystopian space opera. Dystopia is kind of the future you hope will never happen, so it's a pretty broad category.

[lacymarankevinmichael]

Would Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" count, or is that just apocalyptic?

[StaceyHH]

Hmmm, kind of more post-apocalyptic I would say. I usually think of dystopian fiction as being at least a little bit about oppression in the name of making things "better." Loss of individual freedoms, actions taken and control exerted over the masses "for the greater good," that kind of thing. (Just my opinion.)

[cargalmn]

Holy cats, I'm going to have to keep coming back to this thread for a while - so many recommendations!!  I'm very excited to check out all these additional ones...and hopefully this thread helps out anyone else who enjoyed Hunger Games and had a new genre open up for them. 

StaceyHH - I haven't read Dune, but oddly, I do have a copy of it (DH's), so I'll add that to my list, as well as checking out some of your other favorites.

purplepen79 - My husband loves Ayn Rand, but (and forgive me for this), I find I have to think a bit TOO much when reading her - and I think so much at work, that I'm usually looking for more escapist reading than deep-thinking (which is different to me than thought-provoking - make sense?)...That being said, Anthem sounds intriguing - I'll have to check out the sample before digging in though.

I can easily add Lois Lowry's Giver to my list - what a bizarre blast from the past; I swear I read books by her when I was a teen, twenty years ago???

Thalia - I've had Margaret Atwood recommended to me before - I'll check out the ones you recommend

Thanks again everyone!!  Love KB!

[Laurensaga]

Dystopian: Haven By Justin Kemppainen

http://www.amazon.com/Haven-ebook/dp/B0031Y6TKW

I really enjoyed it. The warning is there is supposed to be a sequel but it's been a year and nothing. Even still it could be a stand alone book which is why I am recommending it.

Someone already suggested the Dune series but I will second that one.

[Thalia the Muse]

I don't think a dystopia has to be a police state -- just a projected future that's nightmarish in some way. I think you could do a dystopian society in which selfishness was a supreme value and it was legal to have people kidnapped off the street to harvest their organs if you could afford to pay for it, for instance.

[Geoffrey]

An example of a non-police state dystopia is "Jennifer Government"  which is set in a world where Corporate America has evolved into it's own most absurd and dysfunctional version of itself.

[caseyf6]

I happily second "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin. I read it when I was too young to understand it and loved it, then I re-read it about once every few years just because I love it. 

Stepford Wives (same guy) gets a bad rep but I found the book to be pretty good, too.

[Layton Green]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

[cargalmn]

Dystopian: Haven By Justin Kemppainen

I really enjoyed it. The warning is there is supposed to be a sequel but it's been a year and nothing. Even still it could be a stand alone book which is why I am recommending it.

just fyi - in reading about this book, I found that he does indeed have a sequel in the works:  http://yesiamanauthor.blogspot.com/2010/10/sequel-to-haven-by-justin-kemppainen.html

He also has a new book out as of today (weird coincidence, right??) - A Fickle Fate...http://yesiamanauthor.blogspot.com/2010/12/99-cents-for-fickle-fate.html

I also saw him mention that he's a fellow Minnesotan, so I'm absolutely putting Haven in my TBR list.