Dystopian / Utopian book recommendations?

[Adele Ward]

@ Iain - but isn't it the case that many of these books are scenarios that were meant to be Utopian but become Dystopian. they are both sides of the same coin. So it's often the same theme.

[Geoffrey]

@ Iain - but isn't it the case that many of these books are scenarios that were meant to be Utopian but become Dystopian. they are both sides of the same coin. So it's often the same theme.

Exactly.  For example, The Gate to Women's Country is a rigid dystopia that is based on a goal of a feminist utopia.  Some of the more interesting dystopias are based on ideologically based utopian ideals.

[StephenLivingston]

Brave New World  & Island - Huxley
We - Zemyatin
Animal Farm & 1984 - Orwell
v for Vendetta - Miller
Oryx & Crake - Atwood
Best wishes, Stephen Livingston.

[KaSonndraLeigh]

I enjoyed the Hunger Games, Birthmarked, Enclave by Ann Aguirre, and Divergent by Veronica Roth There are so many to choose from. If you go to Amazon, you'll find people with Listmania's dedicated only to dystopian fiction. Hope this helps.  

KaSonndra



--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread.

[Iain Manson]

@ Iain - but isn't it the case that many of these books are scenarios that were meant to be Utopian but become Dystopian. they are both sides of the same coin. So it's often the same theme.

That's pretty well what I mean when I say: There's only so much sweetness and light we can take. Whatever we might like to think, we crave conflict; we think that life without it wouldn't be worth living. This, I suspect, is where Karl Marx and other utopians go wrong: the perfect world they envisage would in fact be hell. And it's in such imaginings that dystopias are born.

Look at the most determined attempt in recent times to create Utopia. It happened in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge decided to return Cambodia to Year Zero. They emptied cities, they eliminated undesirables. In all, they slaughtered up to a quarter of the population, and they wrecked the economy. They wanted heaven, they created hell.

[Adele Ward]

I'm not sure Karl Marx described it as a perfect place. Didn't he say the ends justified the means and that it would be impossible to set up the society he envisaged without much violence to get there. That people would have to be forced to live in the kind of society he described for a length of time before they started to realise it was for their benefit? I know I'm paraphrasing, but I do think that's all part of the theory. The intolerance of religious belief is too. So the foundations of a dystopia are also in this kind of political theory.

It's interesting you mention Utopias though, because there were some Utopia stories, weren't there? I can't quite remember them but they were more like fantasy beautiful lands people found by accident. Even if they are perfect the people who discover them want to leave at some point.

[Jack Blaine]

A Gift Upon the Shore by MK Wren is a fabulous book.

[QuantumIguana]

Just an observation. To date there are nearly a hundred posts on this thread, but only a handful even nod in the direction of utopia. In fact, most commentators talk as if "Utopian" isn't even in the subject line.

I suspect that this is unconscious, but it's telling, isn't it? We know instinctively that utopias are boring, because, by definition, they contain no conflict.

And doesn't this tell us something about ourselves? There's only so much sweetness and light we can take. Whatever we might like to think, we crave conflict; we think that life without it wouldn't be worth living. This, I suspect, is where Karl Marx and other utopians go wrong: the perfect world they envisage would in fact be hell. And it's in such imaginings that dystopias are born.

It tells us about what we read, not necessarily about who we are. People love to read about events they wouldn't want to actually want any part of it. The world would be a whole lot different if it was like the stories we read. Not many of us would actually want to live in Lovecraft's world. Most of the time, we don't want conflict. We want to go about our lives in peace, go to work, shop, play etc. without being bothered. We might read about people being taken hostage in a bank robbery, but who wants that to happen to them? People like excitement, but generally in safe, measured doses. People crave conflict the more removed they are from it. All other things being equal, people will choose to live in areas with lower crime. People like to read about dystopias, but like to live in utopias. Not an absolute utopia, of course, but no dystopia is an absolute dystopia either: a worse dystopia can always be imagined.

The Khmer Rouge could hardly be said to be creating a world without conflict. Forcibly removing people from cities and murdering undesirables and intellectuals is hyper-conflict. A society with absolutely no conflict is impossible, but societies generally do better when conflict is kept under control.

[Julia444]

I also give a vote for THE HANDMAID'S TALE.  One of Margaret Atwood's best.

My husband votes for Orwell's 1984.

If you end up reading and liking THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Atwood wrote a little piece called THE PENELOPIAD that is rather dystopian--it's THE ODYSSEY told from the point of view of Penelope, and it's really good and interesting.

Julia

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

A Gift Upon the Shore by MK Wren is a fabulous book.

This sounded so intriguing, and local, that I had to order it in paperback (not available for K).

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Iain Manson]

I'm not sure Karl Marx described it as a perfect place. Didn't he say the ends justified the means and that it would be impossible to set up the society he envisaged without much violence to get there. That people would have to be forced to live in the kind of society he described for a length of time before they started to realise it was for their benefit? I know I'm paraphrasing, but I do think that's all part of the theory. The intolerance of religious belief is too. So the foundations of a dystopia are also in this kind of political theory.

True, Adele, but the conflict was supposed to lead to Utopia. I have in mind Marx's intended end rather than his means.

It tells us about what we read, not necessarily about who we are. People love to read about events they wouldn't want to actually want any part of it. The world would be a whole lot different if it was like the stories we read. Not many of us would actually want to live in Lovecraft's world. Most of the time, we don't want conflict. We want to go about our lives in peace, go to work, shop, play etc. without being bothered. We might read about people being taken hostage in a bank robbery, but who wants that to happen to them? People like excitement, but generally in safe, measured doses. People crave conflict the more removed they are from it.

Thank you QuantumIguana (great monicker), I was rather hoping no one would notice that little flaw in my argument. But I still say that there's only so much sweetness and light we can tolerate. We like to identify with James Bond, Lisbeth Salander (tricky, admittedly) and so on, and nothing is more satisfying than to succeed in the face of adversity. I don't say that we want to live in a dsytopia, that would be crazy. But it would be equally insane to want to live in a utopia.

Here's my vaguely-formed theory. We are programmed by evolution to compete, both as a species and as individuals within the species. This is really just another way of saying that we're programmed to survive – at least long enough to reproduce. But Homo sapiens in the rich part of the world has cracked it: barring accidents, it's actually quite hard not to survive. Thus we all have a surplus of competitive energy, which has to go somewhere. Hence the old saying that the Devil finds work for idle hands.

[Jack Blaine]

This sounded so intriguing, and local, that I had to order it in paperback (not available for K).

Thanks for the recommendation.

I hope you'll like it--I've reread it many times now.

[lib2b]

I've heard good things about the new YA novel DIVERGENT, but I can't vouch for it as I haven't read it. 

I might be cheating a bit, as I'm not sure these are technically dystopian as much as they are speculative/sci-fi, but I do want to plug two of my very favorite books, THE EAR, THE EYE AND THE ARM, and THE HOUSE OF THE SCORPION, both by Nancy Farmer.  The first is set in a future Zimbabwe, in which the 13-year-old son of a general is kidnapped and is sought by a trio of unlikely detectives, and the second, about a boy who is the clone of a powerful drug lord. 

I also recommend Divergent and Farmer's books, and I'd like to add one more that I didn't see mentioned on this thread unless I missed it - Blood Red Road by Moira Young. I just read it, and I really liked it a lot. It's technically YA, but I know other adults besides myself who have liked it too. In fact, although I like Hunger Games, I think I like Blood Red Road more.