I want more of the same.

October 5, 2008 2:07 PM

I enjoy literature with a dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic bent to it. I want more. Recommendations?

Examples of books I've really liked:

1984
Fahrenheit 451 (pretty much anything by Bradbury. Love, love, love Bradbury's stuff)
We (Zamyatin)
The Giver

The movie Gattaca was also good. I realize that several of those are very "high school reading list" (because, in fact, a few of them were on my high school reading list), so works that differ a bit from those are certainly welcome.

posted by Autarky to writing & language (60 answers total)

I enjoyed Cailfia's Daughters quite a lot.
posted by leahwrenn at 2:15 PM on October 5, 2008

Let me just jump the line and drop in A Canticle for Leibowitz... well worth reading.
posted by selfnoise at 2:17 PM on October 5, 2008 [6 favorites]

I really liked The Stand, which does interesting things with the dynamics of post-apocalyptic community building.

Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend In A Coma is also in the apocalypse-but-a-few-people-left genre, more Coupland's style than your typical post-apocalypse. There's also not much of a focus on the cause of the...rest of the world no longer participating (I'm trying to skirt spoilers), which could be a positive or a negative for you.

I hear good things too about Nevil Shute's On The Beach but I keep forgetting to pick up a copy.
posted by carbide at 2:22 PM on October 5, 2008

This Perfect Day, V for Vendetta, Brave New World?
posted by martinrebas at 2:22 PM on October 5, 2008

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is well worth the read.
posted by Tullius at 2:22 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Snow Crash might appeal.

That is as depressing as I get. 1984 made me want to slit my wrists. I'm not good with hopeless.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:24 PM on October 5, 2008

The greatest novel in the 'dystopian' genre, I believe, is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Yeah, it's set more than a century ago, but it certainly feels like the end of the world. Particularly the image of a barren prairie carpeted as far as the eye can see with piles of bleached buffalo bones is a haunting one that it's difficult to shake; the book seems to be about confronting that nameless, faceless thing in us and in the world that annihilates. It's a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it. If you'd rather read something more futuristic by Mr. McCarthy, his recent The Road is certainly in this vein.

As far as strictly science-fiction type distopia, I'd recommend, as I have here recently, Walter M. Miller's great genre-founding epic A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's pretty clear now that there would never have been a Dune without this book; the audacity of writing a book in 1960 that used science fiction as a platform to discuss the socio-political implications of modern warfare and the religious response to the nuclear threat is hard to recall now that A Canticle has been imitated so many times, but it's important to remember that this book really started something. I can't but believe that Ray Bradbury probably enjoyed this book immensely too, though Fahrenheit was a few years earlier. And I should say that, even beyond the fact that it's influential, A Canticle for Leibowitz is still probably the most literary and devastatingly beautiful of novels in its class. It's my personal favorite science fiction novel, period, and this is coming from someone who cares deeply about the genre.
posted by koeselitz at 2:28 PM on October 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Sorry, that was a spew of words, but I meant to say what A Canticle for Leibowitz is about: a monastery in the dry, dessicated centuries after a nuclear holocaust that maintains the secret knowledge of the past.
posted by koeselitz at 2:30 PM on October 5, 2008

I asked a similar question a while ago; you might find the suggestions relevant.
posted by Ziggy Zaga at 2:33 PM on October 5, 2008

The Handmaid's Tale is a great example of this.

There is also a nice little dystopian fiction list at Wikipedia.
posted by Wreath Ass at 2:34 PM on October 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

I'd like to second The Road (and, I guess, refer to my previous endorsement in Ziggy Zaga's old question). A supposedly faithful to the book movie adaptation of The Road is out late next month, starring Viggo Mortensen, and from the screenshots on imdb (link), it looks promising.

I'm in the middle of Blood Meridian, and recommend it highly as well. It is easily the most bleak writing I have ever encountered, and quite thought provoking. Extreme, non-heroic, kill-and-scalp-the-innocent violence in novels is usually pivotal to the plot or message, but such violence in Blood Meridian permeates the entire novel and becomes atmospheric rather than notable. I usually rip straight through novels, but Blood Meridian has required several sanity pauses.

Another novel, actually a graphic novel, that will rock your dystopian socks off and is also coming soon to theaters near you; The Watchmen. Dystopian superhero intrigue with an excellent cold war setting.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 2:46 PM on October 5, 2008

This is my favorite fiction genre, for sure.

The Dunes, especially the first.

Ditto on the Handmaid's Tale.

For a movie, check out A Boy and his Dog.

Here is a healthy list at B&N.

And here is an extremely long list on Wikipedia (not the dystopian list, a post-apocalyptic one).

Happy reading!
posted by letahl at 2:50 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hmm. That Wikipedia dystopia list has Harlan Ellison's Repent Harlequin... but not A Boy and His Dog which I think is very good.
posted by Dan Brilliant at 2:52 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Derive the Hamiltonian of...: I usually rip straight through novels, but Blood Meridian has required several sanity pauses.

I still remember the day I finished Blood Meridian. I couldn't talk for two hours straight after finally putting it down.
posted by koeselitz at 2:53 PM on October 5, 2008

For a movie, check out A Boy and his Dog.

I should learn to preview. The book is good too, as I say.
posted by Dan Brilliant at 2:54 PM on October 5, 2008

The Dunes, especially the first.

I think you could make a strong argument that Dune is not and was not intended to be dystopian as such. Rather that it was a reflection, albeit distorted, of certain aspects of this world in the era it was written. As is a lot of speculative fiction of course. I guess I just love Dune.
posted by Dan Brilliant at 2:58 PM on October 5, 2008

There's a brand-new YA book out called The Hunger Games that might fit the bill . . . I really, really enjoyed it.
posted by leesh at 3:00 PM on October 5, 2008

You might like Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Oh and since leesh mentioned YA books, The Big Empty series was pretty good.
posted by JaredSeth at 3:07 PM on October 5, 2008

I got your post-apocalyptic literature right here, pal!

The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham is easily one of my favourite books of all time.

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.

The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel.

I don't much go in for dystopian fiction apart from obvious stuff like Orwell's 1984 and, y'know, Chomsky, but Mockingbird by Walter Tevis was pretty good.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:22 PM on October 5, 2008

I came here to recommend a book named "On" -- an absolutely frightening account of a time when societies have regressed to the stone age and everyone lives on what is know as the wall formed by fallen buildings and rubble -- but can't find any reference to it via Google since "On" is pretty much the stupidest name anyone could give a book when it comes to Googleability.
posted by peacheater at 3:23 PM on October 5, 2008

I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman

peacheater - here you go.
posted by batmonkey at 3:29 PM on October 5, 2008

Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars had some of this feel.

On the film side of things THX 1138.
posted by XMLicious at 3:30 PM on October 5, 2008

Ooh - also! The Man Who Fell to Earth - Walter Tevis
posted by batmonkey at 3:31 PM on October 5, 2008

Fiskadoro.
posted by glibhamdreck at 3:36 PM on October 5, 2008

I read a bunch of these (post apoco/dystopian) novels last year. The absolute tops were Canticle for Leibowitz and Riddley Walker. Seriously, Riddley Riddley Walker. I pretty much can't shut up about this book since I read it. Reading it was an immersive, incredible experience.

And it was by the guy who wrote Bread and Jam for Frances. Talk about being a Renaissance writer . . .

(Also--Clockwork Orange?)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:38 PM on October 5, 2008

William Gibson does this very well.
posted by Quietgal at 3:51 PM on October 5, 2008

It's a strange read, as is most anything written by James Morrow, but This Is the Way the World Ends.
posted by JaredSeth at 3:55 PM on October 5, 2008

Nthing everyone who mentioned A Canticle for Leibowitz and Quietgal on Gibson, especially the Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive trilogy. Have a look too at Keith Robert's Kiteworld, which I thought was one of the most lyrical pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction that I have ever read...

J.G. Ballard often does this kind of thing rather well, a good place to start is The Wind From Nowhere and finally, yes, I know it's a film rather than a book, but if you enjoyed 1984 then Terry Gilliam's Brazil is well worth a look IMHO....
posted by Chairboy at 4:19 PM on October 5, 2008

Dang, that should have been Keith Roberts', of course.... that will teach me not to post after the pub...
posted by Chairboy at 4:23 PM on October 5, 2008

Dhalgren, by Delany.
posted by kiltedtaco at 4:25 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood.
posted by rentalkarma at 4:32 PM on October 5, 2008

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is not your typical dystopian society, and not post-apocalyptic. But it features a world in which companies bid for naming rights for years ('The Year of the Trial Size Dove Bar') and part of New England is dedicated to toxic waste storage.
posted by spamguy at 4:48 PM on October 5, 2008

Kobo Abe's Ark Sakura
posted by The Straightener at 5:04 PM on October 5, 2008

If you enjoyed The Giver, please please read House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (2002). It's multi-award winning and super creepy. The Declaration by Gemma Malley (2007/8) is another take on the theme; she offered a top ten list of dystopian novels to The Guardian.

If you haven't tasted the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin, I think you'll savor the experience. Yes, the following three titles were written in the 1970s, but she writes so well that they remain thought-provoking. Her properly dystopian novel would probably be The Lathe of Heaven, but I was even more moved by The Left Hand of Darkness, contemplating gender-based identity, and The Dispossessed, which predates the events of Left Hand, pushes the precepts of communism/capitalism to extremes. I owned all these books but gave them away, damn it, because if they were on a bookshelf here I'd pull them off and re-read them right now. They're that good.
posted by woodway at 5:06 PM on October 5, 2008

Hmm, it sounds like you like authoritarian (for lack of a better word) fiction. I mean, I'd second both Earth Abides and On the Road (both of which I'd second), but I don't know if you'll like watching some of the sole survivors inherit a lawless earth.

Check out this B&N list of Totalitarian States & Occupied Countries and at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry on 1984, they list similar books. Others along the lines you're looking for might include A Wrinkle In Time (another high school favorite); some of Phillip K. Dick's stuff, particularly Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; He, She, & It; Brave New World; maybe Ender's Game.
posted by salvia at 5:18 PM on October 5, 2008

(sorry for all the typos. I'm not doing well at proofreading here.)
posted by salvia at 5:20 PM on October 5, 2008

The Children of Men, by P.D. James.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:42 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Crysalids (also known as Re-Birth) by John Wyndam. Also Arslan by MJ Engh, which is probably a bit darker than anything in your list.
posted by miscbuff at 5:45 PM on October 5, 2008

Twilight of the Golds (the play)
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 5:50 PM on October 5, 2008

This gets asked a lot: Here, here and here, mentioned in Ziggy Zaga's thread, too.
posted by mediareport at 5:54 PM on October 5, 2008

Pixar's newest animated movie, WALL-E, is quite dystopian. Yet at the same time the title character is utterly adorable.
posted by radioamy at 6:23 PM on October 5, 2008

This thread is a fabulous wealth of suggestions, especially for the dystopic elements, which most previous questions haven't addressed. I'll go ahead and flesh out the Philip K. Dick side of things since much of his work fits easily within the bounds of this question:

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Set in a repressive dystopian police state, it's the story a popular tv host who wakes up one morning to find that no one remembers him, and he has no way to prove his identity in a society where everything hinges on doing so.

Dr. Bloodmoney - Dick's take on the post-apocalyptic genre. Sublimely weird. It features a world after the bomb where society is barely held together by a trapped astronaut playing radio DJ as his space station endlessly orbits the globe.

The Man in the High Castle - An examination of life in an America that lost WWII and is under uneasy joint Japanese and German rule. This is a world where travel by intercontinental rockets is everyday, but televisions are an uncertain technology at best.

A Scanner Darkly - American drug war and secret surveillance taken to terrifying extremes. The police force is paranoid and splintered by secrecy, and the line between cop and criminal is a drug blurred haze. The movie is pretty good too.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Obviously his most cyberpunk novel, and the inspiration for Blade Runner. Humans have destroyed their world to the point that most animals are dead and only electric facsimile remain. Likewise, humans employ nearly indistinguishable androids for labor in off world colonies. An examination of what it means to be human in an inhuman world.
posted by CheshireCat at 6:23 PM on October 5, 2008

I have to plug Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank for a 50's take on this again !
posted by rfs at 6:44 PM on October 5, 2008

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Blindness by Jose Saramago.
posted by Beardman at 6:59 PM on October 5, 2008

Or, for that matter, Saramago's The Cave, which you could say is more traditionally dystopian.
posted by Beardman at 7:00 PM on October 5, 2008

The Inverted World by Christopher Priest and The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstoya. The book On that peacheater mentioned above is by Adam Roberts.
posted by Alex Voyd at 7:00 PM on October 5, 2008

Damn-I intended to post The Man in High Castle but cheshirecat beat me to it.

I would second Stephen King's The Stand and add his Dark Tower Series.

The Road, of course (though man, I'd shoot myself before I'd see that movie. There are some images that I can't get out of my head-can't believe anyone would make a movie out of this book, fabulous as it is).
posted by purenitrous at 7:03 PM on October 5, 2008

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've probably got about a year's worth of reading now.
posted by Autarky at 7:11 PM on October 5, 2008

(Also--Clockwork Orange?)

A Clockwork Orange was one of the first things to come to mind also "The Postman" by David Brin (also a movie).Oh, and the "Change" series by SM Stirling.
posted by MikeMc at 7:15 PM on October 5, 2008

How about a current real life dystopia? Pyongyang.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:10 PM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Seconding Margaret Atwood -- both Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake

Also seconding The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and in that same vein (I'm a teen lit reviewer), a few more:

Have you read the companion books to The Giver? They are Gathering Blue and The Messenger. There's also Scott Westerfeld's brilliant -- seriously brilliant, as in among the best I've ever read brilliant -- Uglies series. I prefer to read it as a trilogy (Uglies, Pretties and Specials,) leaving the last book, Extras, aside as a companion book that isn't necessary reading. Michael Grant's Gone might fit the bill, though it's a little more apocalyptic and horror-esque than the others I've suggested.

You don't mention Aldous Huxley. Have you read A Brave New World? Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle is worth a look -- technically alternate history but most definitely dystopian -- although I personally am not a huge fan of the writing style.

Oh! And just out -- I haven't even reviewed it yet -- is Daylight Runner by Oisinn McGann; definitely worth checking out.

Enjoy! There's so much more out there, and there are so many good recommendations above, that it may indeed take you a lifetime to read all the great dystopias that have been written. OH. I can't believe I forgot this one. It's really fantastic, placed third on this list behind Atwood and Westerfeld: Skinned by Robin Wasserman.

By the way, don't let the teen lit thing fool you; authors in the teen lit arena are exploring social issues in a very creative, probing way right now. There's more dystopian teen lit than I can even begin to list, and a lot of it is exceptional.
posted by brina at 8:52 PM on October 5, 2008

When I was in high school, Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon was one of my favorites. Good characters, good plot, just good horror/thriller writing. I haven't read it--or any other McCammon--in 15 years or so, so I'm curious if it would hold up as well as I remember.
posted by zardoz at 9:05 PM on October 5, 2008

Earth Abides is, at almost 60 years old, seriously the best end-of-the-world novel you'll ever find. Both heartbreaking and optimistic!

Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore is wildly anachronistic (2047, Orange County CA, sixty years after a USSR nuclear strike against the US) but a great read.
posted by Guy Smiley at 9:22 PM on October 5, 2008

Huxley's lesser-known but quite strange Ape and Essence begins in the near future with two tribes of baboons leading leashed rival Einsteins to press buttons that will destroy mankind. Highly recommended.
posted by doncoyote at 10:02 PM on October 5, 2008

The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - here's a good review

seconding Riddley Walker - utterly brilliant & unique piece of story-telling
posted by jammy at 4:05 AM on October 6, 2008

Farnham's Freehold is pretty great, especially the first half.

Philip Reeve and Mortal Engines is also awesome.
posted by mjewkes at 5:16 AM on October 6, 2008

At the risk of a derail, along the same lines as this, it might be worth reading a few Cold War era novels that take place in the USSR. After all, that's what the bulk of 20th Century dystopian literature is really about.

Anthony Burgess' Honey for the Bears, for example, is probably closer to what you're looking for than A Clockwork Orange by the same author.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:11 AM on October 6, 2008

Philip Dick's Penultimate Truth.

Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower (I can't believe nobody's suggested that one, yet).

Anything by the recently late Thomas Disch.
posted by Barry B. Palindromer at 10:08 AM on October 6, 2008

Brave new world , world war z (zombies in the past, ), cats cradle all have apocalyptic or alternate future
posted by radsqd at 10:20 AM on October 6, 2008

If you're okay with Y.A., I wholeheartedly recommend Feed by MT Anderson. It's exquisite.
posted by changeling at 12:35 PM on October 6, 2008