Dystopian Literature You Need to Survive the End of the World
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Well, we’ve all seen the president’s not-so-stable tweets about nuclear war. We’ve seen the rising tides of global warming and the increase of poverty despite abundance of resources. Heck, we might have even seen the aliens. You might be thinking: if only I could prepare myself for the inevitable onslaught of terror brought on by an unstable society. Well, you’re in luck! With these titles in dystopian literature, you’ll be sure to (maybe) survive the last decades of civilization as it crumbles. Cheers!
Reason for apocalypse: Environmental and economic collapse leads to society’s downfall.
Why this book is great: Octavia Butler is a science fiction queen and everything she wrote is phenomenal.
Reason for apocalypse: Fascism from the Japanese government prompts them to…make a televised event in which teenagers kill each other?
Why this book is great: Gratuitous violence and gore, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Reason for apocalypse: Multinational corporations and the want to genetically engineer everything in nature.
Why this book is great: Margaret Atwood is the master of the poignant apocalypse novel. See The Handmaid’s Tale. She blends intriguing characters with masterful plot twists and raises interesting philosophical questions in much of her work.
Reason for apocalypse: Global warming, corporate greed, and extreme biotech.
Why this book is great: Bacigalupi explores the depths of humanity’s vices in a future Earth’s 23rd century. He does this very, very well. In addition, this is one of the staples of the biopunk genre.
Reason for apocalypse: Alien war leads to the death of all the women on Earth. Oh, and also everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts now, all the time. Yikes.
Why this book is great: That title! But also, fantastic characterization and a coming-of-age story unlike any other.
Reason for apocalypse: Unnamed global events lead to a post-apocalyptic Sudan where the light-skinned Nurus terrorize the dark-skinned Okeke.
Why this book is great: A truly unique work of speculative fiction. Okorafor breaches some of the most intense topics in our current day through the eyes of Onyesonwu, a brave, powerful female character. Warning: this book is not for the faint of heart.
Reason for apocalypse: We breed clones in order for them to “donate” their organs to us when they’re old enough.
Why this book is great: The relationship between the three main characters of Never Let Me Go, and in turn their relationship with the world, is something seen more often in literary fiction than dystopian literature, yet it excels here. Plus, Ishiguro recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Reason for apocalypse: The spreading of a disease that will cause you to spontaneously combust. There is no cure.
Why this book is great: Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) writes such a captivating story in such a hopeless world. I might dare to say this is better than much of his father’s work.
Reason for apocalypse: Not explicit but some sort of global catastrophe that leads to the instability of the Earth. Certain people develop the ability to control the Earth (to a degree) and these people are ostracized and hunted down or trained to be soldiers.
Why this book is great: Besides Jemisin’s wonderful writing, the diversity across the board is phenomenal. Racial, sexual, and gendered representation abound. Especially in dystopian literature, this can be hard to come by.
Reason for apocalypse: Finally, zombies!
Why this book is great: Whitehead brings a literary lens to a worn-out trope. In this novel, he mixes the genres expertly. He weaves dystopian literature with contemporary fiction in order to make a stunning work.
