a clockwork orange and brave new world for sure. i wouldn't recommend lord of the flies (mostly because i almost gouged my eyes out reading it). i've been meaning to read we by zamyatin, and moscow 2042 by voinovich. kafka's 'in the penal colony' is great too.
silence of an airborne night, push high above the roofs...
I think Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, and Farenheit 451 are the only books I've ever read that would fall under this catagory. I've heard several mentions of George Orwell's 1984 but am not sure what its about. *adds to list of books to read*
In searching for dystopias online, I found this link http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/451.htm which lists many of them and briefly summarizes some of the stories and some general interesting info.
Specifically, I was looking to see if Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury would fall under the catagory. Its been AGES since I've read it and I don't remember it well...
Maybe just watch some documentaries about the McCarthy trials.
I'll drink whisky instead of water.
I studied dystopia at the end of last year as my part of my English course. Most of the books mentioned here came up at one time or another, but the main one we studied was Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'. It doesn't focus on the idea of a controlling government in the same way that '1984' or 'Brave New World' do but instead looks at the possible effects of cloning people for organ donation.
I think 'The Time Machine' by H.G. Wells could also be called a dystopia. I really enjoyed it and thought it brough up quite a lot of valid points.
The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.
I'm trying to think of some that I've read that hasn't been already mentioned.
If you include alternate histories then Fatherland by Harris and The Man in the High Castle by Dick were pretty good.
SciFi I'd have to include The Day of the Triffids by Wyndham (he was the Michael Crichton of his day) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Dick.
Oh, and We by Zamyatin is a nice classic example of the political type.
I am a Phillip K. Dick fan, although I think his books can be better described as "Cyber Punk" instead of Dystopian. There are many elements of Dystopia in his novels, though, such as The Man in the High Castle. I think most people have mixed feelings about The Man in the High Castle because it is so open ended, but I particularly liked how the vision of an alternative post-war world reveals so much about the reality of the actual post WWII world.
I haven't read any Margaret Atwood except for Oryx and Crake, but it's one of my favorite speculative dystopia books.
Last edited by Grimes; 05-18-2009 at 09:32 AM.
1984 is horrifying. I read it in a day, and felt sick when I was finished. The thing about it is that America really is not so far off from Orwell's nightmare.
Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are also really good. If you like Brave New World, you should read Huxley's follow-up, Brave New World Revisited it's an essay that goes over how we can prevent BNW from becoming a reality.
Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harrison.
It's about the consequences of overpopulation. Ever heard of Soylent Green? This is the book it was based on. Pretty depressing, if that's what you're into.
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Some people call it a difficult read, but it just takes some getting used to. It takes place two thousand years after a nuclear war, and the state of humanity is pretty dim. The spelling is incorrect on purpose, because man has just recently regained the ability to read and write. You'll find neat little secret meanings in the incorrectly spelled words. The end can be construed as pessimistic or optimistic, depending on your personalty.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
This is a ridiculous claim. The conditions in 1984 are even worse than those in North Korea. At least there are no telescreens in North Korean homes. Are you seriously claiming that the situation in America is anywhere near as bad as in North Korea?Originally Posted by Desolation
Currently, our conditions are not that bad, but we have the technology to go far beyond what Orwell described, we're just a "terrorist attack" away from it being implemented. They already have video cameras in DTV converter boxes, which is pretty similar to a telescreen.
The book was pretty much a mirror of the USSR and Nazi Germany, and I assume that North Korea is currently about as bad as Soviet Union was then. Even if they don't have explicit telescreens, it's probably pretty similar.
Oh please. The worst terror attack in history only led to a very marginal curtailment of personal freedoms in the U.S.. It would take much worse to create an Orwellian society.
This immediately sounded like a conspiracy theory to me so I googled it and what do you know:They already have video cameras in DTV converter boxes, which is pretty similar to a telescreen.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/200...tv-converters/
I'd recommend that you start getting your news from more reliable sources.
There's no such thing as a marginal curtailment of freedom in my book. The DTV thing, I'll admit that I was wrong there. But just think what another terrorist attack could do to freedom, any "small" curtailment of personal freedom is unacceptable, and a slippery slope towards an Orwellian society.
It is kind of scary, the thought that one might control every impulse you have. Who really dictates what we feel? I'm not saying that society is brainwashing us, but it has so much power it could if it wanted to.
To recommend it again, Lanark by Alasdair Gray. Of course it's overtly political like all of Gray's work but at it it's core it's about love and its important for one and for society. Though I wouldn't say that the ending is 'unhappy' the ending is actually quite uplifting, but it's certainly 'dystopian'.
We is definitely a fantastic book. I also took a Utopian/Dystopian course in University and we studied books that could be seen as either depending on how one views it... check out Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" or "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy (Gender roles are played with here as well)
I think my all time favorite book as an adolescent was also ambiguously dystopian "the Giver" by Lois Lowry. I recently re-read it and remembered why at an early age I wanted to write
I A Lonely Warrior...
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