Do You Dystopia?

Stories not about your happy place.

Dystopian fiction. It’s not a new phenomenon (1984, Z for Zachariah, The Giver) but it certainly seems to be having a resurgence. As a genre it’s a little bit like a virus, an appropriate comparison because so many dystopian storylines feature one. As we all know a virus replicates and spreads, which is pretty much what has happened within the genre since The Hunger Games was published in 2008.

So it's a really popular genre, but how do you identify a dystopian novel? It is probably set in one of many possible futures or deals with the end of civilisation as we know it. It may point to the possible results of a disturbing world-trend - dangerous reality television, worsening climate change, extreme plastic surgery, Belieberism. 

While it may make you anxious about the way humanity is headed it may also fill you with hope for it - the hope that people will work together to find solutions to these problems before it’s too late. Here’s to getting it right before we are forced to go all Sci-Fi on each other and set off to find another planet we can call home.

Below are some reviews of dystopian fiction that we've recently read. If these books fuel your dystopian fire, check out our reading lists Speculative Fiction and Dystopia for more like this!

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Reviewed by Mrs Paterson

I really can’t say anything about this story without giving too much away, so I’ll just say: this is one of those unstoppable pandemic dystopias, where everyone dies from some unrelenting virus and no one can stop the dying and soon there are just a handful of people who haven’t died or are not dying. And some of them perform Shakespeare for the dwindling, non-existent masses because "survival is insufficient". The story moves back and forth through time, weaving together seemingly disparate people and things: the lives of survivors, the histories of the departed, a mysterious comic strip and a bizarre cult. But that’s really all I can say.

So if I can’t give you even a shred of coherent storyline, why should you read it? Because ultimately this is a story about hope and beauty and human resilience in the face of extreme none-of-those things. And it is about the power of memory, and the importance of remembering. I loved this story. And i highly recommend that you read it. Just don’t do what I did, and start getting pneumonia while you’re reading about fevers, coughing, and dying. Not good...

Themes ticked: global pandemic, post-apocalyptic, decline in the fabric of society, set immediately after the catastrophe, survivors as the main characters

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Reviewed by Mrs Klein

Bill Masen is disappointed when he misses out on the greatest light show ever because he is in hospital recovering from an eye operation. What he doesn’t know is that everyone who has seen the light show is blinded. When he removes his bandages the next day, he also finds that the Triffids, plants that can walk, have escaped their compound. Everyone had forgotten about the Triffids “because they were novelties”. What they had also overlooked was that “the whorl topping a Triffid’s stem could lash out as a slender stinging weapon ten feet long, capable of discharging enough poison to kill a man if it struck squarely on his unprotected skin.”

So there you have it – a world of blind people at the mercy of rampaging carnivorous plants – the stuff of nightmares! I still can’t see a strange plant without being reminded of this book.

Themes ticked: catastrophic event, rampaging carnivorous plants, decline in the fabric of society, set during the catastrophe

Clade by James Bradley

Reviewed by Ms Herlinger

Set in the near future, with global warming worsening with each year that passes, Clade is a loose collection of episodes in the life of a family - set against a background of a world in peril. Beginning with power cuts, bird die-offs, progressing to tropical cyclones in England, refugees from flooded lands, a global pandemic,  technology to replace lost worlds and lost people, it could be depressing, but it’s not. It’s just a fascinating glimpse into a possible future world – if we don’t act now.

Themes ticked: environmental disaster, global pandemic, decline in the fabric of society, set during the catastrophe

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Reviewed by Ms Agnostopoulos

Thomas wakes up in dark box that is slowly moving upwards. He has no memory of how he got there or who he is. All he knows is his name. When the box gets to the top Thomas enters The Glade, a field surrounded on all sides by a mile high wall. The Glade is populated by other teenage boys who have also had their memories stripped. Some have been there for 2 years, with a new boy arriving once a month. The box also brings some supplies, but the boys have to work to survive. They tend crops, raise animals and keep the place in order, but their main objective is to escape the maze that is outside the stone walls.

Within the maze are monsters called Grievers who mostly come out at night - mostly. Each night the doors to the maze close. Overnight the walls of the maze change, and each day ‘runners’ explore the maze and return to map out the changes. After two years they have still not found an exit. A couple of days after Thomas arrives the box brings someone else to The Glade - a girl in a coma. In her fist is a note that reads ‘She is the last one ever’. Thomas gets flashes of his memory back and soon realises that her arrival signals the end for The Glade. It is time to finally solve The Maze and find out why they were put there in the first place.

Themes ticked: catastrophic event, decline in the fabric of society, set during the catastrophe