Out Of The Ashes

An Uprising Of Dystopian Fiction…

“If you are around long enough the stories you read, or watch, or listen to are distant. Until they become close.”

Possibly none more so than tales of dystopian fiction, which saw a rise in readership with the release of The Hunger Games books, and the wave of popularity has only gained momentum with the success of The Handmaids Tale television series. The later leading to a geyser of more female centered books (labelled feminist dystopia) that tackle uncomfortable topics such as the pervasiveness of gender inequality, misogyny, violence against women and the erosion of not only reproductive rights, but the basic human ones. To read them can be polarizing, certainly as a woman or minority of any kind. Ultimately these stories of fiction are meant to entertain, possibly to spark lively conversation. Despite that many readers look to fictional tales to see how people are wrestling with issues, we cannot burden them with the obligation to influence change or predict the future.

If a utopia is a paradise, then a dystopia is a paradise lost. Both types of books succeed or fail based on how convincingly and relevantly they correspond to the world we currently find ourselves in. This genre of fiction is often of a speculative nature, taking place in an imagined backdrop which is somehow unpleasant. Often totalitarian or post-apocalyptic and characterized by suffering, oppression, and fear. Populated with citizens rebelling against the status quo in the anticipation of catastrophe. An unease can come to the reader as they might ask of themselves, could this really happen? Are these cautionary tales warning of a future we are destined for should we not alter the course we are on? While it occurs to me as a lifelong reader that some of the older dystopian novels might seem prescient now, I wouldn’t ever consider them as having been instructive or prophetic.

My reason for enjoying this type of fiction is a simple one, they can be great stories of a world that is not our own, populated with heroes we wish to be. They fit the definition of fiction; stories that are derived from the imagination. And the more my imagination is stimulated the better.

For this features recommendations I have included a snippet of information, so you might know what you are getting into.

Feminist Dystopia

Vox – Christina Dalcher

· An ultraconservative party gains control of the White House and enacts policies that force women to become homemakers, no longer taught to read or write and limited in their right to speak.

Red Clocks – Leni Zumas

· Abortion and in vitro fertilization are illegal, and embryos are enshrined with a right to life. The effects of this are told through multiple narrators.

Water Cure – Sophie Mackintosh

· What if masculinity were literally toxic? Three sisters raised in a relative bubble find themselves adrift when the only man they have ever seen, their father, disappears.

The Power – Naomi Alderman

· What would happen if women suddenly possessed a new power? One that allows them to deliver agonizing pain and even death with just a touch.

When She Woke – Hilary Jordan

· Scarlet is the colour of much more than just a letter now. Repression at its most terrifying.

Only Ever Yours – Louise O’Neill

· Women are no longer born but made, to the specifications of a man’s idea of perfection. The Stepford Wives of today’s fiction.

Young Adult Dystopia

Battle Royale – Koushun Takami

· A deserted island where inhabitants are forced to participate in a ruthless and violent experiment. Hailed as the Lord Of The Flies for the 21st century.

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

· Action packed story set in a brutal, totalitarian future with a literal survival story at its core.

Company Town – Madeline Ashby

· The last fully organic human being in this unusual town finds herself pulled into a murder mystery of a different kind.

The Giver – Lois Lowry

· Set in what “appears” to be a utopia, a story of contentment at the cost of real feeling.

City Of Ember – Jeanne DuPrau

· A community living in the literal dark in what was built as the last refuge for the human race are challenged by the dwindling of supplies.

Proxy – Alex London

· Every rich person in this world gets a proxy to take their punishments. When a young man and his proxy realize they have more in common then imagined the adventure begins.

Sci-Fi Dystopia

Red Rising – Pierce Brown

· An interstellar caste system where people are colour coded. High action with very creative world building.

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

· Reality is ugly compared to the virtual utopia OASIS. Puzzles within this digital world’s confines are truly unique and entertaining for the reader.

A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick

· High tech combined with a war on drugs creates a unique story. A classic!

Yesterday – Felicia Yap

· Imagine a world in which classes are divided not by wealth or religion but by how much they can remember?

Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson

· Virtual reality, computer viruses and a potential infocalypse.

Severance – Ling Ma

· When a plague of biblical proportions sweeps through this world a fever strikes that wipes out the world as we know it.

Fiction Dystopia

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

· A self-contained school is a haven from the outside world. But not really. This story is very nuanced with mystery and drama in equal measure.

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel

· A novel about art, fame and ambition, set in the eerie days of civilizations collapse.

The Fireman – Joe Hill

· Story of a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and the improbable heroes who gather together to save it.

Super Sad True Love Story – Gary Shteyngart

· Can love redeem a world on the edge of epic crisis? A near future setting and an America crushed by a financial crisis bring two people together to answer that question.