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- Reedsy
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Buy on Amazon. While it was published in 1949, this famous work is predictably set in 1984. Orwell’s world foresees only three continental-sized nations, at least one of which is overseen by an ubiquitous, watchful government.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Buy on Amazon. Set in a world that many of us avid readers would find nightmarish, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” who is becoming disillusioned with his job — to put it simply, he’s assigned to set fire to books, rather than put fires out.
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Buy on Amazon. In this once-futuristic world — the book was published in 1985 about the near future — America is taken over by a religious sect, and the order of the country is pushed back several centuries.
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Buy on Amazon. In contrast to the well-crafted orders we’ve encountered thus far, The Road transports us to a universe shattered by an unnamed catastrophe.
- Karen Cicero
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Hailed by the New York Times as “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction,” Margaret Atwood crafted a novel that feels as relevant today as it did when it was published in 1985.
- 1984 by George Orwell. While nearly four decades have passed since the title year, this book’s themes of surveillance and censorship are still relevant today.
- The Stand by Stephen King. One of the most relatable dystopian books, Stephen King‘s 1978 bestseller is set in a world forever altered by a pandemic. A strain of super-flu will kill most people in the world within a few weeks, and the few who are left will need a leader.
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Twenty years after a pandemic changed the world forever, Kirsten Raymonde and a group of actors and musicians try to keep the arts alive.
- 1984 by George Orwell (1949) George Orwell's classic tale of governmental oversight and constraints of freethinking remains relevant in modern discourse as the term "Orwellian" is used and misused constantly.
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014) Adapted into an HBO Max miniseries, Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven is a tribute to art and human connection.
- The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895) H.G. Wells' 19th-century novel The Time Machine follows a time traveler into the future, 80,000 years beyond his life to a world of two races: the Eloi and the Morlocks.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) This classic of world literature, Fahrenheit 451 follows Guy Montag, a firefighter whose job is to burn books along with the houses where the now illegal texts are hidden.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) A book about the burning of books. Powerful words about the power of the written word. In 1953, Ray Bradbury gave the world a chilling view of a possible future based all too deeply in the truths of the past and present—the bonfires of the vanities throughout history leading up to the Nazi book burnings just a decade earlier and the Senate Subcommittee of Juvenile Delinquency that was about to launch an attack on comic books.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949) When we say something is Orwellian, what we are truly saying is that say it exhibits the authoritarian specter of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Big Brother.
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) Predating George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and, in some ways, proving even more prescient, Aldous Huxley’s vicious undoing of utopia proves that the most brutal deaths can come from the softest touch.
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945) Not all classics are worth their continued inclusion in the canon, but George Orwell’s Animal Farm, one of the 20 century’s seminal dystopian narratives, continues to offer lasting significance.
Explore the genre of dystopia, which depicts a nightmare world of social and political oppression. Find new releases, popular books, lists, and recommendations for dystopia fans on Goodreads.
511 books based on 1043 votes: 1984 by George Orwell, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Divergent by Veronica Roth, ...
Aug 31, 2019 · Looking for your next read? Peruse our pick of the best dystopian novels of all time and realise that things could be a lot worse
