Dystopias and Similar

[Prof. Rilla White]

So, for the past few years I have been on a Dystopia kick. No one can seem to write them as fast as I can read them. With work I haven't had as much time to read so I was excited for the extra time this summer.

On the way home from our honeymoon location my husband and I listened to the first in the Maze Runner series which is just called Maze Runner. It was a little slow moving in a few parts but otherwise I enjoyed listening to it. I can usually tell when I enjoy a book by whether I go find the next in the series or hunt down more books from the same author. As soon as we got home I hurried to find a digital copy of book 2 The Scorch Trials which only took me a few days to devour. Finally, this week I just finished The Death Cure which is my first book for the summer reading challenge.

For those looking to read The Maze Runner I'll warn you it's pretty dark and fairly graphic at parts, more so than some dystopias I've read and less so than others. The main character you can't help but like and also kind of get annoyed with. The supporting characters are great. This series has one of the things I really enjoy with most young adult fiction and that is humor. I love the fact that even though people are going through horrible things they are able to crack jokes and try to keep their spirits up. I hope if anything horrible happens to our world similar to any of these dystopias that at least some people will be able to find the humor in it all.

So, my question is... who else is totally addicted to dystopias? Who else finds themselves reading them all even if they have similar themes or if some of them just really aren't that good? I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say and maybe getting some more ideas of books to read.

[Prof. Rilla White]

I'd hoped some other folks would add to this thread but alas no one has yet.

I've finished another Dystopia, The Program by Suzanne Young which is part of a series. This series is placed sometime in the somewhat near future. People have smart phones, tvs, etc. but there aren't any flying cars or really any major technologies we don't have now. The premise of the series is that there is an epidemic among teenagers and teens who show symptoms are forced to get treatment in The Program.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

I also went through a phase of wanting to read any dystopias I could get my hands on. Some books/series that have intrigued me include Divergent (although I confess I wasn’t too happy with Allegiant ),The Hunger Games, The Giver and Station Eleven.

Most recently, I read The Testing series by Joelle Charbonneau. The first book is centered around Malencia, or Cia, who for years has wanted nothing more than to be chosen for the Testing so that she can take her place at the University and become a future leader of the United Commonwealth. However, as she later finds out, the Testing is not as glamorous as it first seemed.

While I found there were a number of parallels to other dystopias, particularly The Hunger Games, and a few things seemed rather extreme, I found myself turning the pages, eager to read more. The last book (and the events leading up to it) were disappointing, however, as certain things didn’t make much sense, such as the president putting a teenage girl in charge of a rebellion. Other aspects such as whether or not Cia could trust certain characters quickly grew tiresome.

There are a few other dystopias I have been eyeing out, so chances are I’ll be back here soon.

[Prof. Gustavo Flores]

Prof. Rilla, have you read the classic one Fahnrenheit 451?? It was written by Ray Bradbury, and this novel narrates about a future in which books are prohibited and the job of firemen is to burn all the books that they find! That is definately a future I would never like to see! Take my books, and you take away my life!

Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, is also quite good! There are some short stories in that book that really leave you thinking if you like dystopian novels.

I have always related dystopias with science fiction, and the following author has written some of them, that are not precisely dystopias but they talk about the future but taking it from a humanistic point of view, and it actually gives you hope. The author is Theodore Sturgeon, and the particular book I am talking about is The Dreaming Jewels.From Sturgeon, there's also a short story titled Special Aptitude, that is simply LOVE!! It narrates about an outerspace journey, with a special mission to find the Venus Crystals, however in order to reach them they have to face the Gabblers, some threating-look creatures. The ending is not what you would expect and the main character, Slopes, is endearing, and it teaches us such a great lesson

So if you like science fiction, and reading about perspectives of the future, I would recommend these two reading by Theodore Sturgeon

[Hannah R Thomas]

I guess you can say that this is along the lines of a dystopia genre, in which the author, Richelle Mead, takes her new the YA series, The Glittering Court, and brings in some actual history as a base in creating the storyline. This is a trilogy of the same story, but of each book taking a different person's point of view (P.O.V). The storylines are different for each person and their journeys are different. For example, one is along the lines of being rich and wishes to escape the life of an arranged marriage and another is that of a war refugee. I would say that you can read either book in the series The Glittering Court (I read this last year) or it's "sequel," Midnight Jewel, (just came out) first and still know about each character with little crossover in the protagonists' stories.

[Hannah R Thomas]

Another dystopia collection of books is Chicagoland Vampires by Chloe Neill. There are currently 13 books in the series and I have read up to the 10th, Blood Games. You are basically in Chicago, where the protagonist, Merit, goes from a normal life as a graduate student to everything going down the hole. Merit is dragged into a supernatural world that takes her on many different journeys around the new world she exposed to, friends, and family. She becomes the vampire everyone takes interest to: other vampires, werewolves, shifters, etc. It's her world going from quiet to her being the center of attention.

[Rowan Oswald]

I don’t know if you have already read some of the more classic dystopias, but I have finally got around to reading Clockwork Orange this summer and it fits the bill. The protagonist, Alex is a 15-year-old boy and it’s written in first person from his perspective, which makes it all the more intense. It does take a little while to get used to the invented slang words, but it is done very cleverly so it works to make the world more real. What I thought was brilliant was that there are no morally good characters and unlike some modern dystopia fiction, there’s no clear cut ‘good side’.

Alex’s parents are afraid to go out at night because teenagers like Alex himself stalk the street beating people up, breaking into houses, thieving and worse. At the same time, what happens to Alex when he’s caught is terrifying. It’s a pretty short book, but it’s the kind of thing that makes you think for a long time afterwards.

[Hanna Inari]

I liked dystopias even before I knew what they are, and it's one of my favourite plots in books (and films and anime). For example, one of my favourite animes "Toward Terra" has such a plot, as does the famous book "Hungry Games" (even though I'm not really into it, and I didn't read the other books or watch the films). I usually met dystopias as a part of the plot rather than an actual and main storyline, so recently I decided to delve into classics and read two books: "1984" by Orwell and "Brave New World" by Huxley.

It wasn't a very pleasant experience, especially with "1984". After reading it I shouted to my friend that the things shown there were unpleasant and even nauseating, and that I didn't get why one would write such a horrid book because everything might be shown in a more beautiful way. Even though I realise that this must be the author's aim to shock the reader and thus make them think about the downsides of our society, I still don't like it. Also, it doesn't have any plot, all the characters are unpleasant and, in general, it would look better as a philosophical text rather than a fictional book. In addition, in my opinion the world shown there is illogical and can't exist in reality; all the motives of the party were unlikely. But I realise that I'm lucky to live in the present where the main part of the reality that was more similar to this book already became the past.

The other one, "Brave New World", is more interesting and lighter. It actually has a plot, and I could even empathise with some of the characters. Also, it is more similar to the problems we have now. It shows a bunch of modern problems such as loneliness among others who don't like you because you're different, fear of being alone, prevailing of the physical aspect of love, pressure of society, high standards that make you hated by others if you're not enough young and beautiful. Even though I liked it in general, I didn't like its ending. It was unexpected but it wasn't good.

The next dystopia I'd like to read is Fahrenheit 451 and I have high hopes for it because Bradbury is one of my favourite writers. The only worry I have is that I always cry when I read his books. But if somebody could write a dystopia that I'd like, it should be him.

[Shiloh Adlar]

During my drive, I decided to download an audiobook to listen to, and Otherworld by Jason Segel really stood out to me. It said that fans of Ready Player One would most likely enjoy this story, and I thoroughly did. While, like Ready Player One, Otherworld takes place inside of a game, the dystopian aspect of it comes from The Company and this new technology they call the disc. The disc allows people to have all five senses functioning inside the Otherworld game rather than simply sight, hearing and touch through the use of haptic gloves. But what happens when a person gets stuck inside of Otherworld while using the disc and is unable to escape? To some, that might seem lucky to leave reality in exchange for a new one, but to others, it could mean the difference between life and death.

There is a mystery piled onto everything and the main character, a boy named Simon, is determined to figure it out to save his best friend and in the grand scheme of things, both Otherworld AND the real world. But the question that comes up is, "Which world is real?"

Highly recommend this to those who liked Ready Player One. I would also like to mention that Jason Segel, the author, also narrates the book for the audio version and does an incredible job! He really brings the characters and story to life! So if you're going to be traveling this summer, I would suggest the audio version this one time. You won't regret it.

[Shiloh Adlar]

After a recommendation from the lovely Gail Allen, I picked up the book Angelfall by Susan Ee. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it at first, but at a certain point, it was really difficult to have to stop reading because I had to do research or go volunteer or go to work, but I finally finished it (at work I might add...oops) and I'm still unsure what I think about the ending to the first book in this trilogy. I guess I'll need to read the second one to see where it's going to go. However, I really liked the idea of angels being at war but having no idea why they're at war. It was also interesting to see the problems going on between the angels themselves. With Raffe and Uriel both in line or fighting to be the new messenger of God, so much stuff ends up happening. Angels are also very human which took a while for me to get used to such as them having blood and needing to eat food and having desires. Though reading the Cassandra Clare books has definitely opened up the supernatural portion for me in a lot of ways when it comes to what you learn as a small child by religious leaders and what is now taught in pop culture.

The issue with Paige is one I'm really curious about and about the scorpion angels and the minor demons which I guess is what the angels turned Paige into. That's the part I want to see where it goes. Also, I have this huge concern for Raffe and when he sees Penryn again and how that meeting will go now that he has these demon wings. Everything is kind of going crazy.

The series does have me hooked now however, so I will be finishing it as soon as I finish the other books I'm working on.

[Prof. Maxim Trevelyan]

I really like dystopias and one of my favorite books (and also favorite movies) is (The) Children of Men. The humans of this world have, for some reason, become infertile and the last generation of children that were born are now adults. Civilization itself is slowly breaking down with despair commonplace and no hope for the future, until Theodore Faron, the protagonist of the story, is contacted by a revolutionary who might hold a key to the humanity’s salvation.

I came to this book through first watching the movie with Clive Owen in the main role. Both, the book and the movie, are so very good, but you will find they “read” as two different stories about the same man in the same world. For some reason, it works and both do a very good job.

From all dystopia that were introduced to us, I found that I much prefer the near-realism dystopia, where the society has not crumbled completely (as opposed to something like The Maze Runner series), but is just on that teetering edge of “will it or will it not” as with The Children of Men. This story paints a more realistic picture of one of our possible futures that I appreciate more than barren, dusty wastelands (not that those cannot be extremely well written).

Book also touches on important social themes, such as immigration, which are still quite relevant today. These themes give the book the resonance that hit me while reading. What people and the government are willing to do when there is no hope imaginable is something that you do not want to imagine, but know deep down that this is what would happen should the circumstances of the dystopian world come to pass in our reality.