Here is a list of 9 Must-Read Dystopian Science Fiction Books Everyone Has Heard Of.
1984 by George Orwell
From the blurb:
The year is 1984 and war and revolution have left the world unrecognisable. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, is ruled by the Party, led by Big Brother. Mass surveillance is everything and The Thought Police are employed to ensure that no individual thinking is allowed. Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth, carefully rewriting history, but he dreams of freedom and of rebellion.…
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
From the blurb:
Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means ‘of Fred’. She has only one function: to breed.…
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
From the blurb:
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.…
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
From the blurb:
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free.…
The Giver by Lois Lowry
From the blurb:
It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders.…
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
From the blurb:
Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.…
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
From the blurb:
The landscape is destroyed. Nothing moves save the ash on the wind. Cruel, lawless men stalk the roadside, lying in wait. Attempting to survive in this brave new world, the young boy and his protector have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves. They must keep walking.…
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
From the blurb:
Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn’t just like ultra-violence – he also enjoys rape, drugs and Beethoven’s ninth. He and his gang of droogs rampage through a dystopian future, hunting for terrible thrills.…
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
From the blurb:
America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal.…
