So I was in for a shock when I read some of the definitions of dystopia just now. There are just too many! According to ReadWriteThink, dystopia is “A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control.” I like the definition by MasterClass better since that is more in line with how I categorized my books in this genre:
Dystopian fiction offers a vision of the future. Dystopias are societies in cataclysmic decline, with characters who battle environmental ruin, technological control, and government oppression. Dystopian novels can challenge readers to think differently about current social and political climates, and in some instances can even inspire action.
MasterClass
All of the books I mention below offer an amazing commentary on our future, and I believe every single one of them is possible to some extent at least, whether through technology or through fantasy. Will it really happen? We will find out in the coming years! Skip to the end of the article to find out how all 5 books could be connected! That’s the part I’m excited to share. 🙂
I recently described my reading experience criteria and I’ll be using them here to help explain how the book was overall for me. I hope these help you find a book that resonates with you!
A World within a Factory
Do you think in the near future all package deliveries will be done by drones? Will we find other uses for drones?
The Warehouse by Rob Hart is a world just waiting to descend on us. It introduces us to the Cloud, a multi-billionaire corporation that employees thousands of people in jobs ranging from security, packaging, health-care, cleaning, tech, and much more. Working at Cloud provides financial stability as well as a place to call home. On the surface, Cloud seems like a good place to work, but is it really?
I really enjoyed this book. It was seasoned with commentary on a number of issues that we face today – the access to guns in America, the reliability on delivery systems like Amazon (not yet drone operated but that’s in the works), green energy, the business vs the government model, law and order, and even waste waste management.
I thought for the longest time that this was based around Amazon and was fascinated to learn from Rob that Walmart had been his inspiration. A gripping story that had a fascinating plot!
A World without Public Gatherings
When was the last time you attended a music concert or a party? What if you could not do it anymore because governments are terrified of terrorism and, in the past, there has been a widespread epidemic that spread due to crowds? Can you see that happening in the near future?
A Song for A New Day by Sarah Pinsker is based on this captivating premise and follows the story of Luce, a musician in the After. She lived music. This is an amazing story about music, finding oneself and one’s purpose, while at the same time, touching on many of the issues that we are starting to see in everyday life, the addiction to devices, in particular. With an underlying commentary on big cooperations controlling everything, data privacy and recommendations, through this book, follow Luce’s journey to bring her music to those who want to hear.
A World without a Home
Where would space travel lead us and why would we ever leave the earth? What would we do to reminisce of the places we have lost?
What we see in the Smoke by Ben Berman Ghan was the first book I posted about on my blog. It captivated me from the very start, giving a glimpse of the past, present and future, touching upon 2016-3036. The book is a collection of short stories and I must say, every story is a mystery. Some characters appear in multiple stories, but most stories are standalone. As I am writing about it, I want to go back and reread it because it contained so many personal accounts, whether from humans or androids.
The stories touch on issues such as cannibalism, human organ trafficking, acceptance of androids as being alive. In a unique way they also look at how and why humanity will get there. Also taking a deeper dive into what an artificial intelligence might think like one day, struggling with its own identity and in some cases, to make sure that the humans it loves survive. – That blew my mind!
A World without Order
What happens when the world is in chaos? What happens when memory starts to fail us? What happens where there is no electricity?
When and why would that even happen? I chose to include The Book of M in this post because it presents a glimpse into the mayhem. This may not happen in the way it is described in the book – maybe we will loose our shadows and learn magic, who knows? – but in times of war, when people no longer trust each other and start to turn to legends to understand things better, that’s the world you are walking into when you read The Book of M.
I read this book as a buddy read with Varun and we had such amazing discussions about our culture (it mentions Hindu mythology at some points), the Forgetting, and much more. The book also highlights the things that we take from granted, shadows for example. As Varun aptly put it, “Shadows are taken for granted just like the air we breathe and with the first two parts of the story, Peng Shepherd seems to emphasize the significance of these trivialities in life.”
A World with a Virtual Escape
When virtual reality offers a better place to live than the physical world itself, would you take it?
There is so much to say about this book and the breathtaking world that it built in my mind! I wish I could describe it in words… Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the book to transport you to a place you don’t want to leave. Paying a tribute to amazing videogames and talking about many of the challenges of escaping into a virtual reality when it becomes hard to deal with reality itself, this book is a favorite of some of my friends and I can’t wait to pick it up again.
I read it as an audio book and though I have seen the movie, I need to read it to tell you more. Sorry my listening isn’t the best sometimes. Book thoughts post coming after the reread! 🙂
How they all connect
The whole intent of this post was not to make a list of these books but actually to think deeply about how one can possibly connect or branch off into the other.
Since What we see in the smoke is the one with the longest timeline, I think it would happen in parallel with The Warehouse, A Song for A New Day, Ready Player One. The Book of M would take place much later in the What we see in the smoke timeline when large cities have been destroyed and people have had to find other planets to live on.
Though the worlds in Ready Player One and The Warehouse do not have the same restrictions as A Song for A New Day, elements of government control, limited access to amenities and big cooperations controlling most of what goes on around the world are all present. In A Song for A New Day as well as Ready Player One, virtual reality plays an important role in people’s life since that is how a lot of work takes place. I think the three of these books together give an in-depth picture of the future from the point of view of technology.
I thought about my reading experience of each of these books (take a look at each of these criteria explained in How was the book? – Describing the Reading Experience) and here is how they compared. In the above visuals, I excluded thought provoking and emotional response criteria to be more concise.
I hope that as I read more dystopia, I’m able to build a longer timeline of where ideas from different authors blend together. Each presents a different side to the story and it is fascinating to see how and when they can overlap.
Which dystopian books did you read in 2019 and would recommend for me to check out? Share in the comments below!
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