Dystopian fiction is interested in imagining what would happen if everything went horribly wrong some time in the future (distant, or not-too distant). The word ‘dystopia’ was conceived to be the opposite of ‘utopia,’ which in turn comes from the Greek roots οὐ-τόπος (the not-place) and εὖ-τόπος (the good place). So, while a utopia is a perfect society that cannot truly exist, a dystopia is a broken society that is normally based in some way on the real world.
Sometimes it has a bit of a sci-fi feel (like the spaceship setting in Across the Universe), but it’s nearly always a bit bleak (like the list below!). The horrible wrong-ness can be due to social, political (or socio-political) problems (see The Hunger Games, Divergent, 1984 for example). It can also be due to environmental problems (Ship Breaker, The Water Wars, Blood Red Road etc).
Here’s a selection of dystopian/futuristic titles for you to work your way through. Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list, but if you think there’s something worthy that we haven’t mentioned then email us about it!
Updated May 2020
Flawed, Cecelia Ahern
- Feed, M T Anderson
- Genesis, Bernard Beckett
- Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman
- Winterkill (series), Kate Boorman
- Selection (series), Kiera Cass
- The Hunger Games (trilogy), Suzanne Collins
Matched (trilogy) Ally Condie
- The Maze Runner (series), James Dashner
- Salt (trilogy), Maurice Gee
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding
- Gone (series), Michael Grant
- Rated, Melissa Grey
- Blood of the Lamb (trilogy), Mandy Hager
- When We Wake, Karen Healey
The Giver (series), Lois Lowry
- Legend (series), Marie Lu
- Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi
- The Declaration series, Gemma Malley
- The Unidentified, Rae Mariz
- We Set the Dark on Fire, Tehlor Mejia
- Chaos Walking (trilogy), Patrick Ness
The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness
- Delirium (trilogy) and Requiem (duology), Lauren Oliver
- Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
- Wilder Girls, Rory Power
- Divergent (series), Veronica Roth
- Scythe (series), Neil Shusterman
- Uglies (series), Scott Westerfeld
- Dustlands (trilogy) Moira Young
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