5 Dark Dystopian Novels for the 21st Century. Check out our selection for the Best Dystopian Books
Dystopia: 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.
1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible, Cormac McCarthy’s classic dystopian novel The Road is one of the most shocking, harrowing and bleak visions of the future ever created. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love.
The Road is the most readable of his works, and consistently brilliant in its imagining of the posthumous condition of nature and civilization
2. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.
3. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The first volume in the internationally acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future.
Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey—with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake—through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
4. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Bacigalupi’s taut thriller, The Water Knife, tells the story of Angel Velasquez, a “water knife” working for the state of Nevada trying to infiltrate and destroy Arizona’s water supply and investigate rumors of senior legal rights to water from the Colorado River.
Set in the near future where the Colorado river has slowed to a trickle and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.
5. American War by Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad’s first novel, American War encourages western readers to put themselves in the shoes of the world’s displaced people. Set in the late 21st century, the novel imagines an America wrecked by war and the flooding brought on by climate change. Its heroine, Sarat Chestnutt, grows up in a shack by the Mississippi, in a Louisiana eaten away by the rising Gulf of Mexico. A handful of southern states, refusing to abide by federal laws prohibiting the use of fossil fuels, have attempted to secede from the union, setting off a second civil war.
If you enjoyed our recommendations for best Dystopian Novels, check out our reading list for Classic Sci-Fi Books
