living in a dystopia?!

Dystopia, noun ( (ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pē-ə ):: an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.

…the IRL dictionary…

The first ever dystopian story I encountered was, of course, The Giver.

I read this Newberry Medal winner in fourth grade, and again in sixth grade when it was assigned in class. I’m certain you’ve heard of it. It introduced most millennials to the genre. The story includes as many dystopian tropes as it can hold, and ostentatiously, too. Published in the, ahem, late twentieth century, it was far from cliché, though. It brought rather unique subjects into the heads of children, including things like the nature of emotions and how we feel them, how we communicate experiences, and of course, the role of memory…

The Giver stuck with me, but not as much as other, later (older) dystopias I would read. I think for a lot of youngsters at the time, The Giver was an introduction to dystopian literature as a genre. After that, books like 1984 and Brave New World were already there waiting, so I started devouring them. At my middle school, I know that V. C. Andrews’s psychological thrillers may have been the most popular, but dystopias were a close second. This may have been because the teachers were very encouraging of us to read that kind of thing (hey, some were classics), but still…

When I was in fifth grade, I tried writing my very own dystopian story for a class assignment. I had a cousin who also read The Giver. I wrote a story where she woke up in a “mirror universe” where everything was gray and there was “no such thing as love.” It was pretty funny, and I remember that I made my cousin the main character specifically because the idea of it being me was too creepy. In the story, she broke a mirror to get back to our universe and told me about it. IRL, my cousin thought it was the best thing ever.

From the preponderance of offerings that cropped up over the next quarter-century, it seemed that tons of other millennials were interested in reading (and writing) dystopian literature, too. I admit I still can’t quite quantify why it sticks with us so well, though many reasons are obvious.

It’s not because our lives are “wretched” necessarily. Mine sure isn't! It’s not (just) because we’ve seen a bunch of bad things happen on the news. Arguably, every generation since mass media was invented has seen that.

If I were writing this in a “zine” in the 1980s, I would probably be capable of pointing out plenty of bad news, too. Indeed, plenty of 1980s “zines” probably did just that, sounding the alarm about the dystopian aspects of that era. Reaganomics, the AIDS epidemic, Cold War tensions, and much more.

Nowadays, though, we’re all in a state of constant connection never before possible, something Reagan never would’ve imagined. We’re all still figuring out how the hell we’re supposed to act in this strange online world, and to make matters even more complicated, the technology keeps constantly changing.

That in and of itself seems a little dystopian, eh? This has ramifications for geopolitics and culture, of course, too, that seem pretty grim at times.

Also? We’ve seen a bunch of bad things happen that we weren’t expecting, that we believed were impossible. It’s always hard for a generation to prepare their descendants for the world to come. In the case of recent generations which saw the birth of the internet and the changes that ensued, that was relatively impossible.

People compare the development of ubiquitous computing to the Industrial Revolution; I would actually compare it to the discovery of fire or the development of writing. It changed the world. The upshot of that, though? The world we were raised to survive in doesn’t actually exist.

The name of this website is meant to sound a little dystopian. Fabled Day very well could be the name of some kind of dystopian novel, couldn’t it? I had that firmly in mind when I picked it. I admit it. This site leans, however ironically, into the idea of digital life as a confusing dystopia of sorts.

It may not be the gritty cyberpunk world folks would’ve imagined in the 1990s, but the internet of the 2020s does feel pretty dystopian. There’s a reason my sections on nostalgia reference older phases of the internet’s development as the Before Times, after all.

In any case, it’s not a good thing, obviously. I mean that both in the sense that it’s not good that life invokes these feelings, and also that it’s probably not good to think about the real world in fictional terms.

Dystopias, after all, are interesting to read about - not to live in. Fictional dystopias, often clustered around philosophical edicts, are neatly-designed. They’re easy to dismantle, provided you’re spunky and capable of choosing between the two eligible legs of the love triangle. Reality is never so simple, darlings.

But still, we can learn a lot from dystopian stories about the human condition. People read and write them for a reason, and they do speak to us. So, scroll on downwards; I've prepared a vast selection of fictional dystopias for you to potentially explore...

Dystopian Directory

There are tons of books out there that qualify as dystopias. There are a lot of movies, too, of course. I’d argue that the genre long predates the word’s first usage (in 1919, apparently). Here, I’m listing all the dystopian media that made a strong impression on me. I don’t recommend everything listed here, but there’s plenty of things worth reading.

Some of these I read years ago (decades even) and I’m jotting down my thoughts from then. Given how popular YA dystopian novels have become, plenty fall in that genre, too.

I’ll also be giving each book a 0-5 rating, too. It’ll be 0-5 stars, even though stars don’t often shine in these dystopias. Zero stars means I didn’t like the work. Five means it was excellent.

These are in alphabetical order, nothing more. Some are series, and I only read the first few books in some cases. Not included are fanfictions or other online work, but maybe I should. This list will probably grow as entries occur to me, or I read more…

• 1984 - George Orwell 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: You know this story. Everyone knows this story. Winston, living in what was once Britain, finds himself at odds with the authoritarian rule of Big Brother.
• Children of Men 🎥: Last one to die please turn off the lights. The world faces a plague of infertility that threatens the future of the human race. Asks more questions than it answers, but that’s okay.
• A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess 📕 🎥 ⭐⭐⭐★★: In Britain of the 21st century, justice is curative, not punitive. In case you didn’t know, this is an exceptionally edgy story. Tangles with issues of what makes the self, and the role of the state.
• Among the Hidden - Margaret Peterson Haddix 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: Twelve-year-old Luke Garner is an illegal third child. If his existence is discovered, he will be killed or imprisoned. When he meets someone new, his secret world expands…
• A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick. 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: Where is Substance D coming from? Follows a jaded police informant investigating the drug in question in the distant cyberpunk future of 1994. The scene with the LSD is the best (you’ll get there).
• Animal Farm - George Orwell 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: Probably qualifies as a dystopia from a goat’s perspective. The animals on a small farm give the farmer the boot and institute their own regime - but will it last? Can they trust themselves?
• Anthem - Ayn Rand 📕 ⭐⭐★★★: The word “I” is banned. It is a sin to think in first person, but our protagonist does just that. A very over-the-top, on-the-nose portrayal of a hyper-collectivized society by Rand that almost works but is cartoonish in many respects.
• Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand 📕 ⭐★★★★: Workers go on strike all the time, but what about (so-called) captains of industry? The author genuinely believed this could happen and wouldn’t just be a blip on a slow news day. Not a fan of Rand, but I did read this.
• Battle Royale - Koushun Takami 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: A trope codifier for a reason. The setting is an alternate universe where Japan won World War II, and the characters are seventh graders forced into a deathmatch ostensibly as a military training exercise.
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: In London’s distant future, no one is born. Humans grow in bottles, and the system prepares everyone for their future career from before birth. When a free-range human enters the system, chaos ensures.
• Delirium - Lauren Oliver 📕 ⭐⭐★★★: Love is a deadly disease known as deliria nervosa… This story takes place in an alternate universe where love is considered a mental illness. Seventeen-year-old Lena awaits her mandatory inoculation for it at the age of eighteen…
• Divergent - Veronica Roth 📕 ⭐⭐★★★: Following calamities, Chicago society has seen fit to divide itself into five factions, each with a different duty and mindset. As you might expect from a dystopia, this asks what happens to those who don’t quite fit…
• Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: You know this one, but you might think it’s about censorship. It’s not. Not really. It’s about a society where people have lost interest in reading and the life of the mind. That is why they’re burning the books.
• Feed - MT Anderson 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: Plenty of books feature characters with computers in their heads. None focus quite so heavily on the obvious, though - a computer in your brain would surely mean some advertisements there, too, right? That, and more.
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth - Carrie Ryan 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: Zombies, okay. Zombies. Despite that, it gives you a sense of grit and realism. It’s not campy at all - I promise. There’s a lot of action scenes, some of which are difficult to follow. First in a series.
• The Giver - Lois Lowry 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: In a peacefully nondescript “community,” a young man named Jonas nervously awaits his Ceremony of Twelve, where he’ll receive his career assignment and enter adult life. You’ve probably already read this one.
• The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: When birth rates worldwide mysteriously decline, America becomes a twisted Biblical theocracy where the remaining fertile women are forced to bear children for the elite.
• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: Insanely popular for the past twenty years, this series probably kicked off a lot of the “dystopian” buzz. You probably already know that it’s about a deathmatch, and teenagers who must survive to stop it.
• Skinned/Frozen - Robin Wasserman 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: A skinner can talk, but so can my refrigerator… Following an accident, Lia’s mind is downloaded into a robot body. Now, her personhood is deeply in question according to huge parts of society, and she struggles to adapt to her new circumstances.
• The Girl Who Owned a City - OT Nelson 📕 ⭐★★★★: When an age-specific plague wipes out all adults, a remarkable girl named Lisa with objectivist leanings takes survival into her own hands Not well-written, but tries to be think-y.
• Idiocracy 🎥 ⭐⭐★★★: Five hundred years from now, a man awakens from cryogenic hibernation to find a world devoid of intelligence. Can he change things for the better? Vaguely amusing.
• Logan’s Run 🎥 ⭐⭐⭐★★: We’re presented with a beautiful, youthful techno-paradise, but what keeps it that way? No one is a day over thirty, and it is Logan’s job to see to that. Clearly made in the 1970s.
• Matched - Ally Condie 📕 ⭐⭐★★★: Full of homages to other classic dystopias, this one presents a peaceful society where each individual is “matched” with a proper partner as a teenager. Cassia is initially happy with her “match,” but…
• The Matrix 🎥 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: One of the most popular movies of the 1990s, this features a dystopia ruled by tyrannical artificial intelligences who have trapped humanity in a vast alternate reality of lies. Neo awakens within, of course.
• Minority Report 🎥 ⭐⭐⭐★★: In a high tech future, crimes can be predicted and prevented courtesy precognition. What happens when it all inevitably goes wrong?
• Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: Young children play at a British boarding school, but something’s a little off. Where are the parents, and what happens when they grow up? Despite the bare plot being so “out-there,” this one is more of a character study in my opinion.
• Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: Hard to summarize, but shows a hypercapitalist society ultimately slaughtered. This is one of the most disturbing dystopias I’ve ever read, touching on all kinds of horrifying things. It’s still a good read, raising interesting questions about transhumanism.
• This Perfect Day - Ira Levin 📕 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★: …Marx, Christ, Wood and Wei, Brought us to This Perfect Day… Welcome to a unified world. It only rains at nighttime, per the central computer, which customizes every aspect of the human experience. This is the most intricate dystopia I’ve read.
• Ready Player One - Ernest Cline 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: In a messy future roughened by the effects of climate change, people escape into a high tech simulation known as the Oasis. Wade, the teenaged main character, joins his friends in a high stakes scavenger hunt therein.
• Soylent Green 🎥 ⭐⭐★★★: A detective in the future investigates some murders associated with food processing executives. You know the rest because the whole plot is in the meme. “It’s people.” The end. I personally found the movie kind of dull and heavy on the anti-population preachiness.
• Uglies - Scott Westerfeld 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: Teens in a world of mandatory cosmetic surgery fight for their own faces and autonomy in a technicolor high tech dreamworld powered by nanotechnology and magnetic levitation. Features a lot of clever invented slang.
• Unwind - Neal Shusterman 📕 ⭐⭐★★★: Teenagers and children scheduled to be “unwound” and harvested for spare organs journey through the strange world that produced the practice to begin with, but can they change it? The premise is a little half-baked, in my opinion. If you accept it, the story is decent.
• V for Vendetta - Alan Moore 📕 ⭐⭐⭐★★: A comic. Following global unrest, Britain sees the rise of an authoritarian regime. With it, the appearance of an unusual terrorist with a penchant for Fawksian masks opposing the oppressive control…
• Waterworld 🎥 ⭐⭐★★★: Once notorious for tanking and wasting money, this high concept film features a world where society has collapsed because most of the landmasses have been covered in… water.