Dystopias

When the electricity goes out, with no explanation and no signs of it returning, Nell, her father, and sister Eva must survive in their isolated forest home. In their isolation, their connection to one another and the nature that surrounds them grows stronger.

If you like survivalist stories, which I seem to (though I don’t tend toward those beliefs), this is a great one. The characters in this book have some luck and circumstances that enable them to manage better than others might have, but their progression toward living with nature is slow and otherwise realistic. Good for contemplating, “What would I do?”

Readers have been abuzz about The Testaments all year. The highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid's Tale answers questions that readers have had for thirty years. What happened to Offred? How did Gilead fall? The book is told in the voices of three females: two young women coming of age--one within Gilead and one outside in Canada--and the famed and cruel Aunt Lydia. The step away from the severe oppression experienced by the handmaids provides other interesting perspectives: that of a child growing up in the regime, knowing nothing else; the views of outside countries and the resistance; and the reasons and ways people become complicit in the rise of oppressive societies.

While not as explosive as The Handmaid's Tale (I first read the book as a young teen and it shook me), The Testaments is a satisfying and compelling conclusion to Atwood's original story. My initial difficulty tracking the three narrators, plus a marked indifference for the two younger characters, knocked this down a bit for me, but Aunt Lydia's story had me hooked. Her choices and systematic long game are excellent book club fodder. Atwood is not subtle in her politics or in the ways she draws parallels to today's political climate. If you share her concerns, or if you're just fascinated by the Gilead of her imagination, this is a must read.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a compelling sci-fi dystopia that has a bit of a Hunger Games feel. The U.S. has implemented a gladiator sport program in which prisoners fight to the death for the entertainment of spectators. If the fighters survive three years in the program, they can be freed. The story follows two women, Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxx” Stacker, who are stars of the program and on the same chain gang, which means they don’t face one another in the ring. The two women are in a relationship, and as Thurwar closes in on her freedom, she tries to help her remaining chain members find connection and humanity in a system determined to dehumanize them.

This is satirical, but also horrifying, and it moves swiftly through the perspectives of the chain-gang members to protestors to workers to fans of the bloodsport. Like those fans, I couldn’t look away from this sharp indictment of the prison system, its racism and violence, and the role of capitalism in our system of justice.

When the power grid and all computer systems operating modern vehicles are inexplicably fried in an instant, Morgan finds himself trekking across Florida to reach his home and family. As society devolves into chaos, his survivalist preparations make him uniquely prepared to face the challenge.

After a flu pandemic kills most of the population, Hig survives in a small abandoned Colorado airport with only his dog and a volatile neighbor for company. When a transmission comes through pointing to signs that there may be a better life out there, he risks everything to try to find it. My first introduction to Peter Heller, and he just keeps getting better with books like the The River. A must-read author if you love great stories backed by excellent nature writing.

Widower Doug and his young son, Tim, are on a backpacking trip in New Hampshire, enjoying new friends, each other's company, and the outdoors. As they near the end of their trip, communications go down and they spot fires below. Rumors of social collapse reach them, though details are vague. Doug decides to go further into the wilderness, where he and Tim settle into a backcountry cabin for a winter on their own, hoping to wait out the turmoil.

I love survival stories, and when you add in some apocalyptic elements, I'm all in. (Though I admit the appeal of those in recent years has waned a bit--it's the ever-closer creeping to reality that's doing it.) This was a quiet version, with the strengthening bond between father and son nicely juxtaposed with the societal unraveling. The outdoor survival aspect makes the publisher's comparison to Peter Heller's The Dog Stars apt, and the unsettling unknown of the collapse is reminiscent of Rumaan Alam's Leave the World Behind.

This was another audiobook attempt, and it's another that I think I would have liked better in print. Luz and Ray are squatting in a movie star's abandoned mansion, trying to survive in a parched California of the near future. When a toddler enters their lives, they decide to escape the area in a search of a better life. Their trek across the desert brings them to a compelling group of people who seem to be thriving under their charismatic leader with a talent for finding water. This dystopian novel is bleak--not quite on par with Cormac McCarthy's The Road (the epitome of bleak novels, for me), but it evokes some of the same feelings. And while the narrator was good, the writing didn't lend itself well to audio; one part was so repetitious that I skipped ahead. Watkins is a talented writer, though, so check out the print version if the story interests you. I'd love to hear opinions from others who read this one.

Related: 13 Eco-Fiction Books about the Environment and Nature

FOUR STARRED REVIEWS!“SPECTACULAR” —Publishers Weekly“AN ADDICTIVE TREAT” —Kirkus Reviews“AN INTRICATE AND BRAVE STORY” —Booklist“ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF 2020” —BookPage“If anyone is going to explore a future version of our high-tech, internet-obsessed culture, please let...

The Power was my September 2017 Book of the Month selection, and it's garnered a lot of buzz for being a feminist dystopia in the vein of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The world is turned on its head when teen girls suddenly find that they are able to produce electricity from a strip of muscle on their collarbones. They can awaken this power in older women as well, and women, now having the physical upper hand, quickly seize the power and authority held by men. An intriguing premise, well-executed in many ways--especially when Alderman is subtle about the ways that physical dominance affects the behaviors of those being dominated (men in the book, women in real life)--but the role switches felt like a stretch in other ways. I would have enjoyed the perspective of some women who were not trying to seize power, start a religious movement, or be part of the revolution, but the everyday characters who also would have been affected by the power were absent from this story.

Amanda and Clay, a white couple, have just started a relaxing vacation in the Hamptons with their teen son and daughter when there is a knock at the door. G.H. and Ruth, a black couple who say they are the owners of the home, have arrived from New York. All they know is there has been a blackout. They are worried, and speculating, and could they stay in the home while they figure out what’s happening?

The couples eye one another with suspicion, forced to trust while cut off from the world. Phones, internet, and television don’t work. Large booms and strange animal behavior unnerve them. What does one do, while still safe but suspecting that the world is ending?

This deeply unsettling book is perfect for any reader who is leaning into disaster lit during the pandemic. The tension, language, and interweaving of race and class commentary are subtle and masterful.

In their 16th year, girls are banished for their “Grace Year”–their year out of a society they apparently endanger. After their year away, they return purified and ready for marriage. The year is full of dangers–known and unknown–and not all return alive.

In the near future, the U.S. (now “AutoAmerica”) is ruled by artificial intelligence and climate change has brought drastic changes. What hasn't changed is the existence of the haves and the have nots--and baseball.

I tried to have patience with this dystopian vision of a future America, about a girl, Fan, who leaves the walled community where she lives and works to find the boy she loves, who has disappeared. But one-third into the book, I still didn't have a clear picture of the causes of the global decline (seems to  be vaguely climate- and environment-related) or of the motivations of most of the characters--and I stopped caring enough to continue on the journey with the weirdly omniscient narrator who also seems to be a neighbor of Fan's. I didn't finish this one.

The Road is a renowned post-apocalyptic tale that depicts the bleakest possible future. A man and his young son walk toward the coast across a desolate wilderness, unsure if they will discover anything better than what they've left. It's a difficult read, but it will get anyone thinking about the paths that may lead us to such a future—and what comes next when we get there.

The imagery in this book will stay with you forever, and the stark beauty and odd hopefulness bring a particular poignance to the darkness. 

In a dystopian future when few babies are born and an oppressive regime has taken power, fertile women are pressed into service as handmaidens.

If you haven't already heard about this book, it's best to go in blind. Just know that this book about a group of boarding school friends who come back together later in life will have you questioning what you thought you knew, what's to come, and the ethics of many of our societal decisions.

The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. 

In the year 2042, climate change has prompted new restrictions: no funerals, no burials, and everyone must be cremated. Unless the deceased was someone's only relation, the remains are the property of the state. Alma, 21, alone, unemployed, and mourning her mother, is determined to claim her ashes. In her quest, she befriends Bordelon, a homeless 19-year-old with her own losses and struggles, as well as several women who aid in their own unique ways.

Friedman's writing on grief, found family, and loyalty hits hard at times, but other details make this a perplexing read. Why is burial banned--and is cremation so much better for the climate? Why is public mourning also banned? Why are other details of the 20-year-on future basically unchanged from today (from vehicles to pop culture to phones)? The only difference here is the handling of the dead. None of these things are explained (though the loss of mourning rituals certainly reflects recent COVID-era experiences--perhaps it was the inspiration?). While the future setting falls a bit flat, I loved the characters, their relationships, and Friedman's handling of grief.

Vox is another feminist dystopian novel in a sea of recent books with similar themes--all playing on both the political climate and the resurgence in popularity of The Handmaid's Tale. Vox, however, feels more plausible than most. Set in the present or a near-future America in which the far-right has taken control of government and the country is under heavy influence of religious zealots, women's rights are quickly and systematically stripped. First go the positions of power, then the right to work at all, then the right to make decisions (including, of course, reproductive) and pursue meaningful education, and finally, the right to speak and communicate. All women and girls are fitted with wrist counters that administer electric shocks if they speak over 100 words per day.

Dr. Jean McClellan is a neurolinguist who has been living under these restrictions for a year when she is called upon by the President to find a cure for the brain injury that took his brother's power of speech. She (and her daughter) are temporarily relieved of their trackers and she sees an opportunity to infiltrate the new regime and restore women's voices.

What makes this book so scarily prescient--more-so than many dystopias--is the familiarity of it all. These new restrictions on women are mere additions to the daily trappings of life--grocery shopping, work (for men) and bills, home maintenance, kids and school and homework. There hasn't been an environmental or technological disaster, just a political shift that feels just a step or two removed from where we are now--and therefore well within the realm of plausibility. Vox isn't subtle, and while it's a thrilling, fast-paced story (this was a rare half-day read for me) that also serves as a cautionary tale, its main call is to use our voices to protect our rights--or risk losing both voice and rights altogether.

At a dorm in a small college town, a freshman girl falls asleep and doesn't wake up. Soon, other students also fall into deep sleeps and are hospitalized, kept alive by tubes. The remaining students are isolated, but others in the town succumb. Soon the town itself is under quarantine, its residents living in fear of falling asleep and volunteers risking themselves to keep people alive.

A mother is quarantined away from her daughter. Two college students squat in a house and wander town, searching for sleepers to get them to help. A couple tries to protect their newborn baby while living in the fog of new parenthood. Two young girls hide in their house after their survivalist father falls asleep, terrified that they'll be taken from one another.

The Dreamers is less dystopian fiction and more rumination on the true nature and power of dreams, as well as the freedoms we sacrifice in the name of fear and safety.

A dystopic novel about a "farm" where surrogates go to live during their pregnancies while their clients monitor and control them.

Station Eleven follows a troupe of performers 20 years after a pandemic has wiped out most of the population. They struggle to survive while continuing to bring art to the remaining settlements.

I admit to a weakness for dystopian novels--particularly ones that seem plausible today and are told on a small, personal scale (like The Age of Miracles or Into the Forest). This one imagines a collapse of the global economy and electrical grid. Carson is on the east coast and is desperate to make his way to Beatrix, on the west coast. Beatrix, meanwhile, joins with her neighborhood to share resources and rebuild their lives. Hovering over these efforts is the persistent voice of Jonathan Blue, promising food and safety--but is the promised salvation too good to be true?

Dystopias tend to be persistently dark. The Lightest Object in the Universe was not without darkness, but true to its title, it offers more light and hope than any other novel I've read about similar circumstances. Filled with characters who are ready to offer help, empathy, encouragement, friendship, and family, Eisele offers a refreshingly optimistic view of human nature and behavior in the worst of circumstances. She weaves into the story examples of impoverished communities in Latin America where people band together in similar ways to survive. Maybe such community is too much to hope for if the fall ever does come to the U.S., but I like to think that thousands of communities like Beatrix's would rise again.