Looking for short stories or novels that are dystopian or apocalyptic, maybe a little unusual or quirky, and not straight up horror or mystery. I just finished Farenheit 451, Things We Lost int the Fire, and Tender is the Flesh. Looking for more! The Road is my favorite book of all time. I'm open to your best recs for classics or contemporary options.
by owlwayshungry
11 Comments
A canticle for Liebowitz
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
I think the “Uglies” series by Scott Westerfeld deserves way more credit for being great YA dystopia that’s still enjoyable to an adult audience. I just read them for the first time last year, and the themes of consent, free will, propaganda, beauty standards, and fame are all still really relevant.
A Boy and his Dog at the End of the World.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sower_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sower_(novel))
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton
Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
“The Last Murder at the End of the World” by Stuart Turton is a dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel and a closed-circle murder mystery.
Biography of X by Catherine Lacy.
“Escape from Spiderhead” and “The Semplica-Girl Diaries”, both by George Saunders, fit the quirky-not-straight-up-horror description. They were originally published in The New Yorker, but it’s easy to find PDF versions just by googling. If you do end up reading them, I would love your thoughts, as both are huge favorites of mine.
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman, I tore through it in a couple of hours! It defo leaves you with more questions than you started with, but if you like bleak dystopian fiction that focuses on character development and asking the big philosophical questions, it’s defo worth reading