Dystopian Fiction?

[droodzilla]

Any recommendations? I'm looking for some light relief from the current political scene.

I just finished this bleak and brutal tale:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141190175/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

and it's put me in the mood for more misery.

Handmaid's Tale, John Wyndham, J G Ballard, Brave New World, 1984... any more?

 

[darrenyeats]

I read 1984 and that was enough dystopian fiction for one lifetime!

 

[Nick_G]

Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

 

[Darmok]

Neville Shute "On The Beach."

 

[Seanm]

I find some of the bleakest science fiction doesn’t even attempt to build a future radically different from the present these days – it just imagines the current malaise extending indefinitely into the future, with a few twists. In this vein M John Harrison’s Light trilogy is tremendous, and Peter Watts’ Blindsight and Echopraxia are really overwhelmingly depressing.

 

[Swamp Thing]

Brave New World. Anthem. All William Gibson. Early Neal Stephenson. Animal Farm. The Power.

 

[Still]

I'm a Stephen Baxter fanboi, so Xeelee sequence: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003FXCSOK/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

 

[Seeker_UK]

This is pretty grim...

 

[clifftaylor]

Tory Party manifesto?

 

[cutting42]

I'm a Stephen Baxter fanboi, so Xeelee sequence: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003FXCSOK/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

+1 For me the only author I bracket with Iain Banks (although different styles).

 

[Andrewxyz]

Stand On Zanzibar & The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner. Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series is pretty damn depressing, another shout for Peter Watts, you can download Blindsight for free at his website https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

 

[Wolfmancatsup]

Any recommendations? I'm looking for some light relief from the current political scene.

I just finished this bleak and brutal tale:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141190175/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

and it's put me in the mood for more misery.

Handmaid's Tale, John Wyndham, J G Ballard, Brave New World, 1984... any more?

You could watch the film of John Christopher’s novel for added laughs.

Mick

 

[Dave H.]

The Road is superb.

As is Blindness by Jose Saramago.

Both significantly better as books than films IMO.

 

[Nick_G]

Philip K. Dick - The Man In The High Castle

 

[AndrewM]

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter Miller

 

[Hempknight]

Do androids dream of electric sheep, Dune, Hyperion for a bit of dystopian sci-fi

 

[droodzilla]

You could watch the film of John Christopher’s novel for added laughs.

Mick

Thanks. I've been telling all my friends I'm surprised it was never made into a film. Derrrp!

 

[Nick_G]

Stephen King has done a couple too e.g. The Long Walk, The Running Man (those two under the Richard Bachman alias) and of course, The Stand.

 

[droodzilla]

Stand On Zanzibar & The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner. Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series is pretty damn depressing, another shout for Peter Watts, you can download Blindsight for free at his website https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Ah yes, I read both the Brunner books when I was little. I remember liking the fragmented narrative structure (which was new to me at the time) as much as anything else.

 

[droodzilla]

This is pretty grim...

My partner said she managed about twenty pages of that before she had to give in because it was too relentlessly bleak. I might give it a try!