5 Dystopian Reads That Remind Us Issues Might Be Worse

Though issues are unhealthy proper now, this listing of dystopian books reminds us that issues may very well be worse. Learn on to seek out some books to cheer you up in a morbid approach.

I’m not normally a “issues may very well be worse” kind of individual. Nonetheless, it seems like we’re dwelling within the early pages (or possibly the prequel) of a dystopian novel proper now. This pandemic is inflicting comprehensible emotions of uncertainty, worry, and nervousness for many individuals. (It’s me. I’m many individuals.)

As an enormous fan of dystopian literature, I’m reminded that authors have prophesied a lot worse fates for us. My aesthetic tends towards cheerful nihilism, so please don’t take this as poisonous positivity. I do know issues are actually unhealthy, however hopefully studying about some even badder issues will cheer us up!

Get pleasure from this listing of dystopian reads that remind us issues may very well be worse.

The Earthseed Collection by Octavia Butler

In what was presupposed to be a trilogy, however ended up a two-book collection, the incomparable Octavia Butler tells the story of Lauren Olamina. Olamina lives inside a walled neighborhood within the California of 2024 (which was the distant future when Butler wrote the primary Earthseed novel in 1989). In Parable of the Sower, Olamina is a savvy although sheltered teenager who’s already getting ready for the inevitable fall of her metropolis’s partitions. Exterior, the world is stuffed with chaos, illness, and violence. It’s particularly harmful for individuals like Olamina, who has hyperempathy. This situation causes her to really feel the feelings and bodily accidents she sees in others. (Fellow empaths, we determine with that proper now, amirite?)

Along with her plans for survival, Olamina additionally “discovers” a brand new faith: Earthseed. Parable of the Abilities follows the rise of Earthseed after Olamina leaves her fallen neighborhood behind. Each books see Olamina and her associates surviving a world ravaged by capitalism, the place the poor battle, homicide, and steal for meals, shelter, and pleasure. Butler’s 2020s are a terrifying place that can present readers precisely how a lot worse issues may very well be.

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The Starvation Video games Collection by Suzanne Collins

The favored Starvation Video games trilogy (to which writer Suzanne Collins will quickly be including a prequel) follows Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a poor district of a post-apocalyptic North America. Panem is made up of 13 districts required to work to assist an expensive way of life for the residents of The Capitol. In the meantime many of the remainder of Panem stays impoverished.

Essentially the most disturbing side of this dystopian collection is that youngsters are yearly pressured to battle to the loss of life. They battle in nightmarish arenas designed to pit them towards the terrain in addition to their friends. This battle is broadcasted for the leisure of The Capitol and as a warning to the districts. The kid that survives the weather, mutated creatures, fabricated disasters, and the opposite 23 youngsters making an attempt to kill them, wins! The Capitol items the winner a snug house of their district, meals, and movie star standing for all times.

So…a minimum of we don’t dwell in a world the place the perfect we will hope for our youngsters is to be poor and hungry or survive the Starvation Video games and dwell with their trauma in snug lodging. [insert nervous chuckle and silent scream]

*The brand new prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is slated for launch on Could 19, 2020. You may watch a trailer right here.

The Gone Collection by Michael Grant

YA dystopia is great at reminding us that issues may very well be worse, and this collection is a grasp class on how unhealthy can all the time worsen. In e-book one, Gone, everyon over the age of 15 in a California city disappears all of a sudden. Additional complicating issues, an impenetrable barrier surrounds the city, permitting nothing in or out.

As if the children in e-book one didn’t have sufficient to cope with, contemplating that older teenagers and adults vanished, they should see to the entire unfinished duties the lacking left behind. Meaning discovering unattended infants, turning off stoves earlier than hearth consumes all of them, on the lookout for automotive crash survivors, and extra. Oh, and a few of them all of a sudden have superpowers.

Sadly, that’s solely e-book one. Contemplating that entire impenetrable dome factor, it’s not shocking e-book two known as Starvation. It will get actually unhealthy, y’all. I imply, the following three books are known as Lies, Plague, and Worry. The benefit of this dystopian collection that reminds us issues may very well be worse? It additionally reminds us that we will survive unhealthy issues. The collection concludes with Gentle.

The Blood of Eden Collection by Julie Kagawa

Okay, wouldn’t it be a Mikkaka Overstreet listing and not using a vampire e-book? In fact not! Thus, here’s a dystopian vampire learn that includes a world worse off than our personal.

The Immortal Guidelines is the primary e-book on this younger grownup collection. After a virus known as the Purple Lung wipes out most of humanity, the remaining persons are struggling to outlive their new world. Most dwell inside walled cities, the place they’re enslaved and required to provide blood month-to-month to feed their vampire overlords. That’s, except they’re unregistered, like primary character Allison Sekemoto.

Unregistered people face hazard and hunger as they attempt to keep away from discovery by both the ruling class of undead and different vicious unregistered human gangs. As if this isn’t unhealthy sufficient, makes an attempt to remedy the Purple Lung additionally created one other class of predator. Rabids are bloodthirsty creatures who prowl the wilderness exterior the partitions, preying on each human and vampires.

The Immortal Guidelines is adopted by The Eternity Treatment and The Ceaselessly Tune. There may be additionally a prequel, Daybreak of Eden.

Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? by Philip Ok. Dick

That is the one learn on this listing that isn’t a collection, however I couldn’t depart it out. Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? impressed the film Blade Runner. After a world world battle that decimated Earth and left it radioactively polluted, most individuals moved to colonies on Mars. The remaining people on Earth dwell in a far worse world than we do now.

Individuals spend most of their time at house, watching nonstop tv or utilizing their “empathy containers.” These containers provide a digital actuality expertise of struggling, essential in a world making an attempt to repair the dearth of empathy that brought about its close to destruction. Moreover, people show empathy by proudly owning animals. Sadly, since most animals are extinct, the poor can solely afford electrical animals—a fact they desperately conceal.

The story follows a police officer whose job is to seek out and “retire” sensible androids which have escaped servitude on Mars and are hiding on Earth. Empathy checks are used to find out who’s android and who’s human, but it surely isn’t simple when the main company that creates the androids continues to undermine the checks and make extra lifelike fashions. The entire story leaves readers with philosophical questions on what it means to be human. Moreover, anybody studying it proper now would positively be reminded that issues may very well be worse.

If dystopian fiction cheers you up, you may additionally get pleasure from these posts:

E book Riot’s Dystopia Archives

Dystopian Literature You Must Survive the Finish of the World

25 Should-Learn Dystopian Quick Tales