Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 spiked by 10,000 percent the week following the 2017 presidential inauguration. The classic novel, originally written by Orwell in 1949, is a mainstay of the dystopian genre, which has ballooned in popularity throughout the past two decades at least. Prior to the era of “alternative facts” that sent 1984 to the top, series such as The Hunger Games and Divergent, notably both geared toward young adults, were early 2000 hits. Now, during “unprecedented” times, picking up a dystopian tale, old or new, can lend perspective as readers attempt to navigate their own realities. So we’ve pulled together a list of the most popular dystopian novels and end of the world books ever published based on reader ratings, feedback from regional book associations, previously compiled Parade lists, trade publication analysis and booksellers (including the “bookseller hivemind” at San Diego’s Mystery Galaxy Bookstore, an independent specializing in science fiction, fantasy and mystery since 1993). See your favorites on the list? Wish we included a must-read of yours? Check out the roundup for your next read and let us know what you think.
40 Best Dystopian Novels of All Time
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
As is the emergent theme here, dystopian classics from decades back offer bleak imaginings of the future (i.e. our present). In Fahrenheit 451, firemen are the ones in charge of starting blazes, not putting them out, and their primary targets for incendiary destruction are books. When one fireman in particular, Guy Montag, meets a neighbor with a different take on the value that books can offer, he’s forced to question not only his profession, but the culture that informs it.
The Children of Men by P.D. James
Originally written in 1992, The Children of Men—topically enough—is set in England in 2021. There hasn’t been a child born in 25 years, and humanity is on the brink of distinction, calamity sped up by increased rates of suicide due to widespread despair. Oxford historian Theodore Faron has essentially given up all hope by the time he meets Julian, a young revolutionary who presents Theodore with the chance to create a world with a future.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
As reproductive rights are threatened across the country, Atwood’s early career seminal work of dystopian social science fiction (published in 1985) has been invoked as more and more real. Dissatisfied with women’s lessening interest in pursuing motherhood as a lifestyle, a far-right militia of religious fanatics overthrow the government and decree the subjugation of all women as either wives, mothers or handmaids—second class citizens solely destined for childbirth—in a newly established separatist country known as Gilead.
Machinehood by S.B. Divya
It’s almost the year 2100, and humans are competing with artificial intelligence for work—sounds familiar, right? In order to keep a competitive edge against the AI forces, they’re up against, humans take daily doses of supplements that help them focus, stay healthy and heal. But when a new terrorist organization begins attacking the manufacturers responsible for the widely available miracle pills, pill-dependent humans turn against the machines.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez
In the midst of a particularly brutal hurricane season, this one hits with acerbic acuity. Mass flooding has resulted in widespread homelessness, and a government-backed regime called The Boots is using the opportunity to round up displaced communities of color, queer communities and persons with disabilities into labor camps. Crosshairs follow the resistance efforts against The Boots, led by Kay, a dynamic and vibrant former drag queen.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin is a giant of the dystopian genre, and the Hainish Cycle series is a mainstay for fans of Le Guin and the genre at large. In The Dispossessed, Shevek, a brilliant physicist residing in the utopian moon of Anarres, attempts to reunite the settlement with its mother planet, Urras, a civilization riddled with wars, poverty and other spoils of capitalism. In seeking to show the residents of Urras a better way of life, Shevek must determine whether Anarres is better off in separatists state, after all.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
In this YA dystopian classic, 12-year-old Jonas learns the great responsibility that comes with being tapped as a Receiver in his seemingly idyllic, completely unoriginal community. Receivers are tasked with preserving the memories of the community from the before times, memories much more colorful, if not rosy, than the palatable “paradise” the community has become. But at what cost will Jonas hold onto these secrets?
Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill
This 2021 release has been in particularly high demand at Mystery Galaxy Bookstore. An imaginative riff on the classic human vs. robot genre, it follows Pounce, a “nannybot” shaped like a plush anthropomorphic tiger, who is conflicted on whether to join the revolution with his fellow robots or stay with his small human charge, Ezra. His host family’s gated enclave of privilege begins to feel less and less secure from the mayhem taking place in the surrounding suburbs.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Seemingly unconnected characters navigating various epochs of life (ranging from the mid-19th century to the post-apocalyptic Iron Age in Hawaii) move Mitchell’s cult favorite of the early aughts forward—and then all the way backward to determine whether these “random” characters are actually connected, after all.
1984 by George Orwell
Originally written in 1949, Orwell’s imagining of the distant future (now our distant past) includes a Big Brother omnipotent figure that’s always watching. Free thinking is a crime, and in this imaginary, dystopian world, the government—referred to as the Party—is tasked with rewriting history in its favor, as well as making sure its citizens believe its version of events.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
When Hulu adapted Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale for television in 2017, the feminist dystopian novel found a new audience who clamored for more. Atwood delivered with The Testaments (2019), which picks up where Handmaid’s Tale left off, answering many decades-held questions about the fate of Gilead’s residents—and sparking just as many new quandaries.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The first in Collins’ international bestselling series captured the attention of its targeted YA audience, as well as a large adult following. In the nation of Panem, formerly known as the continent of North America, Katniss Everdeen volunteers as her younger sister’s tribute in the yearly nationwide Hunger Games tournament, in which only two children from a total of 12 districts survive.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
In the first installment of the likewise named YA series, another that Mystery Galaxy Bookstore flagged as highly requested, abortion is illegal, but repurposing the organs of your teenage child, especially if they’re unruly, maladjusted or misbehaved, is par for the course. Three teens destined for “unwinding” band together to fight for their lives, and their futures.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The year is 2045, and thanks to the disastrous effects of unchecked climate change, most of the society that’s left behind spends their days online in a virtual gaming reality called OASIS. When the simulation’s creator dies, he leaves behind a series of retro-pop culture-inspired puzzles for OASIS players to solve. The winner inherits all—but at what cost?
Year One By Nora Roberts
In a 2017 read that might be almost too on the nose, Roberts tackles a pandemic dystopian. After a sickness wipes out more than half of the world’s population, the electrical grid crashes and the government collapses—and magic bubbles up in its place. This book is the survival epic of a cast of dynamic, distinct characters, ultimately exploring the reality of what comes after destruction.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
In this work of speculative fiction, an authoritarian regime abuses pharmaceuticals to keep the power of the human spirit, especially the collective human spirit, at bay to preserve its all-encompassing power. Originally written during the 1930s as an allegorical warning against the rise of fascism, Huxley’s iconic dystopian tale features many of the societal, political and technological malaise we’re still dealing with nearly a century later.
Leave the World Behind By Rumaan Alam
After a sweeping and sudden power blackout in New York City, a family renting a vacation house in Long Island finds themselves cohabitating with the older couple who own the home. In their close quarters, the white family and Black couple are forced to quickly acclimate to new circumstances, and each other, in this sociological thriller (and Parade book best of 2020) that touches race, parenthood and class.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Originally published in Spanish, the English translation of this novel still has all the gore and emotional grit that its original title suggests: Exquisite Corpse. Marcos works at a local processing plant that slaughters humans for human consumption (yep, we’re talking cannibalism here) after animal meat becomes infected and subsequently poisonous to humans. Marcos tries to keep his emotions separate from his work, but when he develops empathy and care for a certain specimen, he struggles to carry on with business as usual.
Followers by Megan Angelo
In this darkly imaginative (and very prescient) conclusion to the current epoch of “influencer culture,” Angelo creates a future dystopia wherein government-approved celebrities are tasked with streaming their lives 24/7 to appease their corporate sponsors. The pipeline progression from digital media to orchestrated, online simulation is real, and it’s terrifying.
The Farm by Joanne Ramos
Women are paid big money to “host” a pregnancy for someone else in this dystopian reflection on motherhood and money. After Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines signs up to “host” at Golden Oaks, also known as The Farm, she quickly learns that the price of thinly veiled captivity is not worth the monetary reward she’s promised.
Lakewood by Megan Giddings
Goodreads describes this book as The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Lena Johnson drops out of college for a lucrative gig trying out top-secret medical and cosmetic procedures. Motivated by the money, and anxious to get her family out of debt, Lena is nonetheless quick to realize the full cost of her new job. This fictional tale tackles very real and trending topics, including vaccine mistrust amidst communities of color and other marginalized groups.
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
It’s 2025, and men are becoming extinct after a virus breaks out that women are impervious to. This book focuses on the lives of a few key women left behind—a social historian, an intelligence analyst and a scientist. From their perspective fields, the women attempt to investigate the reality of a world without men, focusing on the political and personal ramifications of their absence.
Malorie by Josh Malerman
In this follow-up to Bird Box, Malorie risks her safety (and that of her family’s) in order to recover a relationship with a special person she had been led to believe was dead. Finding the person she holds so dear will require her to rebel against the only rule of survival in this dystopian wilderness—keeping oneself in the dark.
The Resisters by Gish Jen
A dystopian future ruled by the world wide web is still united by America’s favorite pastime: baseball. In AutoAmerica, the upper class Netted communities are pitted against the poor Surplus workers for an Olympic-scale baseball tournament. Gwen, a young Surplus woman with a wicked good arm, is thrust into the middle of social civil war (and a really intense game) that has life-changing ramifications for herself and her loved ones.
The Stand by Stephen King
After a patient infected with a hyper-contagious strain of super-flu escapes a biological testing facility, the ensuing plague forces the humans that survive to choose between two opposing forces, each larger than life. Mother Abagail advocates for the rebuilding of a peaceful enclave of survivors in Boulder, Colo., while Randall Flagg, the “Dark Man,” puts a hard sell on the chaos and violence that is already ensuing.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
With live theater as its link, this novel weaves back and forth between a period of 20 years. After a famous actor dies while performing on stage, a deadly flu epidemic quickly spreads, changing the world forever. Twenty years later, in what amounts to a really beautiful exploration of the value of art in an unrecognizable world, a young woman in a traveling theater group performs for small communities that have managed to survive the pandemic, but there are new threats on the horizon.
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
This earlier work of Cargill’s is just as popular as his more recent release. Described as a “robot western,” there are no humans left on earth, and the central conflict is between autonomous robots and the proliferation of artificial intelligence networks of linked, cult-like robotic forces. Brittle is a robot who refuses to conform, but when her parts start breaking down, she struggles to find the rare parts she needs to survive independently.
Otaku by Chris Kluwe
What used to be known as the city of Miami is now Ditchtown, a city of skyscrapers built on the bones of a demolished beach town. It’s a story reminiscent of Ready Player One and Ender’s Game, but with a fierce young woman at its center. Ashley Akachi is dealing with volatile family life, but within Infinite Game, she is Ashura the Terrible, leader of the Sunjewel Warriors, someone revered worldwide by the game’s many participants. And when the online and real worlds she straddles collide, she’s forced to lead in an unprecedented way.
Thin Air by Richard K. Morgan
Categorized as a dystopian cyberpunk military science fiction novel (whoa), Thin Air encapsulates many of the themes that Morgan has explored piecemeal over the course of his prolific science fiction canon. This atmospheric tale is set on Mars and centers on the trials and tribulations of Hakan Veil, who’s stuck on the planet after being abandoned by his former employer. A ticket back to Earth requires him to act as the personal bodyguard for an investigator with the “Earth Oversight Organization,” where he quickly gets wrapped up in a murder investigation with a deadly assassin on the loose.
LifeL1k3 by Jay Kristoff
Part Romeo and Juliet, part Terminator, the first in this three-book series follows 17-year-old Eve’s pursuit for the memories she’s missing—the same memories that might hurt her the most. When she meets a handsome android named Ezekial, so humanesque that he’s referred to as a “Lifelike,” they link up to solve the mystery of Eve’s past, as well as forge a bold new path into her future.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
This is the first book in what are actually two separate trilogies, the final installment of which is set for release in 2022. The Red Rising saga focuses on the story of Darrow, a rebel member of the Red caste on Mars, who is tired of watching his oppressed peoples struggle on behalf of a selfish upper class, known as the Golds. By going undercover within the Institute, the Gold caste’s training ground, Darrow aims to implode the system from the inside—as long as no one catches him first.
Warehouse by Rob Hart
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The coolest thing about Burgess’s iconic, nihilistic novel depicting the horrors of life in a violent, totalitarian state is that the author conceptualized an entirely new, made-up language with which to write the tale. “Nadsat” is the teen slang used by the main character Alex and his gang of friends as they wreak havoc on their broken society—robbing and murdering whoever crosses them. When the State steps in to curtail their debauchery, the boys’ reeducation isn’t exactly smooth, or safe.
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
One of the most iconic tomes in the dystopian canon is this science fiction classic by Butler, set in a disintegrating Los Angeles circa the early 2020s (eek). Lauren Olamina is attempting to survive while dealing with something known as hyper empathy, a condition that makes her hyper aware of others’ pain. And in a city riddled with drugs, disease and war, escalated by a water shortage that’s making people desperate and despaired, there’s no shortage of pain.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Originally written more than 100 years ago, this is one of Kafka’s best-known works, and its application to the current criminal justice system is haunting. On his 30th birthday, Joseph K is arrested for an unknown crime. With zero knowledge of what he’s been charged with, Joseph goes on trial, where he’s forced to blindly defend himself in front of an all-knowing, omniscient and impenetrable court.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This post-apocalyptic tale of an epic father and son journey across the country at the end of the world explores the power of love in the face of hopelessness. With seemingly no future to live for, and no idea if there will be an end to their suffering at the end of “the road,” McCarthy effectively examines an age-old question with post-nuclear, new age criteria: is love enough?
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Written in 1998, this award-winning book features elements of Caribbean magic. Brown Girl in the Ring is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Toronto, where a destitute new mother, Ti-Jeanne, is trying her best to navigate a dangerous, desperate world with her new baby in tow. Citizens such as Ti-Jeanne who have been unable to escape the destroyed city, attempt to survive through farming and bartering, all while dodging the rich, who are ready to sacrifice anyone and anything for their own selfish survival.
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The year is 1984, technically, but a young woman named Aomame realizes something is amiss. Two moons hang in the sky over the city of Tokyo in an alternate reality that she dubs 1Q84. The “Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” When Aomame’s narrative converges with that of Tengo’s, an aspiring writer, the intricacies of the Q—and the mystery of their intertwined pasts (and futures)—become inescapable.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
This Stephen King-inspired work of science fiction is perhaps not the National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s best-known novel, but its inclusion in this list is essential. In the aftermath of a worldwide plague, global citizens are classified as the living vs. the living dead. Attempts to exterminate the living dead (those still infected) from “Zone One” quickly become deadly for protagonist Mark Spitz.
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Highly acclaimed by Margaret Atwood herself, this book empowers an oft-victimized demographic with the power to inflict pain, and even death, on those who cross them. Teenage girls are in charge now, and they’re awakening similar power in older women, too. Eerily prescient, Alderman’s novel asks what would happen if women not only had bodily autonomy but were also entirely in charge. Next, the best fall books from 2021.
