The 13 Best Dystopian Novels

One of the fathers of science fiction, H.G. Wells, coined the term "time machine," which inspired f*ture science fiction writers to let their imagination run free. Many authors have attempted a sequel to the dystopia.

An English scientist and inventor living during the Victorian era travels to the year 802,701 A.D. He meets a group of docile humanoids called Eloi, who live comfortably among large technological buildings and seem to have figured out how to live peacefully and without struggling for survival. When he returns to the site where he left his time machine, it’s gone.

Turns out another group of pale, ape-like creatures called Morlocks who are afraid of light are the ones who operate the technology above ground. At night they come out and hunt Eloi, which means the f*ture is actually a gloomy place where humans have become cannibals. The Time Traveller, Wells’ name for the English gentleman, finds a way to get back to his time machine and return to Victorian England.

Although we know 1984 came and went without Orwell’s prediction coming true, 1984 is considered a classic. The novel gave us the term "Big Brother," among others, to symbolize an authoritarian government that infringes on the privacy of its citizens, watching their every move.

The hero, Winston Smith, whose job it is to rewrite history as the Party wants it to be remembered, begins to rebel against the brotherhood by writing all his negative and illegal thoughts about the state in a journal like a hormonal and oppressed teen and by having a romantic affair with Julia, during which they frolic in the woods.

Atwood criticizes extreme religious views in this dystopia, which motivate the "Sons of Jacob" to overthrow the U.S. government and create a new republic. Women’s bank accounts are emptied and they are taken away from their families to facilities where they are "re-educated."

The story follows Offred ("Of Fred," named for the Commander because women don’t even deserve their own names in this society) who is taken to the Commander’s house simply for reproductive reasons. She participates in a sickening and awkward ritual in which she has sex with the Commander while lying on top of his wife.

Huxley transports us to 2540 AD, where The World State has created a socialist nightmare. Every human is produced in a laboratory and conditioned to have the values of the state from birth through sleep learning. For example, a beta would have these phrases repeated to him all night:

"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."

The society reduces humanity by erasing serious emotional ties, both romantic and familial and enforcing promiscuity instead. Those higher up in the caste spend time drugged up on soma, which meets their spiritual needs by making them chant in a mock religious ceremony that ends in an orgy. The growth of the lower castes’ intelligence is cut off, making them nonresistant slaves who carry out mass production.

Bernard, who is a shorter-than-usual Alpha Plus and psychologist, feels like an outcast. He takes his date Lenina to a Savage Reservation to see how natives live. They come across a woman from the State, Linda, who had gotten lost on a visit and integrated herself into the savage lifestyle after giving birth to John eighteen years prior. They had been treated like outcasts, especially because Linda slept around with all the men (she had been conditioned to be promiscuous after all).

Published at the height of the women’s liberation movement in the seventies, a young British guy named Evelyn comes to America and ends up in the hands of a militant feminist colony in the desert headed by a mother goddess with four nipples who decides to turn him into a woman...yeah. Now our hero becomes the heroine, Eve.

Written during the Cold War, Bradbury was attempting to criticize the increasing censorship in the U.S. In the novel’s f*ture American society, which is on the brink of war, citizens are motivated solely by pleasure, which leads to chaos and the banning of critical thinking and reading.

The main character, Guy Montag is a fireman, not a traditional civil servant that arrives in a red truck and fights fires, but one that actually causes them when someone is caught with books. Guy is curious about literature and starts collecting confiscated books in his home. When his Captain finds out, his house is burned and he flees to the wild. There he joins a group of men dedicated to memorizing books and passing them on orally.