# Recommend me some utopian and dystopian fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 11, 2010, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769 "2010-10-11T08:40:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Neverending\_Elbow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e274bd/32.png) [@Neverending\_Elbow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neverending_Elbow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/1 "2010-10-11T08:40:10Z")
Pretty much it’s all there in the title. I have read some old things for English class (17th and 18th century), and have read some _Brave New World_ and _1984_, and now I want to see what other 20th and 21st century writers have come up with. I’d like it to be in the form of fiction, whether novel or short story or, heck, even poem, and I’m not really interested in tracts and manifestos, though if you think something is worth recommending, go right ahead. If not me, someone else might find it useful. It can be feminist, socialist, ecological, or whatever type of u- or dystopia, I want to hear the crazy ideas from all ideological walks of life. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/2 "2010-10-11T12:30:16Z")
For utopian I’d recommend the often overlooked [Walden Two](http://www.amazon.com/Walden-Two-Trade-Book-Skinner/dp/002411510X) ---
**Author:** ![Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bag_of_mostly_water/32/1029_2.png) [@Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bag_of_Mostly_Water)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/3 "2010-10-11T12:45:10Z")
The dystopian trilogy _The Giver, Gathering Blue_, and _Messenger_ by Lois Lowry are considered children’s books but I think adults would enjoy them. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/4 "2010-10-11T13:16:04Z")
Ira Levin’s [This Perfect Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day) can be described as Brave New World brought forward to the computer age. It’s particularly popular among libertarians, though I’ve always seen it as a logical extension of obsessive corporate data gathering. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/5 "2010-10-11T14:33:01Z")
_The Hunger Games_ is a young adult dystopian trilogy that’s the It Thing right now - the first one is _excellent_, the last two opinions vary on. I liked 'em. Sheri S. Tepper seems to only write dystopian books about feminism and ecology, and it gets really old once you’ve read a few but some of them are excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/6 "2010-10-11T14:39:09Z")
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach was pretty good for its time. The Pacific Northwest successfully secedes from the union. They then enforce a culture that makes the Greens look like neocons. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/7 "2010-10-11T16:48:53Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Ira Levin’s [This Perfect Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day) can be described as Brave New World brought forward to the computer age. It’s particularly popular among libertarians, though I’ve always seen it as a logical extension of obsessive corporate data gathering. You beat me to the recommendation! One correction: Corporations being but paper creations of the government, libertarians are very anti-corporate–so “though” should more accurately be “and.” ---
**Author:** ![Neverending\_Elbow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e274bd/32.png) [@Neverending\_Elbow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neverending_Elbow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/8 "2010-10-11T20:42:38Z")
Thanks for all the replies! With _Perfect Day_ getting two recommendations, I suppose I’ll start with that, though the rest will be making their way to my reading list as well. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/9 "2010-10-11T21:18:10Z")
Before anyone else does, let me recommend [We](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)) by Yevgeny Zamyatin written in 1921. It has all the dystopian characteristics - people with numbers, not names, spying, control of sex. Of course he had an unfair advantage, living in one of the first real dystopias, Soviet Russia. Most importantly, the translation I had is not only of historical interest but also kept my interest as a story. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/10 "2010-10-11T22:04:45Z")
Dystopian: “The Pedestrian” and _Fahrenheit 451_ by Ray Bradbury “The Analgoues” by Damon Knight. I understand this was the first chapter of his novel, _Hell’s Pavement_, but I haven’t read the novel \*The Space Merchants \*by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth _Gather, Darkness_! by Fritz Leiber \*Between Planets \*by Robert A. Heinlein. \*Citizen of the Galaxy \*also presents at least one nasty society. Utopian “The World-Timer” by Robert Bloch. One of my favorite SF stories, it’s in the collection _The Best of Robert Bloch_. “And Then There Were None,” by Eric Frank Russell, a novella which was expanded into the novel _The Great Escape_ Karres of James Schmitz’s \*The Witches of Karres \*seems to have a pretty cool society. Some of the future societies in Kim Stanleys Robinson’s new novel \*Galileo’s Dream \*seem to be pretty decent. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/11 "2010-10-11T22:14:52Z")
_Oryx and Crake_, by Margaret Atwood _A Handmaid’s Tale_, by Margaret Atwood The first is a future controlled by corporations. The second is a future controlled by fundamentalists. Both are ficken scary. ---
**Author:** ![Proudest\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/proudest_monkey/32/13257_2.png) [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/12 "2010-10-11T22:24:50Z")
> [@Ex\_Chemist](#): > > The dystopian trilogy _The Giver, Gathering Blue_, and _Messenger_ by Lois Lowry are considered children’s books but I think adults would enjoy them. Another dystopian kids’ series (which I enjoyed as an adult) is The Shadow Children by Margaret Peterson Haddix, starting with\*\* Among the Hidden\*\*. The premise is that the world has suffered severe food shortages due to enduring drought, and families are only allowed two children per household. What happens when a third child is born becomes the narrative theme of the books. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/13 "2010-10-11T22:28:27Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > For utopian I’d recommend the often overlooked [Walden Two](http://www.amazon.com/Walden-Two-Trade-Book-Skinner/dp/002411510X) It’s been a donkey’s age since I read it, but I remember _Walden Two_ as dystopian, or at the very least, no way would I want to live there. How about [Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_%28novel%29) by Aldous Huxley? Er, …come to think of it, I guess I wouldn’t want to live there either, but YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/14 "2010-10-11T22:44:33Z")
\*The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia \* by Ursula K. Le Guin is an interesting account of what a functioning anarchist society might look like. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/15 "2010-10-11T23:04:14Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Before anyone else does, let me recommend [We](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)) by Yevgeny Zamyatin written in 1921. It has all the dystopian characteristics - people with numbers, not names, spying, control of sex. Of course he had an unfair advantage, living in one of the first real dystopias, Soviet Russia. Most importantly, the translation I had is not only of historical interest but also kept my interest as a story. Yeah, that’s a good one - people live in glass houses. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/16 "2010-10-11T23:17:57Z")
Kim Stanley Robinson’s [Pacific Coast trilogy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy) is his more interesting take on the subject. Each book is thematically related rather than with standard plot and characters, because each explores a different aspect of the utopian/dystopian balance. I took a course on utopias in college. At the end we voted for our favorite. We overwhelmingly voted for _Walden II_, which disconcerted the professor, who preferred _Plato’s Republic_, which disconcerted us since we all saw that as a horror show. The only other thing I remember is that a) there is no such thing as a livable utopia because b) there is no such thing as a readable utopia. Dystopias live in literature; utopias die miserably. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/17 "2010-10-11T23:19:49Z")
Utopian – [Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward). A politically progressive socialist utopian future America of 2000, as envisioned in the Gilded Age (published in 1888). Interesting, if a bit preachy (but given its plot structure and polemical purpose, it could not help but be), it’s enlivened by some truly prescient technological and scientific projections, like home radios picking up musical broadcasts. I doubt it gets frequently cited in such threads, but [Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged) (publ. 1957) covers both sides, as it charts a USA sliding into a collectivist hell-on-earth, with the last of its good principle characters escaping to their libertarian utopia (“Galt’s Gulch”) at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Gil-Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Gil-Martin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gil-Martin)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/18 "2010-10-12T01:08:10Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Before anyone else does, let me recommend [We](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)) by Yevgeny Zamyatin written in 1921. It has all the dystopian characteristics - people with numbers, not names, spying, control of sex. Of course he had an unfair advantage, living in one of the first real dystopias, Soviet Russia. Most importantly, the translation I had is not only of historical interest but also kept my interest as a story. Just want to chime in and second this recommendation. \*We \*is an awsome book. In fact, finding myself strangely between books tonight, I may pull this classic off the shelf and reread it. Wonderful (or wonderfully horrific) novel. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/19 "2010-10-12T02:43:00Z")
Robert Harris’s alt-history _Fatherland_ posits that Germany conquered Western Europe during WWII, and that a Greater German Reich eventually stretches from the UK all the way deep into the Soviet Union (just hanging on as a rump state, engaged in perpetual guerilla warfare with Germany). By 1964, a harsh Nazi ideology extends throughout the Reich in a society which is totally militarized, politicized and surveilled. An excellent but very chilling book. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769/20 "2010-10-12T19:44:36Z")
I can’t comment on the literary quality of this book because I haven’t read it yet, but Jules Verne wrote a novel, Paris in the Twentieth Century, that he unsuccessfully tried to get published in 1863 (and was first published in French in 1994 and in English in '96). According to the jacket summary and blurbs, though, it should probably be classified as dystopian, since his imagination emphasizes the dehumanizing aspects of technological progress, growing income inequality and population growth. Some of the details he got right: cities lit up by electric lights; horseless carriages; an extensive subway system; 24/7 commerce; calculators; fax machines; computers; tall buildings with elevators; amplified musical instruments and very loud concerts; throngs of homeless people languishing on city streets, and state executions by electric chair. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-utopian-and-dystopian-fiction/556769.md?page=2)