WIND UP GIRL (2009)
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
A modern dystopian classic, Bacigalupi describes a world where catastrophes are commonplace, global warming has caused huge sea level rises and biotechnology rules, with mega corporations – calorie companies – controlling food production. Set in Thailand, he creates a vivid dystopian environment and, like so many on this list, an entirely believable one.
THE CHRYSALIDS (1955)
Author: John Wyndham
Set a few thousand years in the future, The Chrysalids outlines a world which is dystopian due to its inability to tolerate any difference. Convinced that ”normality” is key to preserving their world, the inhabitants of Labrabor set out to kill, or banish, anyone that differs from them – including those who happen to have telepathic powers. With the rise of religious fundamentalism, this is another book which gave an eerie prediction of our real-life progress as a society.
THE IRON HEEL (1908)
Author: Jack London
Widely considered to be the earliest of the modern dystopian novels, London”s classic 1908 work focuses less on science-fiction, and more on the breakdown of politics in a future society: specifically the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the US, which bankrupt the middle classes and rule over its poor subjects. Yet again, the recent uprising of ”the 99%”, the current growth in inequality and the rise of the super-rich around the world shows how closely life can imitate art.
THE DROWNED WORLD (1962)
Author: J.G. Ballard
As the title suggests, Ballard paints a vivid picture of a world irreversibly changed by global warming; the cities of Europe and America lie submerged in tropical lagoons, while a biologist cataloguing flora and fauna is beset with strange dreams. A global scenario that might have seemed fanciful when the book was written back in 1962, Ballard”s predictions could well end up playing out in real life very soon.
WE (1921)
Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
A novel with a fascinating background: Zamyatin experienced the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and in between worked for the Russian Navy on the Tyne shipyards in Newcastle during the First World War. Informed by these experiences, he wrote We, set in the future in an urban nation constructed of glass, with secret police and constant observation in a similar method to the Panopticon and Foucault”s associated ideas of power. People are numbered, not named and individuality is lost. Written in Russian way before Stalin was in power, it was eerily predictive of some elements of the eventual Communist way of life.