#GuestPost - The Post-War Collection of Dystopian Fiction by Greg Hickey

Greg Hickey is the author of the dystopian fiction novel Our Dried Voices and curator of The 110 Best Dystopian Novels.

The Post-War Collection of Dystopian Fiction

Early dystopian classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) played on society’s fear of rising totalitarian states and doomsday atomic weaponry. Published well after World War II, these eight novels move beyond the themes of early dystopian fiction and address issues like overpopulation, environmental disaster, gender inequality and rampant disease.

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962)

In this vision of the year 2145, global warming has melted the Earth’s polar ice caps, causing the rising seas to flood London and turn the city into a tropical jungle populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators and disease-carrying insects. As biologist Dr. Robert Kerans searches for answers to this catastrophic devolution, he finds himself physically and psychologically transformed by the wild cityscape.

The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess (1962)

Burgess’s dark satire imagines an overpopulated near-future world of limited resources, cramped living conditions and encouragements of sterilization. This repressive lifestyle eventually boils over in spates of cannibalism, religious fertility rituals and absurd wars.

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (1966)

In Harrison’s imagined 1999, the Earth is overpopulated at seven billion people, with 35 million living in New York City alone. There, a lone detective hunts a serial killer everyone has forgotten amidst the overcrowding and limited resources. Harrison’s novel provided the basis for the well-known 1973 film Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston, which introduced cannibalism as a solution to the mass hunger portrayed in the book.

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (1968)

This sprawling novel mixes narrative and extensive world-building to describe a large cast of characters living in an overpopulated future world with advanced technologies like powerful supercomputers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs and routine genetic engineering. Stand on Zanzibar won the 1969 Hugo Award, the 1969 British Science Fiction Association Award and the 1973 Prix Tour-Apollo Award.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)

This 1972 Locus Award winner depicts a violent future world rife with environmental disasters. When George Orr discovers his dreams have the ability to alter reality, he must preserve that reality from a psychiatrist who hopes to manipulate Orr’s dreams for his own ends. The novel was adapted into two television movies in 1980 and 2002.

The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)

This Nebula Award-nominated novel follows four women living in parallel worlds: one that mirrors Russ’s real-world present, one in which America is poorer and the woman must marry a man to survive, one depicting an all-female planet, and one where men and women are engaged in an ongoing war. When the four women meet, their disparate views on gender undermine their preexisting beliefs about their roles as women in their various societies.

The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter (1977)

In a dystopian United States, civil war has erupted between different political, racial and gendered groups. When a cult of powerful women surgically transforms an abusive man into a woman, he becomes a victim of the routine injustices perpetrated against females.

The Stand by Stephen King (1978)

After a mutated strain of influenza kills over 99% of the world’s population, the survivors must choose between two emerging leaders: a 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community, and a violent and powerful man seeking to launch a weapons program. The Stand was as adapted into a television miniseries and ranked fifty-third on the BBC's 2003 The Big Read poll.

About the Book:

In 2153, cancer was cured. In 2189, AIDS. And in 2235, the last members of the human race traveled to a far distant planet called Pearl to begin the next chapter of humanity.

Several hundred years after their arrival, the remainder of humanity lives in a utopian colony in which every want is satisfied automatically, and there is no need for human labor, struggle or thought. But when the machines that regulate the colony begin to malfunction, the colonists are faced with a test for the first time in their existence.

With the lives of the colonists at stake, it is left to a young man named Samuel to repair these breakdowns and save the colony. Aided by his friend Penny, Samuel rises to meet each challenge. But he soon discovers a mysterious group of people behind each of these problems, and he must somehow find and defeat these saboteurs in order to rescue his colony.

Find the book on Amazon or on Goodreads