If you’re on my website you’re probably a fan of dystopian fiction. That, or you want to point out a technical mistake in one of my articles. As the climate crisis deepens, wars break out and our elderly overlords seem intent on pulling us all into hell with them, a good dystopian story can be the catharsis we need, or, better yet, a trigger to action. But where are all the adult novels?
Teenage rebel leaders?
Since the debut of the hunger games, dystopian literature has been saturated with teenage heroes, PG or cartoonish violence and virgins. Lots of virgins. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed hunger games but in a capitalist publishing model, ‘successful’ plots proliferate and merge until we are left with ‘the selection‘, a romance novel inspired by the reality tv show the bachelor but set in a dystopian feudal society.
Say no to happy endings
No shade to Kiera Cass (author of the selection), she clearly knows her audience, and gives them what they want, a happy ending. This is basically a authors job, but while we all may crave some light escapism, dystopian literature should also make us think. Dystopian fiction should feel raw, and all to possible. Even the ‘happy endings’ are tragic. In 1984 John Smith finally loves Big brother. In brave new world John the savage begs for unhappiness. So do you want darker, complex stories that will stay with you? Here are three books for the bunker that linger, by some authors that may be new to you.
1. The Wind Up Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
Set in 23rd century Bangkok this novel explores the dangers of gene editing. In a world where sea-levels have risen and almost all crops and food stuffs have been patented by global bio-tech companies. Thailand, protected from flooding by huge levees, remains independent of global corporations due to a secret seedbank. Anderson Lake is a spy and company enforcer sent to Bangkok to discover the location of the seedbank and steal the genetic material within. In a sex club he meets Emiko, a ‘new person’. Genetically engineered as a sex-slave for a Kyoto business man, Emiko was abandoned in Thailand and is now forced to take part in degrading sex shows attended by the Bangkok elite. To escape she agrees to work with Anderson to find the seedbank.
I first read The Wind Up Girl in my 20s and, while a world where it was basically impossible to grow your own food was chilling, it was the character of Emiko that really stayed with me. Emiko was engineered to be constantly aroused, never hungry and without pores. The characteristics of a sex doll but in a living breathing women. Without pores she couldn’t regulate her temperature and in one beautifully written scene almost dies because she is held to long. A scary and necessary reflection on the commodification of women’s bodies.
2. I Who have never known men, Jaqueline Harpman
Jaqueline Harpman wrote this book in her sixties. Originally written in French I read the English translation on a Greek beach in 2025. The story follows the lives of thirty nine women locked in a cage in a bunker underground. None of the women know why they are there or how they got there. They are guarded by men, who refuse to speak to them, but use whips to prevent the women from touching each other, or harming themselves. All the women have memories of a life before except one girl, the only child. The story is told from her point of view. One day an alarm sounds and the guards all run away leaving the women to explore the world outside.
This book was recently made popular on booktok and has been labelled the handmaids tale for Gen Z. However, its very far away from the Handmaids Tale both in content and tone (in my humble opinion). Less a reflection on male violence or female subjugation , the book explores isolation. It is the worlds end as a whimper not a bang.
3. Perdido Street station, China Mieville
Perdido street station is the first of a series of novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag where steampunk technology mixes with magic. The main character Issac, who lives in the city of New Crobuzon in the shadow of the eponymous station, is a scientist who is hired by a bird-like alien to help him fly again. This novel plot is convoluted but worth the ride for the immersive world building typical of China Mieville’s books.
Perdido street station is usually described as sci-fi and steampunk but I include it here for one reason- the remade. In New Crobuzon even small crimes are sadistically punished by converting the criminal to one of the remade. Surgically altered, the remade are fused to machines, animals or simply mutilated and their stories are peppered through the novel. As a teenager, it gave me nightmares.
Digi Penn
I love a good dystopian novel – are there a top 3-5 that you would recommend for adults?