I’m a former English student who has always been fascinated by what stories can tell us about society—and vice versa. Dystopian fiction is one of my favourite genres for this: I love how it makes the familiar strange and holds a dark mirror up to our cultural attitudes and conventions. Now, I’m a sci-fi author who creates twisted fiction of her own. Inscape, my own British dystopia, is a ‘razor-sharp’ spy thriller set in a UK that has fallen under corporate control. It was included in The Guardian’s round-up of the best new science fiction and has been nominated for a Subjective Chaos Kind of Award.
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Tanta has trained all her young life for this. Her first mission is a code red: to take her team into the unaffiliated zone beyond InTech’s borders and retrieve a stolen hard drive. It should have been quick and simple, but a surprise attack kills two of her colleagues and Tanta barely makes it home alive. Determined to prove herself and partnered with a colleague whose past is a mystery even to himself, Tanta’s investigation uncovers a sinister conspiracy that makes her question her own loyalties and the motives of everyone she used to trust.
Diana Wynne Jones was the author who made me want to be a writer, and I can't recommend her highly enough. Witch Weekmight seem an unconventional choice for a list about dystopian fiction—it’s a children’s fantasy novel set in a boarding school—but if you’re expecting early Harry Potter, you’ll be chillingly surprised. Set in an alternate 80s Britain where suspected witches are still burnt at the stake, this story is dystopic to its bones. What I love about it is how unflinchingly dark it gets. It doesn’t shy away from the raw, existential terror of living in a society that hates you for how you were born: there’s one scene in particular that gives me a shiver whenever I think about it.
Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones favourite, featuring Chrestomanci - now a book with extra bits!
SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH
When the note, written in ordinary ballpoint, turns up in the homework books Mr Crossley is marking, he is very upset. For this is Larwood House, a school for witch-orphans, where witchcraft is utterly forbidden. And yet magic keeps breaking out all over the place - like measles!
The last thing they need is a visit from the Divisional Inquisitor. If only Chrestomanci could come and sort out all the trouble.
This is the novel that first sparked my appetite for dystopian fiction. No list of British dystopias would be complete without it, and it’s a classic for very good reason. Every time I read it, I’m amazed by the range of Orwell’s prose: the book flits from the tenderness of an emerging love affair, to deft explanations of political theory, to exquisitely claustrophobic evocations of a life lived under constant surveillance. Britain under the rule of ‘The Party’ is the most repressive and authoritarian society I’ve ever encountered in fiction. Fair warning: this is a bleak, bleak read, so wait until you’re feeling brave before you start!
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
Another classic, and the only graphic novel on my list. I read V for Vendetta in parallel with 1984, and it’s an experience I’d really recommend. There are so many interesting things to compare about the two that I found reading them together enhanced my appreciation of both. The fascistic societies they depict are superficially similar, but at their core, I think the two novels draw very different conclusions about the nature of dystopias, and the power individual people have to challenge them. I’d suggest reading them with a friend and then cheering yourselves up afterward by picking them apart.
In the near future, England has become a corrupt, totalitarian state, opposed only by V, the mystery man wearing a white porcelain mask who intends to free the masses through absurd acts of terrorism.
This is a lighter dystopia, in many ways—call it a unicorn chaser for 1984and V for Vendetta, if you will! It’s a YA novel, and I found it a quick, fun, pacy read—as are its two sequels. You can often pick up all three in a single volume, which is how I read them. I don’t want to say too much about the first book, because so much of the fun of its opening chapters lies in figuring out what on earth is going on. You’re dropped into the peaceful English village of Wherton—a rural idyll on the surface, but there’s something not quite right about it. Maybe it has something to do with the strange headwear everyone’s sporting…
Monstrous machines rule the Earth, but a few humans are fighting for freedom in this repackaged start to a classic alien trilogy ideal for fans of Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave.
Will Parker never dreamed he would be the one to rebel against the Tripods. With the approach of his thirteenth birthday, he expected to attend his Capping ceremony as planned and to become connected to the Tripods—huge three-legged machines—that now control all of Earth. But after an encounter with a strange homeless man called Beanpole, Will sets out for the White Mountains, where people are said to be free…
This underappreciated masterpiece is my favourite novel on the list, and the one I would make everyone read if I could. Fforde’s trademark is his "quirky British cosiness" (The Guardian) but in this book, that cosiness is twisted into something equal parts chilling and surreal. The result is the most compelling dystopia I’ve ever read. It’s about a hierarchical society organised according to colour perception, with the lowly Greys (who see in black and white) at the bottom and the illustrious Purples (who can see shades of red and blue) at the top. If that sounds weird to you, you’re absolutely right—it is. It’s also hilarious and heartbreaking by turns, fathoms deep and breathtakingly dark, with a series of brilliant twists and a killer sting in the tail.
The New York Times bestseller and "a rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness" (The Washington Post) from the author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser
Welcome to Chromatacia, where the societal hierarchy is strictly regulated by one's limited color perception. And Eddie Russet wants to move up. But his plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended. Juggling inviolable rules, sneaky Yellows, and a risky friendship with an intriguing Grey named Jane who shows Eddie that the apparent peace of his world is as much an illusion as…
Burne’s been hiding out in the forest since deserting the King’s Guard. Each time he tries to return to the village, he begins to panic. And then one day, he encounters a handsome stranger picking flowers and hides behind a tree instead of talking.
He wants to be braver—and he’s about to get another chance. Because the stranger is Gray, a fairy and master of illusions who’s now following Burne home. And Gray’s got more on his mind than talking. Would a fairy that beautiful ever want someone like him? Stranger things have happened.
Burne hid behind a tree. He wanted to talk to the handsome man picking flowers at the edge of the forest, but he'd only flub it if he tried-he'd stumble over his words and blush bright red. And now the man is gone.
He tries to continue on to the village, but the same thing happens as always: his hands start shaking and panic wells up inside him. What if he runs into the bullies who tormented him in the King's Guard last spring? Ever since he deserted, he has hidden out in the…
