100 books like The End We Start From

I especially love this novel as Camus applies his background in existential philosophy to elevate the medical thriller genre into the realm of the metaphysical.

I love how the novel uses the plot device of an outbreak of the plague to force me as a reader to move  beyond the surface questions of “What?” “When?” and “Where?” to ask the deeper question of “Why?” and “What now?”

This is the novel that inspired whole shelves in the bookshops of recent women’s dystopian fictions (note how often their covers mimic the red and white of the handmaid’s uniform!) 

I write about Atwood a lot, and I'm most often asked to talk about this book. No matter how many times I return to The Handmaid’s Tale, I find something new to think about. 

Atwood took what was an often male-focused genre (think George Orwell’s 1984) and reimagined it from a woman’s perspective. For me, the most terrifying thing about Offred’s story is how ordinary she is – how she’s just trying to keep her head down and survive. When the government was overthrown, she watched it on TV and did nothing, like most of us would.

If you only know this book from the Hulu TV series, I urge you to go back to the novel: it's… show more.

The Fifth Season is set in a world plagued by intermittent climate catastrophes and inhabited by a group of people called orogenes, who possess the ability to control energy and, therefore, thwart these catastrophes.

It follows two talented oregenes named Syenite and Alabaster, who are forced by the ruling class to marry and undertake a dangerous mission together. Jemisin’s story is a riveting exploration of environmental ethics, transhumanism, and the concept of the Anthropocene. She challenges her characters and readers to consider their responsibility for the earth and the other organisms that share it. She also depicts the role that social oppression plays in the exploitation and destruction of the environment.

This is the first book I ever read by Butler and it remains my favourite. Butler’s vision of near-future America is one of climate crisis, economic collapse, and social anarchy. The scenes of violence and degradation are terrifying.

What I love about this novel is how Butler creates a true hero – visionary, determined, and inspirational – in Lauren, a teenage girl. Written as a journal, the protagonist’s youth can be heard in her language ("I hate being a kid," she complains), but Butler has every faith in her as an extraordinary leader. In many ways, it’s a classic quest novel, as Lauren’s followers head north in search of safety; it’s also an attempt to articulate a new way of thinking about the earth and our relationship to it.

Butler uses elements familiar to dystopian writing, and the novel reminds me of many others, but it somehow manages to be… show more.

I first learned about Penelope Farmer’s Beginnings: Creation Myths of the World while reading Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From. In her short book, Farmer has compiled fragments of myths from around the world, and she organized these brief excerpts into sections that describe the beginning of the world, the origin of the earth and Man, flood and fire mythologies, the origin of death and food plants, and the end of the world. To see such different (and, sometimes, intriguingly similar) mythologies from diverse cultures sharing fundamental interests is inspiring in itself, and for such a quick survey of our world’s origin stories, the book is cosmic in scope and a wonderful jumping off place for additional research.

I was recommended this novel by one of my students and loved it instantly. It has all the features you might expect of a dystopia: environmental damage, scant resources, and an authoritarian government controlling where people live, work, and travel.

I research contemporary women’s writing and the history of feminism, and I love Hall’s focus on how future dystopian scenarios might specifically affect women. Facing a world where women’s reproduction is controlled by the state, Hall’s narrator runs away to join a rebel women’s stronghold in the Cumbrian hills.

The experience is anything but gentle and sisterly; Hall is brilliant on both the brutal landscape of the north and the strength and violence of female resistance.

In a list of dystopian futures, Mackintosh’s book sits a little unsurely. It’s a dreamy, otherworldly novel, and we’re never quite sure when or where it’s taking place. Three sisters live in isolation with their parents, avoiding an outside world ravaged by contagion – but is the threat real or imagined?

I love this book for its strangeness: it’s an uncanny fairy tale, partly set in some kind of decrepit Victorian seaside retreat for lady hysterics, partly set in the woods where wolves (or men) may prowl.

Mackintosh builds layered dystopias, where both the diseased, brutal world of male violence and the claustrophobic, emotionally manipulative "care" of home and family threaten the sisters’ security. This hazy fever-dream of a book stayed with me for a long time after I finished it. 

An interesting take on a dystopian world, whilst humanity is threatened in this book, the two main characters have pretty decent lives (aside from the fact that they’re destined to be the last humans ever). Loneliness is one of my biggest fears, and the concept of being one of the only two people left on earth is truly terrifying. This book was an intriguing take on the dystopian genre, focusing on what would happen if humans became unable to reproduce. It had some twists I honestly didn’t see coming and a really positive attitude towards diversity. Lowrie (the female narrator) is a compelling, realistic character who records the world around her with compassion. Definitely one for readers who prefer a more ‘positive’ dystopian outlook.

Kerry Drewery is an author that came in for a Masterclass when I was studying my undergrad in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. As this book series was right up my alley, I decided to buy every book on kindle (and most recently in paperback). This series reminded me a lot of 1984 with the dark setting and horrific outcomes. Set in a future London, the reality show format of the book gives an insight into human nature. How far will we go for entertainment? 

I came across Salt Lick when hunting for novels on the topic of climate breakdown.

I was looking for writers who go beyond the doom and gloom, to find either rays of hope or at the very least a story where life and love might survive. For me, hope was an essential element in Jessie Lamb’s story. And in Salt Lick, Allison does deliver a dogged kind of hope for her strange trio of wandering central characters.

Beyond that, she delivers bewitchingly beautiful prose; her first page is a masterclass in description.