The best dystopia books

Even leading capitalists admit that capitalism is broken. Green Swans is a manifesto for system change designed to serve people, the planet, and prosperity. In his twentieth book, John Elkington—dubbed the “Godfather of Sustainability”—explores new forms of capitalism fit for the twenty-first century.

If Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swans are problems that can take us exponentially toward breakdown, then Green Swans are solutions that take us exponentially toward breakthroughs. The success—and survival—of humanity now depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second.

Two years have passed since humankind faced extinction: Two cousins are leaving the protection of their underground bunker for the first time, after a cataclysmic war and unrelenting disease ravaged the earth. On the other side of North America, a young survivalist is leaving the seclusion of his cabin deep in the woods. For individual reasons, these men are traveling east, where the fragmented lives of a small number of survivors will soon be decided by the choices of a corrupt few. The strength that resides inside them will be tested, and destiny will call for their fates to be forever intertwined.

"A fierce post-apocalyptic story of war and loss, of nature's vengeance, of survival in the face of overwhelming odds." - Manhattan Book Reviews

A whip-smart outsider insecure in her gender identity, 17-year-old Maggie explores the North Carolina woods and avoids misery at home and school by communing with shadowy figures including a long-ago biologist. When her gorgeous cousin’s brutalized body is found at the marina where Maggie lives with her broken father, a persistent detective intimates that she’s the prime suspect—and this backwater world, where people perpetually reinvent themselves to survive, suddenly becomes more complex and dangerous.

In the 2050s, the world meets in Buenos Aires for the 60th annual UN climate negotiations. But what kind of world and what they’ll negotiate are determined by the choices we make now. Our Shared Storm weaves together stories that explore five real-world IPCC scenarios, ranging from the harrowing to the hopeful. When a superstorm blows in, four characters—Noah, Luis, Saga, and Diya—are brought together or thrown into conflict. But in each story there are different people living different lives, shaped by the diverging paths the planet has taken. Called “deeply affecting” by Publisher’s Weekly, this book will get you up to speed on climate politics and the culture of the people trying to save the planet.

Everyone knows the first rule of the zombie apocalypse: Don't. Get. Bitten.

Unfortunately Violet has never been great at following the rules. Within minutes of meeting her first zombie, it has taken a chunk out of her arm. Fortunately for Violet, she doesn't die. Unfortunately —she's not exactly alive, either. Now she will need to learn to control her cannibalistic urges, and hide what she is from the other survivors. And the real zombies? They still want to eat her, too. Surviving the zompocalypse is tricky when you play for both teams.

Gone will always be my most important book because of why it was written. When my daughter, Samantha, was two, her heart stopped and she died. Doctors revived her, but too late because she was left severely brain-damaged, who she’d been was wiped clean. For the next seventeen years, I watched her withering, twisting body survive without her knowing what was happening except for pain and suffering until she died a second and final time.

During those seventeen years, I had a question: Where had my daughter gone? Because her essence had vanished leaving only an empty shell: hence I created a world and went in search of her. Gone is one answer to that question.  It’s a unique fantasy and might even help others to come to terms with loss.

16-year-old Suni has always known she is different. She and her mother, Mata, live a secretive life on the edge of society, hidden from the tyrant King and his autocratic rule. Her father abandoned them to work in the King’s crystal mines. In a land ravaged by drought, where the natural world is forsaken for profit, Mata follows the old ways of the Mantra, which the King has outlawed. When tragedy strikes, Suni is cut adrift. She sets off to find her father. Will she also find the destiny Mata wanted for her?

This award-winning, character-driven fantasy adventure chronicles Suni’s search for justice and her own identity, as she finds herself at the centre of a desperate bid to save her homeland.

Every six months on Regulation Day, children from the honorable city of Nepenthe take a required intelligence examination. Those who pass resume their lives as valuable students, but those who fail are imprisoned, no longer considered human.

When fourteen-year-old Grecia Rivera fails the examination—despite being one of the best artists of her age—her life is turned upside down. To avoid her prison sentence, she must abandon everyone she loves and escape from Nepenthe. But Grecia soon discovers that the outside world is just as brutal as the city she left behind. Now trapped within a society of runaways, Grecia must risk her life for freedom once again.

Widow, single mother, and Army veteran Jennifer “River” Petersen works as a truck driver in Energy Territory No. 1, formerly known as North Dakota. Forced to enlist after her father’s death, the lines of River’s life have been redrawn. Living in a motel room with nothing but her books and a Glock handgun, River is weeks away from returning home when an injured man standing in the middle of the highway upends her plans. From the moment he encounters River, Finn Cunningham knows he must conceal his identity or be left for dead. His deception draws them into a megalomaniac's deadly conspiracy to ignite a civil war and overthrow the government. 48 States is a one-of-a-kind dystopian thriller about the dangers of extremism and the power of love and forgiveness.

Something is rotting in the city of Emaldin, and everyone knows it. Valencia was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. Plucked from a life of crime, the Institute promised her an easier life inside the Pod, if she could make it to graduation. Instead, she reawakens after being killed, back from the dead with a lethal touch. Valencia survives under the radar as a deadly shadow. Her touch, a weapon. Until she realizes she hasn’t been the one wielding it. Until the wrong life, at the wrong time, gets cut short.

On the run, she must make new alliances to untangle the web surrounding the Institute and find the truth of Emaldin… even if it means letting go of everything she’s ever known.