Postcard For Reader

Top Dystopians (Dystopian August)

Every year, Lenore at Presenting Lenore hosts Dystopian February. When I asked if anybody wanted to see any list-y posts, Lenore practically demanded that I do one for Dystopian August, which she's doing this year. She threatened me with a pitchfork and everything.

Not really. She asked politely. But I like my imagery better.

But here are my top dystopians! Not my favorites, not my least favorites, but ten that stand out to me for some reason or another.

The Other Life
Author: Susanne Winnacker
Sub-genre: zombie/horror

My review.

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.

The Other Life was the first zombie novel I read that I actually enjoyed and thought worked really, really well. For that reason, it gets onto this lovely list!

The Immortal Rules
Author: Julie Kagawa
Sub-genre: vampire

My review.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn’t easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

The Immortal Rules pulled me out of my vampire-hatred slump. It had everything I loved - badass heroine, well-developed world, swords. Lots of swords.

Lockdown
Author: Alexander Gordon-Smith
Sub-genre: horror / sci-fi

My review.

Beneath Heaven is Hell. Beneath Hell is Furnace.

Furnace Penitentiary: An underground hellhole. A place of pure evil with walls soaked in blood. Murderous gangs and vicious guards rule the darkness. Horrific creatures steal people away in the dead of night. And the impossible - escape - is the only hope.

This series makes my skin shiver. It's legitimately creepy and presents a world that could theoretically exist. (Assuming, of course, we get the technology...)

The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Sub-genre: post-apocalyptic / sci-fi

My review.

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Is there even a question as to why this is on the list? The Hunger Games was what made me relook into my love of dystopians; it's just excellent in every way. And there's a character who is named after bread, and I love bread.

The Giver
Author: Lois Lowry
Sub-genre: utopia

Add it on Goodreads.

Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

The Giver was the first dystopian novel I ever read and one of the first books that legitimately had me thinking about the world and what caused what and how people perceived things. Any book that can open your mind is a-okay in my book.

The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Sub-genre: post-apocalyptic

Add it on Goodreads.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining fertility, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now...

Another dystopian that left me thinking about the world and the characters in it for a very long time. The Handmaid's Tale is one of those viscerally chilling classic dystopians, and it's a classic for good reason.

Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Sub-genre: post-apocalyptic / sci-fi

Add it on Goodreads.

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Uglies is just a good book. Even for people who don't normally like dystopians, it's just genuinely good. Great characters and some of my favorite worldbuilding.

Level 2
Author: Lenore Appelhans
Sub-genre: sci-fi

Add it on Goodreads.

Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow prisoners, Felicia passes the endless hours downloading memories and mourning what she’s lost—family, friends, and the boy she loved, Neil.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber disappears, and nobody but Felicia seems to recall she existed in the first place. Something is obviously very wrong. When Julian—a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life—comes to offer Felicia a way out, she learns the truth: a rebellion is brewing to overthrow the Morati, the guardians of Level 2.

Felicia is reluctant to trust Julian, but then he promises what she wants the most—to be with Neil again—if only she’ll join the rebels. Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself in the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind.

I may not have read it, but it does stand out to me -- great cover, great author, great premise. Doesn't it sound absolutely fantastic?

Incarceron
Author: Catherine Fisher
Sub-category: sci-fi / steampunk

My review.

Incarceron is a prison so vast that it contains not only cells, but also metal forests, dilapidated cities, and vast wilderness. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, has no memory of his childhood and is sure that he came from Outside Incarceron. Very few prisoners believe that there is an Outside, however, which makes escape seems impossible.

And then Finn finds a crystal key that allows him to communicate with a girl named Claudia. She claims to live Outside- she is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and doomed to an arranged marriage. Finn is determined to escape the prison, and Claudia believes she can help him. But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost more than they know.

I didn't completely love Incarceron, but one of the most important things about dystopians is their world - and man, does Incarceron have one of the best worlds I've ever seen!

The Supernaturalists
Author: Eoin Colfer
Sub-category: sci-fi / fantasy

Add it on Goodreads.

In the future, in a place called Satelite City, fourteen-year-old Cosmo Hill enters the world, unwanted by his parents. He's sent to the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, Freight class. At Clarissa Frayne, the boys are put to work by the state, testing highly dangerous products. At the end of most days, they are covered with burns, bruises, and sores. Cosmo realizes that if he doesn't escape, he will die at this so-called orphanage. When the moment finally comes, Cosmo seizes his chance and breaks out with the help of the Supernaturalists, a motley crew of kids who all have the same special ability as Cosmo-they can see supernatural Parasites, creatures that feed on the life force of humans. The Supernaturalists patrol the city at night, hunting the Parasites in hopes of saving what's left of humanity in Satellite City. Or so they think. The Supernaturalist soon find themselves caught in a web far more complicated than they'd imagined, when they discover a horrifying secret that will force them to question everything they believe in.

I love this book. Loved it. And I didn't even think of classifying is as a dystopian sci-fi until I was combing through my Goodreads account for this post, but that's exactly what it is. And it's awesome.

What are some of your favorite dystopians?