Dystopian Literary Fiction

The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London, was the first example of a post-apocalyptic fiction novel in modern literature. Set in a ravaged and wild America, the story takes place in 2073, 60 years after the spread of the Red Death, an uncontrollable epidemic that depopulated and nearly destroyed the world in 2013. One of the few survivors, James Howard Smith, alias “Granser”, tells his incredulous and near-savage grandsons how the pandemic spread in the world and about the reactions of the people to contagion and death.

At the end of the 21st century - in a transformed America - the families of convicted felons are tested for a set of genetic markers. Boys who test positive become compulsory wards of the state - removed from their homes and raised on "Goodhouse" campuses, where they learn to reform their darkest thoughts and impulses. Goodhouse is a feral place.

London 2030. When a postman knocks on his door, the news he delivers will cause 70-year-old Anthony Pablo Rubens to reflect on all the many sadnesses and joys of the past, while he begins to prepare for the surprises of the future. The past still revolves around the moment in the summer of 1984 when young Anthony first realized he had fallen in love.

Set in Rhode Island, Winner of the National Book Award tells the story of twins who could not be more different. Abigail Mather is a woman of passionate sensual and sexual appetites, while her sister, the book-loving local librarian Dorcas, lives a quiet life of the mind. But when the sisters are sought out by the predatory and famous poet, Guy DeVilbiss, who introduces them to Hollywood hack writer and possible psychopath Conrad Lowe, they rapidly become pawns in a game that leads to betrayal, shame and ultimately, murder.

Nicknamed Dewey Decimal for his obsessive attempts to bring order to the New York Public Library in the wake of disastrous events in the city, the hero of this series earns his keep as a bagman and enforcer for unscrupulous politicians and underworld figures. Now, he’s stumbled upon information concerning the gruesome murder of a prostitute that involves a prominent US senator - and finds himself chasing ghosts and fighting for his life, pursued by private military contractors and the ever-present specter of his own past....

In the world outside of the Haven Institute, Lyra and Caelum are finding it hard to be human - and Lyra, infected at Haven with a terrible disease, finds her symptoms are growing worse. When Caelum leaves without warning, Lyra follows him, seeking a pioneering organization in Philadelphia that might have a cure. But what they uncover there is a shocking connection to their past, even as their future seems in danger of collapsing.

The Addisons - Julia and Tonio, 10-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie - are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

For five years Edie has worked for the Elysian Society, a secretive organisation that provides a very specialised service: its clients come to reconnect with their dead loved ones by channelling them through living 'Bodies'. Edie is one such Body, perhaps the best in the team, renowned for her professionalism and discretion. But everything changes when Patrick, a distraught husband, comes to look for traces of his drowned wife in Edie....

As the human population continues to decline, most people travel south to maintain a semblance of the life they know. Entire cities are abandoned. But following a senseless act of violence, one man travels north, toward forgotten lands. Is it possible for a loving husband and father, surrounded by reminders of mankind's impending extinction, to reclaim what he lost?

When the Twin Towers suddenly reappear in the badlands of South Dakota 20 years after their fall, nobody can explain their return. To the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands drawn to the "American Stonehenge" - including Parker and Zema, siblings on their way from Los Angeles to visit their mother in Michigan - the Towers seem to sing, even as everybody hears a different song. A rumor overtakes the throng that someone can be seen in the high windows of the southern structure.

Ci sono promesse che non possono essere mantenute. Come quella che Julian ha fatto ad Aileen. Era solo un bambino quando l'ha vista per la prima volta, e se n'è innamorato perdutamente. Da quel momento ha giurato che non l'avrebbe lasciata mai. Che sarebbe rimasto con lei per sempre. Ma si può davvero promettere per sempre? Non in una città come Aurora. Una metropoli schiacciata da un cielo plumbeo e soffocata dall'inquinamento, in cui l'aspettativa di vita è scesa drasticamente.

As a child, Linda Russell was left to raise herself in a 20-acre walled-off property in rural Washington. The woods were her home, and for 12 years she lived oblivious to a stark and terrible truth: Her mother had birthed her only to replace another daughter who died in a tragic accident years before. Then one day Linda witnesses something she wasn’t meant to see.

In a reimagined contemporary Edinburgh, where a tectonic fault has opened up to produce a new volcano in the Firth of Forth, and where tremors are an everyday occurrence, volcanologist Surtsey makes a shocking discovery. On a clandestine trip to new volcanic island The Inch, to meet Tom, her lover and her boss, she finds his lifeless body and makes the fatal decision to keep their affair, and her discovery, a secret. Desperate to know how he died, but also terrified she’ll be exposed, Surtsey’s life quickly spirals into a nightmare when someone makes contact - someone who claims to know what she’s done....

Helsinki is battling ruthless climate catastrophe. Tapani Lehtinen, a struggling poet, is among the few still willing to live in the city. When Tapani’s wife, Johanna, a journalist, goes missing, he embarks on a frantic hunt for her. Johanna’s disappearance seems to be connected to a story she was researching about a serial killer known as "The Healer". Determined to find Johanna, Tapani’s search leads him to uncover secrets from her past - secrets that connect her to the very murders she was investigating.

Blythe Hallowell is 16 when she is abducted by a survivalist and locked away in an aban­doned missile silo in Eudora, Kansas. At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in - the crushing loneliness, the terrifying madness of a captor who believes he is saving her from the end of the world, and the persistent temptation to give up. But nothing prepares Blythe for the burden of raising a child in confinement.

When disaster strikes in the form of an EMP, Charlie's family flees to their homestead. They fortify their ranch and prepare to ride out the worst of the chaos. Unfortunately, the gang of scavengers who followed them from the city have other plans. How does an ordinary family protect themselves in the wake of violence and chaos?

When Suyana, Face of the United Amazonia Rainforest Confederation, secretly meets Ethan of the United States for a date that can solidify a relationship for the struggling UARC, the last thing she expects is an assassination attempt. Daniel, a teen runaway turned paparazzi out for his big break, witnesses the first shot hit Suyana, and before he can think about it he jumps into the fray, telling himself it's not altruism, it's the scoop. Just like that,Suyana and Daniel are now in the game of Faces.

What's left of the world is divided between the highly regimented life of those inside dome-cities that are protected from natural light (and natural shadows), and those forced to the dangerous, hardscrabble life in the wilds outside. In rural Texas, Mira, her shadow-addicted friend Murk, and an ex-Domer named Bale search for a possible mythological cure to the shadow sickness - but they must do so, it is said, before the return of Halley's Comet, which is only days away.

The story of The Scarlet Plague takes place in 2073 in the San Francisco area, 60 years after an apocalyptic pandemic called the Red Death or Scarlet Plague has depopulated the Earth. James Smith, one of the survivors, lives with his grandsons who are hunter-gatherers in a tribal world. He relates the horror of the plague to them, and tells them of the time when he was a professor of English, and of the start of the pandemic. His grandsons, who are of limited cognitive ability, refuse to believe him; they cannot believe that the disease was spread by germs.

In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, humankind has entered a dark age at some point in the unspecified future. Individuality is no longer permitted, and people are assigned roles to fulfill in their lives. The work's protagonist, Equality 7-2521, is given an undesirable job as a punishment for thinking for himself and desiring to become a scientist instead. The novella outlines his journey as he starts to commit more “crimes” against society, such as desiring a companion of his own choosing, discovering electricity, and ultimately fleeing from his leaders.