10 Dystopias That Are More Relevant Than Ever Before

Dystopias rule our imaginations today — just ask Katniss Everdeen . But the dystopias that speak most powerfully to our existence were n’t of necessity create in the preceding X . Here are 10 great dystopias that are more relevant to the material world than when they were first create .

1) Brazil

Terry Gilliam ’s authoritative movie is just jam - packed withwarnings about the cosmos we live in now , from the overgrown security system state to the prevalence of mindless consumerism and cosmetic surgery . Its Kafka - esque looking at a bureaucracy that crushes the individual and put to death the wrong person due to a clerical error will feel scarily relevant to anybody who ’s tried to navigate real - life bureaucracies lately , but so will its vision of a world so frightened of terrorism that it kick in up all liberty . Brazil feels not only prescient , but diagnostic .

2) “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster (1909)

The writer of A Passage To India also wrote this former piece of scientific discipline fiction , about people live underground and rely on a great machine to furnish all their needs . People never interact with each other in person , but instead only communicate via email ( basically ) or via video phone . It ’s a parable about over - trust on engineering , and a monition that using technology to replace material human contact can make us effete and watery . Basically , Forster was warn us against Facebook and Tumblr . Thewhole text is here , and as the introduction says , “ Anybody who expend the Internet should read E.M. Forster ’s The Machine Stops . ”

3) The Minority Report, by Philip K. Dick (1956)

This short fib about a future where citizenry are imprisoned for crimes they have not yet practice , base on the visions of “ precogs ” who can see the future ( although they do not always see the same futurity ) , rival on theme that have arise only more relevant in the almost sixty years since it was published . As government surveillance technology become more and more aggressive — such as therecently reportedaerial surveillance equipment design to personate a electric cell phone tug and collect the sign of every cellular phone phone within its range — the question of what is acceptable government reach in the name of criminal offence prevention becomes more pressing every day .

4) We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920)

This novel was written decent after the Russian Revolution , and could be seen as a protestation against the rise of Communism . But asthis essayargues , it ’s more of a general monition about absolutism , and the risk of concentrate people to number inside a perfect organisation of conformity — and it ’s a great warning against the peril of a human beings where people can be judge for thought crimes and non - conforming behavior . The novel takes place in the 26th century , after two centuries of warfare , when a “ perfect ” society has been created where everybody is find out and everybody is a number , and “ the only way to disembarrass man of a criminal offence is to disembarrass him of exemption . ” And now the perfect social club is quick to go out and conquer space , spreading its flawlessness throughout the world . Plenty of people have reason thatOrwell borrowed extensively from this novel .

5) The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle (1923)

In thisstrange novel , creature visit the Makers do and instal clockwork into some men ’s principal — allowing them to move throughout time and space at will , but remove their freedom at the same time . Meanwhile , women and a few remaining men are lead on Earth , try out to create a perfect social club . This early floor about cyborgs who are uplifted in a kind of uniqueness has a hatful to say about how our smartphones and Google glasses verify us , but also about our willingness to become a beehive mind , not unlike the Borg . A lot of the theme that bedevil us today get their start in this novel .

6) The Iron Heel, Jack London (1908)

Here ’s another early dystopian novel that ’s credited with influencing Orwell ’s 1984 . London ’s book describes a tyrannous plutocracy that come to power between 1912 and 1932 , and hold on to big businessman for 300 years . In an era where economic expert warn about the widening spread between productive and piteous , and effect like final disinterest showthe falsify core of money on our political organization , this book ’s warning about “ robber barons ” who ruin the middle class and normal over everybody else seems more apt than ever .

7) “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut ’s narration of a earth where everybody has to be equal , even at the cost of damaging or holding back masses with sinful gifts , still provides a stiff warning about conformity . Re - reading the story ( which is onlinehere ) it feels particularly place at the “ dumbing down ” of pop cultivation and the ascension of anti - intellectualism — the characters in the story , George and Hazel , are obsessionally watching television alternatively of thinking for themselves . Like all the dystopias on this list , “ Harrison ” is taking things to a cockeyed extreme point , but it ’s a salutary warning against trying to keep gifted mass from being themselves . Vonneguthas saidhe key out with the masses trying to impose hitch on the over - achievers in his story , and the termination is a look at what envy and insecurity can drive us to do to others . Image viaHey Apathy Comics .

8) The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood (1985)

One of the American Library Association ’s “ 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books ” for both1990 - 1999and2000 - 2009 , Atwood ’s tale of a near - next Christian theocracy where women have been clean of their rights , colour - coded and grade by their class and generative status , and even mostly forbidden to read seems to be especially close to the zeitgeist decently now . With Modern law regulating fair sex ’s reproductive memory going on the ledger and charwoman being prosecuted for “ fetal homicide , ” the great unwashed are inevitablypointing out the parallels to Atwood ’s volume .

9) The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard (1962)

Not to be confused with Madonna ’s 1998 song of a standardised name , Ballard ’s novel tells the chronicle of a world transformed by climate change — it ’s set in London , for example , but the London of The Drowned World is a tropic lagoon . What with the United Nationssaying that we have to get C emissions down to zero by 2100to avoid “ square metal money extinction , [ and ] global and regional food for thought insecurity , ” Ballard ’s visual modality of a world overwhelmed by climate change seems more apt all the clip .

10) Jennifer Government by Max Barry (2003)

And finally , there ’s a newer book that is still even more relevant than it was back when it was published — in Barry ’s novel , corporations have become so powerful that everyone ’s last name is the name of the corporation he or she figure out for . And the government is just another , somewhat weaker , entity , jostle for power — with Jennifer Government as one of its molest employees . Barry ’s vision of a world where Nike engineers fierceness over its shoe as a merchandising tactic and coolhunters resort to brainsick substance is n’t just a cautionary narrative about corporate world power — it ’s also fundamentally about how merchandising can warp our worldview , that feels more urgent in the era of social spiritualist and viral advertising .

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