Dystopian Literary Fiction

In Victoria on a former prison colony, two exiled groups - the farmers of Shantih and the city dwellers - live in apparent harmony. All is not as it seems, however. While the peace-loving farmers labor endlessly to provide food for the city, the city bosses rule the Shantih with an iron fist. When a group of farmers decide to form a new settlement further away, the bosses retaliate by threatening to crush the "rebellion".

If you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it? From the author of Curfew comes a suspenseful, heart-wrenching novel about the consequences of your answer. Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end...

This is the story Harry Ransom. If you know his name it's most likely as the inventor of the Ransom Process, a stroke of genius that changed the world. Or you may have read about how he lost the battle of Jasper City, or won it, depending on where you stand in matters of politics. Friends called him Hal or Harry, or by one of a half-dozen aliases, of which he had more than any honest man should. He often went by Professor Harry Ransom, and though he never had anything you might call a formal education, he definitely earned it.

"Adam Levin is one of our wildest writers and our funniest, and Bubblegum is a dazzling accomplishment of wit and inventiveness." —George Saunders "Levin's brains may have earned him a cult...but here he swells to a democratic reach. Give him a try sometime. His gate’s wide open...

Amanda Leduc's brilliant new novel, woven with fairy tales of her own devising and replete with both catastrophe and magic, is a vision of what happens when we ignore the natural world and the darker parts of our own natures. Heather is sleeping peacefully after the birth of her twin daughters...

The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America, and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man.

En 2032, tras perder su hogar y su familia, Lauren Olamina estableció una pacífica comunidad en el norte de California, basada en su fe recién fundada: Semilla Terrestre. En ella ofrece refugio a los marginados y perseguidos por la administración de Jarret, un presidente ultraconservador que promete «hacer que Estados Unidos vuelva a ser grande». En una nación cada vez más peligrosa y dividida, la subversiva colonia de Lauren, una facción religiosa minoritaria dirigida por una joven mujer negra, se convierte en un objetivo del reinado de terror y opresión de Jarret.

Blending fact and fiction, China Dream is an unflinching satire of totalitarianism. Ma Daode, a corrupt and lecherous party official, is feeling pleased with himself. He has an impressive office, three properties, and multiple mistresses who text him day and night. After decades of loyal service, he has been appointed director of the China Dream Bureau, charged with replacing people's private dreams with President Xi Jinping's great China Dream of national rejuvenation.

A Recommended Summer Read from The Verge and io9 A Recommended June Read from Hello Giggles and Tor.com When the world ends, where will you go? In a breathtakingly vivid and emotionally gripping debut novel, one woman must confront the emptiness in the universe—and in her own heart—when a...

In The Traveler, John Twelve Hawks introduced listeners to a dangerous world inspired by the modern technology that monitors our lives. As it ends, Gabriel Corrigan hesitates under the weight of responsibility. His brother Michael seizes opportunity–and joins the enemy. THE DARK RIVER opens in...

What happens when what was once considered dystopia is now reality? This darkly brilliant debut novel explores how women shape themselves beneath the gaze of love, friendship, and the algorithm—“a fever dream for the AI age” (People). “This book reads like a thriller, but it's also a...

A definitive collection of new and selected stories by a master of the form “Comparisons might be drawn to writers ranging from Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami to Margaret Atwood and J. D. Salinger. All of Lethem’s stories are enlivened by his wit and provocative wordplay.”...

When a group of outcasts with extraordinary abilities comes out of hiding, their clash with a violent society will spark a revolution—or an apocalypse. “Much like the X-Men comics, Proehl masterfully uses science fiction as a lens to examine social inequality and human evil...

"In these dark days, Saleema Nawaz dares to write of hope. Songs for the End of the World is a loving, vivid, tenderly felt novel about men, women, and a possible apocalypse. I couldn't put it down." –Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors and The Wagers NATIONAL BESTSELLER. An immersive...

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE An ordinary town is transformed by a mysterious illness that triggers perpetual sleep in this mesmerizing novel from the bestselling author of The Age of Miracles. “Stunning.”—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven “A...

Award-winning author Benjamin Percy presents an explosive and deeply layered literary thriller set in the American West. They live among us. They are our neighbors, our mothers, our lovers. They change. When government agents kick down Claire Forrester's front door and murder her parents, Claire...

All the electricity has gone out, nobody knows why, and it's five months later. Food is scarce, and gas is scarcer. The world isn't sudden chaos: it's simply quiet and lost. Survival depends on trusting the right people, and staying away from the wrong ones. But how can you tell the difference? Tulsa is a ground's-eye view of the apocalypse: a front-row seat to the slow-motion unraveling of society and the things we believe comprise identity. As the world falls apart, there are people everywhere - trustworthy or treacherous - and somewhere in the countryside, there is a particular farm....

WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD After a global pandemic makes public gatherings illegal and concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music—and for one chance at human connection. In the Before, when the government didn't prohibit large public gatherings, Luce...

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.

Wilderness survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in this fast-paced novel of suspense in the vein of Yellowjackets. “Taut, tense, and at times almost unbearably real.”—Ruth Ware, author of One by One She wanted an adventure. She never...