Dystopian Literary Fiction

***LONG-LISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*** From the author of Silence Once Begun, a beguiling new novel about a man starting over at the most basic level, and the strange woman who insinuates herself into his life and memory. A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village...

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...

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.

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".

A dazzling, surrealist fairy tale of a young woman's quest for house and home—from New York to the Texas hinterlands and, maybe, back again. The world is ending. It has been ending for some time. When did the ending begin? Perhaps when Evie’s mother died, or when her father died soon after...

Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Award In this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster. Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a...

Twins Virginia and Tommy Matthews have been on their own since they were orphaned at the age of five, surviving a merciless foster care system by relying on each other. Twelve years later, the world begins to collapse around them as a deadly contagion steadily wipes out entire populations and a devastating world war rages on for the cure. When Tommy is drafted for the war, the twins are faced with a choice: stay and accept their fate of almost certain death or run. Virginia and Tommy flee into the dark night.

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

For years, Teresa has meandered from one job to the next, settling into long stretches of time, unable to move ahead in any field or career, the dreaded move from one gig to another starting to feel unbearable. When a recruiter connects her with a contract position at AllOver, it appears to check all her prerequisites for a “good” job. It’s a fintech corporation with progressive hiring policies and a social-justice–minded mission statement. Their new service for premium members? A functional fleet of driverless cars. The future of transportation.

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.

"We'd had to be cut free of our mother's womb. Abby and I were fused, you see. But here's the real kicker; Abby had the magic, I didn't." Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father. Today, Makeda has decided it's high time to move out and make her own life.

“What’s after Armageddon? No government, no laws, no infrastructure, no oil, no industry…and sometimes a sense of relief. In Kunstler’s richly imagined World Made by Hand, the bone-weary denizens of Union Grove…manage to plant a few seeds of human decency that bear fruit.”...

The first English translation of celebrated Swiss-German novelist Sibylle Berg, Grime is a manifesto for fury, escape, and individual...

“This richly imagined journey into a dystopian future is at once cautionary and provocative, inviting us to heed the lessons of the Ancients.” —Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass A richly imagined, sweeping novel of hope, love, and adventure...

A thick fog rolls in over Shivering Heights. The river overflows, the sky is streaked with toxic green, parasites proliferate in torrential rains, and once safely classified species - humans included - are evolving and behaving in unprecedented ways. Against this poetically hostile backdrop, a biologist, Laura, fights to understand the nature and scope of the changes transforming her own body and the world around her.

Is this what's in store? June 12, 2030, started out like any other day in memory---and by then, memories were long. Since cancer had been cured fifteen years before, America's population was aging rapidly. That sounds like good news, but consider this: millions of baby boomers, with a big natural predator picked off, were sucking dry benefits and resources that were never meant to hold them into their eighties and beyond.

The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don’t collaborate, they only compete...It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don’t despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company!

"Great, near-future sci-fi...A propulsive, character-driven thriller...I really love this book."—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble and Magic for Beginners In the spirit of Station Eleven and California, award-winning novelist Holly Goddard Jones offers a literary spin on the dystopian...

"Narrator Joe Gaminara keeps listeners right where the author wants them: teetering between perception and reality." — AudioFile Magazine From acclaimed British poet Luke Kennard comes The Transition: an intriguing and mysterious debut audiobook. Do you or your partner spend more than you earn?...