Ask HN: What is your favorite dystopian novel and why? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your favorite dystopian novel and why?

12 pointsgcatalfamo16 comments

I can't explain why but for some reason those books are those I can't put down until finished.

I love Asimoov and Huxley's work but while Brave New World has some background incoherence, 1984 is still my favorite depiction of a bad future.

I wouldn't say a I have a favorite dystopia genre, but Orwell and Gibson novels are those I have appreciated the most.

What's yours?

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By far "1984". I re-read it once in while, and am always terrified to see that each time, it looks a little more like our actual world.

I like "Brave New World" as well. It is interesting to see how our present is a mix of both Huxley's and Orwell's worlds. http://postimg.org/image/ue0pdq56r/

If you like Orwell's work you should read Koestler. He had a very strong influence to Orwell's work. try "Dark before Noon".

Probably the trial (kafka) or the plague (camus) but the one book I struggle to put down to put down is l'etranger as it's so easy to read in a single sitting and do compelling.

Benford's Timescape always freaked me out a bit. Scientists in a dystopian future sending messages into the past in order to prevent their future from occurring.

I don't know if it counts as dystopian but you should check out Flowers for Algernon - it's on similar lines.

SPOILER ALERT: "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." - 1984 Haunting last line. All struggle is futile; acceptance is inevitable. So yeah, pretty bleak, but favorite book nonetheless. I also love Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, which while not classically dystopian, still manages to elicit dystopian stoic despair against the backdrop of a seemingly normal world (our very own time and age). It automatically coaxs readers to draw parallels..maybe dystopia is not something imagined. Maybe it's more familiar than we think. Lastly, Robert A. Heinlein needs to be mentioned at least once in this thread; Farnham's Freehold and a Stranger in a Strange Land.

For a series of psychological reasons I try to avoid reading 1984.

From what I have read so far, I would say that it's Cryptonomicon. But it's a good future, it's a very sad future. Not as sad as Huxley's or Orwell's but sad enough.

The thing with "Brave New World" is that it's not a sad future. Everyone is happy. Everyone is conditioned to be happy with their situation. Alphas are happy to be alphas and enjoy a lot of privileges, Betas are happy to be betas and not have to deal with as many responsibilities as Alphas, etc. And this is the scariest part to me in the book.

Hm, you intrigued me, I need to read it.

Nineteen Eight-Four is mine too and it is because I think it is genius. I enjoy writing and I may even be able to write something good one day but the insights and truths in this book that parallel our society and appear to be timeless from when it was written to now make it my one of my favourite works of fiction. I can point to the book for some example for so many of the things that happen day to day. And yes, as said, the last line is truly chilling.

Definitely Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four although it's hard to explain exactly why. But it's probably at least in part because I read it when I was fairly young, and it was one of the first "classic" dystopian novels that I read. And it made me so angry. I finished that book with a really deep-seated, almost primal, loathing of "Big Brother".

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and it's sequel, Homeland. Actually more of a "what if" set in the US at present time but still shows how there is a very narrow gap between current times and the time predicted in the book!

I really enjoyed Stephen King's The Long Walk in addition to a few others already mentioned.

Running Man, another Bachman book, is another dystopian favorite of mine.

The Silo series by Hugh Howey was pretty great

"Earth Abides" was pretty good.

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