Dystopian + Utopian Novels?

[TadW]

Hello,

I am a great fan of dystopian and utopian novels. Here are some I've read so far:

1984, G. Orwell
Fahrenheit 451, R. Bradbury
Brave New World, A. Huxley
A Clockwork Orange, A. Burgess
Ambient, J. Womack (just finished reading it, great book!)

Please please, if you know any more books that fit this category, post them here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cbarnett]

Animal Farm. (never trust the pigs, they're always the trouble-makers )

Craig.

[TadW]

Yes, I love Animal Farm Especially the All Pigs are Created Equal, but some Pigs are more Equal than Others part I forgot to mention, I also like all the Bradbury short-stories.

[cbarnett]

I haven't read any Bradbury at all, which is criminal, I know. I should go check out fictionwise, they might have some of his work, possibly at a nice price, too...

Craig.

[wumpi]

Good topic!

Some additional good "Utopian"/Proto-Cyberpunk novels I read:

Richard Adams - Watership Down
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Revisited
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up / The Shockwave Rider
Suzy McKee Charnas - Walk to the End of the World / The Furies
Thomas Disch - Camp Concentration
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
Yevgeny Zamyatin - We

Btw, check Students for an Orwellian Society to see how close to 1984 this world really is.

[cbarnett]

Did Huxley do a sequel to Brave New World? I wasn't aware of that.

BTW, it's not a book, but I think the film Brazil fits this category well. It's been years since I saw it, but found it thought-provoking in many ways.

Craig.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by cbarnett

Did Huxley do a sequel to Brave New World? I wasn't aware of that.

Brave New World Revisited is not really a sequel, but a critical analysis of Brave New World, how it differs to Orwell's "1984", and the world as Huxley saw it some 30 years after the book debuted.

His commentary and social criticism cut deep, and this cautionary tale is perhaps more applicable today than it has ever been (as evidenced in Bush's reference to Brave New World in his speech concerning government funding of stem cell research).

Tad

[Asterix]

Obviously, try Utopia, Thomas Moore.

It is a bit archaic (obviously) it was translated from Latin into English around 1900 (approx) but it is the first Utopian novel. I actually enjoyed it very much, it was really really good and politically very enlightened for someone from the 17th Century.

He has a great deal to say about the system of criminal justice as it was in England. Thieves would be hanged just as quickly as murderers or robbers, so there was very little barrier for the hungry peasaentry to become hard-core criminals. In Utopia criminals were not hanged, they were made to wear gold and to perform public service. Quite enlightened.

[Asterix]

Try this site for a definitive list of dystopias:

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sparks/sfclass/Cosycat.htm

[Hadrien]

Using our new lists feature I just created a list for books based on utopia/dystopia. We might have some other books in our database that could be added. If you know any public domain that could fit this description, I'll be happy to add them to this list !

Link: http://www.feedbooks.com/list/view/3

[BenG]

"Golf in the Year 2000" is a short humorous novel written in 1892. It's about a man who goes to sleep in 1892 and like Rip van Winkle, sleeps until 2000. The novel predicts things like digital watches, bullet trains, women's equality and golf clubs that automatically keep score. It's like "Looking Backward" with a utopia based on golf instead of socialism.

I created a Sony Reader version that I'll upload later.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by BenG

"Golf in the Year 2000" is a short humorous novel written in 1892. It's about a man who goes to sleep in 1892 and like Rip van Winkle, sleeps until 2000. The novel predicts things like digital watches, bullet trains, women's equality and golf clubs that automatically keep score. It's like "Looking Backward" with a utopia based on golf instead of socialism.

I created a Sony Reader version that I'll upload later.

Sounds like a lot of fun ! I really need to read this one.

http://www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com...000/index.html

[UncleDuke]

i like windmills when i play golf

any novel about nyc or london should fit this group

[eumesmo]

Ayn Rand and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Certainly not for the easily susceptible(you don't want to wake up a republican the next morning), but each of the three Novels in my mind, Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and The Gulag Archipelago present very distinct Dystopian M.O., but the mother of all Dystopian + Utopian "novels" is my beloved Communist Manifesto, for without it, utopia is merely a platonic musing.

[bingle]

If you're going to read anytihng by Ayn Rand, I would suggest Anthem, which is more directly dystopian, and a lot shorter than anything else. Reading long Rand works is like being shouted at continually for days.

A little dated, but "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis is a tale of fascism coming to the US. There's also Kafka, of course, although I'm not sure that fits what you're looking for...

On the Sci-Fi front, Ira Levin (author of Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives) wrote a future Utopian/Dystopian novel called This Perfect Day. Very similar in tone to Brave New World. There's also "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a short story by Ursula K. LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea). It's more of a parable than anything else. She also wrote The Dispossessed, which is a longer exploration of "Utopia"