Fan of Dystopian Fiction? Here's Where It All Began ⋆ Wonderfully Bookish

For the past few years, I’ve been a big fan of dystopian fiction (Neal Shusterman is one of my all-time favourite authors in this genre). Unlike other genres like classic literary fiction or romance, I’m very interested to know where the dystopian genre began. So in this guest post today, author Greg Hickey takes us on a journey to the past to discover the foundations of dystopian fiction, so we can get a rough idea of where it all started.

Over to Greg! 🚀

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The Foundations of Dystopian Fiction

While classics like George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are often thought to define dystopian fiction, the genre has become larger than those individual-versus-state tales. Today’s dystopian fiction addresses climate change, embraces and anticipates advances in technology, and even caters to younger readers.

Here are eight standout dystopian novels that helped broaden the dystopian fiction genre and launched their own subgenres.

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (1962)

This early example of climate fiction is set in the year 2145, after global warming has melted the Earth’s polar ice caps and caused the rising seas to flood London and turn the city into a tropical jungle populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators and disease-carrying insects. As biologist Dr. Robert Kerans searches for answers to this catastrophic devolution, he finds himself physically and psychologically transformed by the wild cityscape.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

This dual dystopia about a society in which vicious teenage criminals terrorize innocent citizens and a powerful government brainwashes those adolescents into docility was included on TIME Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels written between 1923 and 2005 and was awarded a place on both the editors’ and readers’ lists of Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels. It was adapted into the 1971 Academy Award-nominated film by Stanley Kubrick.

Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

This story of a crippled computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to pull off the ultimate hack launched the cyberpunk genre and became the first novel to win the so-called “triple crown” of science fiction: the Nebula Award (1985), the Philip K. Dick Award (1984) and the Hugo Award (1985).

The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)

Published a year after Kafka’s death, this novel brilliantly depicts protagonist Josef K.’s absurd and inexplicable arrest and indictment at the hands of what would become a dystopian staple: a nameless, faceless bureaucracy. Spoiler alert: Kafka never completed the novel, so don’t expect a bow-tied ending. Dystopian author Guillermo Stitch (Literature®) says this novel “comes closest to answering the question: what, in its essence, is dystopia?”

It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935)

Published more than a decade before classic totalitarian dystopias like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, Lewis’s Depression-era novel imagines the rise of fascism in the United States at a moment in history when most Americans were ignorant of Adolf Hitler’s growing power. This frightening satire depicts the ascension of a president-turned-dictator who uses the exaggerated fears of welfare cheats, sex, crime and a liberal press to seize control of the nation.

The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)

In this 1994 Newberry Medal winner, a twelve-year-old boy discovers the secrets of his apparently utopian society. I consider The Giver to be the standard for young adult dystopian fiction, and it continues to inspire my work decades later. Author Joelle Charbonneau (The Testing) recommends it “because a world without emotion is a safe one and one that might not be worth living in… but you can see why people would think that removing intense emotions would be good for world peace.”

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954)

In this early installment of pandemic and zombie fiction, one man survives a plague that turns every other human into a bloodthirsty, nocturnal predator. I Am Legend was adapted into three feature films, including the 2007 remake starring Will Smith.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

A perfect example of what happens when a great writer brings his craft to genre fiction. This post-apocalyptic tale of a father and son’s journey across a barren American landscape won the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, one of the oldest British awards for English-language fiction, as well as the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Author Jeanne Du Prau (The City of Ember) raves, “Probably among the most hideous versions of the future ever imagined, but so well-written and compelling that I actually read it twice.”

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