1984 and Other Best Dystopian Novels That Will Challenge Your Perception of Society

Dystopian novels imagine a bleak future for humanity. They build on the beliefs many of us cynics share about the state of the world at the moment. These stories then heighten certain aspects of our present, like rampant misogyny (in the case of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale) or oppressive governments and mass surveillance (in the case of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four) to presage a tomorrow where society as we know it has collapsed, giving way to a regime that is authoritarian in manner or there is a complete breakdown of social order and the world is full of injustice and suffering; or both.

A dystopian society is called dystopia. It is, of course, the opposite of utopia, a hypothetical perfect society where there is no suffering, poverty and inequality and every human being lives a life of dignity and respect — you can tell why I called it “hypothetical”. In many ways, dystopia was the answer to utopia. As authors witnessed the rise of urban slums, labour exploitation and environmental degradation in the industrial age, the notion of a perfect society seemed increasingly distant and unrealistic.

So why read these dystopian novels? There is, after all, no shortage of misery in the real world. Isn’t our free time better spent on stories that are more escapist in nature, like Science fiction novels?

The answer is simple: dystopian novels (and comics, movies, TV shows and more) mirror our collective anxieties about where we are heading as a society. They are cautionary tales that force us to confront some uncomfortable truths about our present.

And clearly, the elements of a possible dystopian future have a certain resonance. Judging by the popularity of movies like Dune: Part Two (2024) and TV shows like 3 Body Problem (2024–), our fascination with stories like these endures. Both of these are set in the distant future and feature strong dystopian elements. Even Amazon Prime Video’s recently released post-apocalyptic series Fallout, which premiered on 10 April, features some of the same elements.

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