Dystopian Fiction

Fiction

Dystopian “Red Side Story” Delights with Sparkling Prose

Jasper Fforde surely must be one of the cleverest, funniest and most inventive authors currently writing. If Jonathan Swift, the foremost prose satirist of the 17th-18th century, were alive today to read Red Side Story or other novels by the author, he would likely doff his hat in admiration or…

Linda HitchcockJune 18, 2024

Fiction

Unique Dystopian Novel Challenges Our Culture and Imagination

Have you ever been in such awe of a book that you couldn’t find the right word to describe it? (Not a good place to be if you write reviews for a living!) Maybe the word doesn’t exist yet. Remember the classic Woody Allen movie Annie Hall when Alvy tells…

Jim AlkonDecember 5, 2022

Fiction

“A Beginning at the End” Offers a Story of Hope and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic America

“An intimate, surprisingly gentle vision of post-disaster humanity, less concerned with how we might survive than with why — and for whom." — Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award-winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January "An intensely human story about people reaching out through trauma and loss and discovering…

Nikki ErlickSeptember 9, 2020

Recommended Thrillers

Embark On a Tension-Filled Voyage Through Space with a Complex Ensemble Cast

Science fiction doesn’t have to be overly convoluted in its otherworldliness. In fact, something focused more on the characters often hits closer to home. That’s exactly what made R.E. Mason’s Moons so enjoyable. This action-packed sci-fi adventure follows two men — strangers to each other — who must find the…

Katie BloomerFebruary 15, 2024

Fiction Recommended

AI Companion Used for Sinister Purposes in Novel for Fans of “Black Mirror” and “Klara and the Sun”

Is artificial intelligence so powerful that it can recapture the beauty and emotions of a lost loved one? Or is it so dangerous that it can paint a different picture about someone you thought you knew? Afterword (CLASH Books) by Nina Schuyler is a captivating new novel that explores the…

Madeline SuarezNovember 16, 2023

Thrillers Young Adult

“The Handmaid’s Tale” Meets “Never Let Me Go” in YA Set in Restrictive Dystopia

The Chaperone is a brilliantly conceived, provocative and finely crafted YA novel written by M Hendrix (Sourcebooks Fire). It just might be one of the year’s best books written in this genre and one quite likely to be banned in Florida. She has envisioned a frightening dystopian world set in…

Linda HitchcockJune 15, 2023

Fiction Thrillers

A Hidden Utopia Isn’t All It Appears to Be in Suspenseful Sci-Fi

Justin Cronin, the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, returns with a haunting tale of capitalism, the ecological crisis, and preservation of our species in The Ferryman (Ballantine Books). For years, Proctor Bennett has served as the Director for the Department of Social Contracts, where he is assigned…

Jodé MillmanMay 11, 2023

Fiction Romance Romance - Featured

One Young Woman’s Rebellion Against a Society Divided by Race

The Great Peony: Safina Cameron (Pretty Publications) flips the script on racism and discrimination, imagining a world where dark-skinned people thrive in High Society, while light-skinned people make up the lower class with less access to resources and education. Jannah Bayyan has crafted a fascinating piece of speculative literary fiction…

Megan BeauregardSeptember 15, 2022

Thrillers

“Agency” Delivers Dystopian Dilemmas; Full Attention Required

Since the dawn of the genre, science fiction writers have played with notions of reality, alternate universes, technology’s impact and the puzzles of time travel. Today, human technology has advanced to the point that these questions seem less speculative and more urgent, especially the militarization of technology and artificial intelligence.…

Dennis HetzelJanuary 16, 2020

Miscellany Pop Culture

“Access Restricted:” 1984 Meets The Handmaid’s Tale

Access Restricted (Harlequin Teen) is the gripping follow-up everyone has been anticipating from Gregory Scott Katsoulis after his original hit All Rights Reserved. Katsoulis takes us on another top-notch dystopian adventure using the same important themes of power and censorship from his first story. All Rights Reserved took us far down a topsy-turvy…

Rebecca ProulxAugust 31, 2018

Fiction Young Adult

Coriolanus Snow Lands on Top in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

In Suzanne Collins’s blockbuster trilogy, “The Hunger Games,” Panem President Coriolanus Snow is presented as a calculating, ruthless dictator bent on destroying the Mockingjay heroine, Katniss Everdeen. In Collin’s new novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Scholastic), we are introduced to an angst-ridden teenage Snow, forty years before the…

Jodé MillmanJune 9, 2020

Fiction

“2044” Takes “Addicted to Our Devices” to a Whole New Level

If anyone told you a couple of decades ago that there would be some form of legalized marijuana in three-quarters of the states in the U.S., that we would willingly wear monitors on our wrists that collect health data and even make transactions for us, or that AI technology would…

Gevera Bert PiedmontOctober 4, 2021

Book Club Network

Guest Blogger: When Being Thrifty With Words Matters

This sentence has five words. This entire review has 485. Jean's limit is 100 words per day.

Cecilia LyraSeptember 5, 2018

Fiction

Sizzling Summer Reads: Book Trib’s Top 10 for August

Summer is in high gear, which means that the sun is bright and the days are sweltering. We’re mostly hiding in the air conditioning lately, devouring book after book and clamoring for some great new reads. We’re in luck as August is packed with new releases that we can’t wait…

Rachel CarterAugust 3, 2017

Fiction

Top 5 Reasons to Binge Watch Emmy Nominated ‘The Handmaids Tale’ This Week

Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s iconic novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, premiered on April 26 and Elisabeth Moss, who plays Offred, is nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category. Alexis Bledel (known for her role on Gilmore Girls) won her first Emmy in an…

Rachel CarterSeptember 13, 2017

Fiction

Toxic Masculinity, Suffocating Parents and Survival

In Sophie Mackintosh's debut dystopian fiction, The Water Cure (Doubleday), love is rationed like water--and in scarce supply. Dubbed "a gripping, sinister fable" by dystopian queen Margaret Atwood, I had high expectations coming into this novel. Mackintosh did not disappoint. Three sisters live on an island with their mother and…

Rebecca ProulxJanuary 9, 2019

“A Beginning at the End” Offers a Story of Hope and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic America

Embark On a Tension-Filled Voyage Through Space with a Complex Ensemble Cast

AI Companion Used for Sinister Purposes in Novel for Fans of “Black Mirror” and “Klara and the Sun”

One Young Woman’s Rebellion Against a Society Divided by Race

“Agency” Delivers Dystopian Dilemmas; Full Attention Required

“Access Restricted:” 1984 Meets The Handmaid’s Tale

Coriolanus Snow Lands on Top in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

“2044” Takes “Addicted to Our Devices” to a Whole New Level

Guest Blogger: When Being Thrifty With Words Matters

Sizzling Summer Reads: Book Trib’s Top 10 for August

Top 5 Reasons to Binge Watch Emmy Nominated ‘The Handmaids Tale’ This Week

Toxic Masculinity, Suffocating Parents and Survival

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