Book #103 of 2022: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami First published in 1999 (or 2003, for the English translation), this controversial thriller posits a dystopian Japan where school classes of fifteen-year-olds, selected by random lottery, are forced to fight one another to the death each year. The children are kidnapped, locked into metal collars lined …
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Book #90 of 2022: Wool by Hugh Howey (Silo #1) This book, the first in the Silo trilogy, is itself made up of five sections, each originally published as a standalone novella: Wool (later renamed Holston), Proper Gauge, Casting Off, The Unraveling, and The Stranded. Of those, the debut is a wicked slice of science-fiction …
Book #55 of 2022: Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North Author Claire North has written some of my very favorite novels, but this is one of her efforts that doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. The premise of the setting is sound: a post-apocalyptic future where holy priests try to recover digital …
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Book #346 of 2021: You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson This novel technically takes place in the dystopian setting of authors Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson’s “Within the Wires” podcast, but you don’t need to have listened to that first in order to enjoy it — all I’ve …
Book #88 of 2021: The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold At some point, I’m going to have to learn to ignore promotional materials that compare the latest post-apocalyptic saga to Station Eleven. Generally, as in this case, that sort of comparison is rather overselling the wonder and humanity on display. The Electric Kingdom is not …
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Book #42 of 2021: Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy I like the idea of setting this story in a near-future dystopia where climate change has led to mass extinctions, but the overall project is a bit of a misfire for me. I’m deeply uninterested in the narrator’s mysterious past, which comes out in dribs and drabs …
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Book #266 of 2020: Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis (Not a Drop to Drink #1) I picked up this 2013 debut about a girl and her mother protecting their post-apocalyptic water source on the strength of author Mindy McGinnis’s wrenching survival tale Be Not Far from Me, but I’ve been pretty disappointed …
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Book #176 of 2020: The Running Man by Richard Bachman I still love the propulsive adrenaline rush of this pseudonymous Stephen King dystopian piece, but I had forgotten just how needlessly steeped in bigotry it is. Presumably in an effort to make his protagonist more of a hard case, the author has him think and …
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Book #140 of 2020: The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa First published a quarter-century ago and re-released last year in a new English translation, this Japanese novel offers a quiet and sorrowful dystopia. The tale is set on an island where people are gradually forgetting the function of everyday things like ribbons and candies, and …
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Book #121 of 2020: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins The idea of a Hunger Games prequel about the young Coriolanus Snow isn’t necessarily a bad one, but I feel like there are three key elements that such a project would need to deliver in order to be successful. Namely, the book …
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