I’d Like To Wake Up Now, Please? TPM’s Dystopian Reading Recs | Talking Points Memo


I stumbled across a reprint and new translation a couple of years ago.

2 Likes

Golly, that’s an oldie. I read that in HS. Published in 1959. Read it in 9th grade . Class of '67.

1 Like

Big fan of early Wolfe.

2 Likes

I agree. Brunner got most things right. The significant one he didn’t was the downsizing of computer processing so we can all have a very capable computer in our pocket. I’ve re-read this a number of times and it’s always fresh.

3 Likes

I prefer The Windup Girl but The Water Knife is also good.

I also enjoyed the other books in the same world as The Windup Girl.

1 Like

Especially if you like tennis. Wallace couldn’t imagine streaming, and we passed the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment several years back.

2 Likes

Got it, got it, want it, want it, want it, want it, want it, want it, got it, got it.

ETA: Got it, got it, got it, want it, want it, want it, want it, want it, got it, got it.

1 Like

Who could have predicted The Entertainment on YouTube? And I think 2020 is the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.

2 Likes

J. G. Ballard. Especially The Drowned World,
the first sentence of which is priceless (especially since the novel was written nearly 60 years ago): “Soon it would be too hot”.

1 Like

May I suggest “The Book of the Unnamed Midwife” by Meg Ellison? (It won the 2014 Philip K Dick award.) A nurse midwife makes her way through a world decimated by a disease that kills women and children, making childbirth deadly for mother and infant. She saves who she can by hoarding, stealing, and giving away birth control. Feminist dystopian fiction at its best. image

1 Like

Stand on Zanzibar is an excellent book, but A Canticle for Liebowitz is a science-fiction classic.

Surprised no one has mentioned Harry Harrison’s Make Room, Make Room! or any of William Gibson’s Sprawl novels (of which Neuromancer is clearly the most known, but I’m partial to Mona Lisa Overdrive).

1 Like

Jack London’s The Iron Heel too.

1 Like

Love this book, but it doesn’t give you the opportunity to wake up from it–it’s too close to our own new reality.

1 Like

To give me hope: That I’ll live long enough to piss on Trump’s grave.
Imagine how gratifying that will be.

2 Likes

Water Knife is a great read. Also liked his Ship Breaker series as a dystopian read although that was much more YA

Excellent recommendation! I re-read it once every three years or so. Quick read but very thought-provoking.

Thanks for all of the recommendations. For some odd reason this is one of my favorite genres. Lots of new material here to dig into!!!

On the Beach by Neville Shute. 1957 novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne, Australia as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the Northern Hemisphere, following a nuclear war a year earlier.

Both good reads, but I’m partial to Stand on Zanzibar myself.

2 Likes

In the same vein: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Although, maybe this starts to get into alternate history rather than dystopian fiction. I’m not sure where one draws that distinction.

Comments are now Members-Only
Join the discussion Free options available