Try the novella “Soft Apocalypse.” You will never look at bamboo the same way again…
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People forget that CANTICLE also is very funny.
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I’m reading Stand on Zanzibar now, & totally agree! Its style of telling a story through a barrage of fractured media blurbs & posts is a good foreshadowing of how we get our information these days.
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A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by Charlie Fletcher. Best book a read in years.
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I highly recommend the Gene Wolfe’s series “The Book of the New Sun” (beginning with "The Shadow of the Torturer). Excellent writing.
And for something a little more contemporary, I would Jeff Vandermeer’s “Borne”. Strange and haunting.
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Dystopia? Don’t forget “It Can’t Happen Here” by SInclair Lewis.
New American Library ISBN 0 451 529294, 1935 Novel, still in print.
“It Can’t Happen Here” chronicles the sudden rise to power of populist candidate Berzilius “Buzz” Windrip, and the fascistic aftermath of his inauguration as President of the United States. The narrative centers on the fictional town of Fort Beulah, Vermont, home of protagonist Doremus Jessup, editor of the local newspaper.
Following the results of the 2016 US presidential election, sales of the novel surged significantly, and it appeared on Amazon’s list of bestselling books.
We’re told that Huey Long was the inspiration for the novel.
ETA: Also, “Why Orwell Matters,” by Chris Hitchens. More of a long essay than a full book. I’ve read it twice. It’s not dystopian, but deals with the man who knew all about dystopia.
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Also eerily prescient about how different countries succeeded or failed to meet the challenge based on culture, political system, and leadership.
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Golly, that’s an oldie. I read that in HS. Published in 1959. Read it in 9th grade . Class of '67.
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Big fan of early Wolfe.
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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.
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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.
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Especially if you like tennis. Wallace couldn’t imagine streaming, and we passed the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment several years back.
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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.
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Who could have predicted The Entertainment on YouTube? And I think 2020 is the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.
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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”.
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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. 
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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).
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Jack London’s The Iron Heel too.
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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.
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