What is the best (worst?) dystopia (not written by a cishet white man)?
This poll is from our Year of Diverse Polls, and as such it can't includes authors who are cishet white men. Please adjust your nominations accordingly.
The world is in ruins. Or maybe it's not in ruins but there's just something a little off. Or maybe it's perfect, but the price is the torturous misery of a single innocent child. Or maybe there's some ham handed analog for racism that's going on between the white kids' strange methods of dividing themselves up by SAT vocabulary words. In any case it's a dystopia, and it is doing its literary work to hold up a twisted mirror to our own society.
The Rules:
1- As always, I leave the niggling to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you feel like J.K. Rowling writes dystopia, I'm not going to argue. (Though you might need to "show your work" to get anyone to second your nomination.) If you think Pern is a dystopia, nominate it. I won't be enforcing any rules about it being future Earth or anything.
2- Since dystopias are a setting, they can be for a single book, a series, or several series.
3- You may nominate two (2) dystopias. Two is the number of nominations. Neither one nor three shall ye nominate. And four is right out. I will NOT take any dystopias beyond the second that you suggest. (I will consider a long list to be "seconds" if someone else nominates them as well.)
3- You may (and should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. So stop back in and see if anyone has put up something you want to see go onto the poll.
4- Please put your nominations here. I will take dystopias nominated only as comments on this post. (No comments on FB posts or G+.)
5- You are nominating WRITTEN DYSTOPIAS, not their movie portrayals. CGI is making the Insurgent movies pretty fun to look at, but if you find the books to be a little contrived, you shouldn't nominate them.
6- No more endless elimination rounds. I will take somewhere between 8-20 best performing titles and at MOST run a single semifinal round. So second the titles you want even if they already have one. (Yes, I guess that would make them thirds, fourths, etc...)
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The Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
ReplyDeleteI second this one!
DeleteThe Big Bah-Ha by C.S.E. Cooney
ReplyDeleteArchivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Second Archivist Wasp
DeleteThe Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemisin
ReplyDeleteThe Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
Second Broken Earth
DeleteSecond Broken Earth
DeleteWho Fears Death by N. Okorafor fits here too.
ReplyDeleteThe Giver by Lois Lowry
It's just non-cishet white man, right? So any variation of any one qualifier fits?
I second The Giver.
DeleteDefinitely second The Giver series.
DeleteSecond The Giver
DeleteSecond The Giver
DeleteYes to your question.
DeleteBest - Octavia Butler - Xenogenises series
ReplyDeleteSecond Xenogenesis
DeleteSecond Xenogenesis
DeleteSecond Xenogenesis
DeleteThe Lion of Senet, Jennifer Fallon
ReplyDeleteThe Medair Duoligy, Andrea K Host
Fallon rocks, great choice. I second.
DeleteEarthseed series (Parable of the Sower) by Octavia E. Butler
ReplyDeleteSecond Earthseed.
DeleteThird for Earthseed!
DeleteOryx and Crake (just the first book of the trilogy tho)
ReplyDeleteThe People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi
ReplyDeleteWinter of Fire by Sheryl Jordan
Never Let Me Go - K Ishiguro
ReplyDeleteThe Handmaid's Tale - M Atwood
second Handmaid's Tale
DeleteSecond Handmaids Tale
Deletesecond Handmaid's Tale
DeleteThose are my two so both seconded
DeleteSecond Never Let Me Go
DeleteSecond Handmaid's Tale
DeleteOryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood
ReplyDeleteLagoon - Nnedi Okorafor
Second Oryx and Crake
DeleteObernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
ReplyDeleteThe Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
The Newsflesh universe by Mira Grant.
ReplyDeleteSecond
DeleteSecond for Newsflesh
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
ReplyDeleteHandmaid’s tale - Margaret Atwood
second 1Q84
DeleteSecond both 1q4 and handmaid's (likely redundant at this point, but..)
DeleteHow about Don't Bite the Sun/Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee as one dystopia. I wanna think some more on a second one.
ReplyDeleteThe Six Duchies of Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy are, I think, grim enough to qualify for this. (They’re also one of my favorite settings in spec fiction.) Also, Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem series.
ReplyDeleteSecond for the Three Body Problem
Deletesecond farseer
DeleteThe Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
ReplyDeleteThe Handmaids tale by Margaret Atwood
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
ReplyDeleteStation Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
I can't in good conscience second All The Birds in the Sky, but I did want to give you points for recognizing that it's dystopian.
DeleteScrolled until I found Station Eleven. Seconded.
DeleteLord of the Flies- William Golding
ReplyDeleteNever Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
Was Golding LGBTQ+? White and male. Unless he was LGBTQ+, doesn't count.
DeleteDidn't make it regardless. Poll is already up
DeleteThe Fifth Sacred thing - Starhawk
ReplyDeleteSecond The Fifth Sacred Thing.
DeleteThe Testament of Jessie Lamb, By Jane Rogers
ReplyDeleteOnly Ever Yours, by Louise O'Neill
I'll add to all the seconds for Broken Earth and Handmaid's Tale.
ReplyDeleteBattle Royale by Koushun Takami. Both the novel and the manga were incredible.
ReplyDeleteThe Last One by Alexandra Oliva.
ReplyDeleteNewsflesh series by Mira Grant.
The Fifth Sacred Thing Starhawk
ReplyDeleteOryx and Crake Margaret Atwood
Nominations:
ReplyDelete1. Invitation to the Game by Monica Hughes
2. The Hunger Games trilogy
Second Hunger Games
DeleteUnwind, by Neal Shusterman
ReplyDeleteDivergent (the series, not just the first book. The way that Divergent directly challenges and complicates the ubiquitous and troubling pattern in dystopian YA of acting as though a much higher average standard of living isn't worth the tradeoff of not being able to choose your own job doesn't really become clear until the second book, and it's got the most functional model of resistance of any of the popular ones).
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
ReplyDeleteFacing the Storm -Jennifer Brooks
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The city of ember - Jeanne duPrau
ReplyDeleteSecond City of Ember
DeleteThe Holdfast Chronicles by Suzy McKee Charnas - a truly disturbing set of books.
ReplyDeletePeace fire by Amber Bird.
ReplyDeleteNear future dystopian featuring wearables and shifty corporations.
Memoirs of a Survivor - Doris Lessing
ReplyDelete"The Broken Earth Trilogy" by N K Jemisin
ReplyDeleteAnd "The Sudden Appearance of Hope" by Claire North