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Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Best Creepy Dystopia Novel (or series) NOMINATIONS NEEDED

What is the best CREEPY Dystopia book (or series)?

We need your nominations!

So I went to start up the nominations for a best horror poll in honor of Halloween (thinking it had been years) and I discovered that I had only just done that poll this last year. Well, we can't have best horror polls showing up annually just because they're timely, so I decided to do a slight variation on a theme.

Dystopian stories seem to come generally in two flavors. 

1- The world is deeply fucked up. Let me show you how fucked up it is and maybe Tris Prior or Katniss Everdeen will do some thrilling heroics to attempt to make it a little less fucked up. 

2- Everything seems fine........at first. But it isn't....oh hell is it ever not. And the longer you read, the more fucked up you realize things are.

This poll will be concerning itself with the second type. Not that the first type isn't fun, and we've even done a couple of polls over the years about them, but in the spirit of creepy and at least SLIGHTLY Halloweenish, we're turning to the second type for our poll. Unfortunately we won't have enough time to have the results of that poll on the 31st, but we will probably have a good list (and suggestions for some of your TBR lists). 

The Rules

  1. I have a special rule for this poll because of how niche the genre is (even though we're talking about hundreds of years). 
  2. Don't forget that you can nominate a book for the UNDERSUNG HERO nomination. Basically it is for books you think are great, tragically overlooked, but maybe not necessarily the BESTY bestest best. I will be listing these books along with the poll results. However, if you nominate a book for our poll it will not be considered for the undersung hero list and if you shout out something for an undersung hero, it will not be counted as a nomination for the poll. Someone else CAN nominate it. Think about this you want to give a book few seem to know about (but you know won't win) a shout out. 
  3. As always, I leave the niggling over the definition of genres to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. I'm not going to "police" the nominations. (I never do.) If you nominate Hunger Games, I'll Spock eyebrow and hope it get its ass kicked. But getting people to give you a second (nevermind win the poll) will require the book to stand on its own merits.
  4. You get to mention two (2) books (or series). That's it. Two. You can do ONE nomination for the poll and ONE UNDERSUNG HERO.  Or you can do TWO nominations. Or you can do TWO undersung heroes. But two is the total. If you nominate three or more I will NOT take any nominations beyond the second that you suggest. I'm sorry that I'm a stickler on this, but I compile these polls myself and it's a pain when people drop every single GD book they can think of that 1) they've read, 2) they like even a little, and 3) they can remember the name of. It is up to you how to divy your TWO choices. TWO.
  5. Did I mention two?
  6. You may (and absolutely should) second AS MANY nominations of others as you wish. THEY WILL NOT GET ONTO THE POLL WITHOUT SECONDS. You can agree with or cheer on the undersung heroes, but they won't "transform" into nominations unless someone else nominates that same book as "best" (and then they get a second). Also stop back in and see if anyone has put up something you want to see go onto the poll. 
  7. Put your nominations HERE. I will take nominations only as comments and only on this post. (No comments on FB posts will be considered nominations.) If you can't comment for some reason because of Blogger, send me an email (chris.brecheen@gmail.com) stating exactly that and what your nomination is, and I will personally put your comment up. I am not likely to see a comment on social media even if it says you were unable to leave a comment here. 
  8. You are nominating WRITTEN genre fiction, not their movie portrayals. If you thought The Handmaid's Tale was an awesome series on Amazon, but you found Atwood's writing difficult and prosaic (you heathen), then don't nominate the book.
  9. [The third, fourth, fifth, etc "second" rule.] This is probably well known by vets of this blog by now, but there will be no more endless elimination rounds to get a final poll of ten-ish titles. I will take somewhere between 8-20 best performing titles and at MOST run a single semifinal round. By "performing" I mean the seconds. So second the titles you want even if they already have one. (Yes, I guess that would make them "thirds," "fourths," etc...) The competition on this poll might be fierce. You may have to get your friends involved. Buy them a pizza. Make it real. 
  10. NOMINATE TWO!

59 comments:

  1. Does Brave New World count? I'd like to nominate that.

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  3. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir for undersung hero (mostly just because it's relatively new)

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  4. I'll go with the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.

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  5. I'll go with the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.

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  6. An older one but Erehwon, by Samuel Butler, comes to mind... Probably more of an Unsung Hero candidate, especially as one of the earliest examples of a dystopian novel and harnessing a fairly esoteric concept for the divergence from what is considered "normal"...

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  7. "Parable of the Sower," by Octavia Butler

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  8. Neil Gaiman, "Neverwhere"

    Not the most famous of his subtle dystopias (I'm sure "American Gods" would get far more votes) but it was the first of his novels I ever read, and it holds a special place for me.

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    1. Second! This is such a comfort book for me that I don't even think of it as a dystopia, but it totally is.

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    2. Fifthed for Neverwhere. Also one of my faves of his

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  9. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.

    Probably in the unsung hero category as I suspect only old farts like me remember this book. One of my favourites growing up.

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    1. A second second here, and not only old farts - I taught this book to my grade 9 class in 2007.

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    2. Yess! Thirded/fourthed/etc! I still have a tattered old high school copy.

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  10. The Giver by Lois Lowry as unsung hero

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  11. Unsung Hero nom, Cold Cash War by Robert Aspirin.

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  12. The Unwind Dystology by Neil Shusterman. It starts sort of normal, and quickly goes downhill as you receive information on the world, and gets worse with each book as the characters fight to set it all right. Plus, Shusterman is an Ally, and one of my favorite writers.

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  13. Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfield -

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  14. Parable of the Sower
    by Octavia E. Butler

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  15. Earthseed Duology by Octavia E. Butler

    Undersung Hero - Arslan by M. J. Engh

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  16. For unsung hero The Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano. I got lost in those books every time I picked one up. Extremely immersive.

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  17. High Rise by J.G. Ballard -- a novel that captures the horrific normality and boiling fruit resignation of dystopian daily life like no other.

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  18. Unsung Hero for Tick Allison Rose

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  19. Day of the Triffids. You'll never look at plants the same way again.

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  20. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro the cover is right there on the post but nobody nominated it

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  21. The Dark Tower Series by Steven King

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  22. A boy and his dog at the end of the world (for unsung)

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