I’m a big believer in the dystopian genre representing a society in which we can avoid. (Everything else between is post-apocalyptic). It’s becoming incredibly difficult to find a reliable list of dystopian entertainment true to its definition without seeing the same old things. Believe me, I’ve looked. Unless you want incredibly heavy topics to weigh your thoughts down for weeks on end, or zombies left, right and centre, the lists are few and far between.

So with this in mind, I compiled my own list of books and cinema for your own amusement.

Clarke’s biggest seller is a science fiction tale about the pitfalls of utopia. Greeted by a benevolent alien dictator, Clarke delves into the human psyche to see what makes us tick. Childhood’s End reflects on a utopia bestowed upon the human race, but there’s a catch: “the stars are not for man” and never ask important questions. Will boredom end in cataclysmic tragedy or is there such a thing as triumph in transcendence post an apocalyptic destruction?
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This is an easy dystopian or anti-utopian read, even for the fussiest of readers.

Published in 1956, The Death of Grass is an easy but somewhat brutal read about the psychology of survival. Following a 3 day journey of main protagonist John Custance and his family, this psychological thriller will have you questioning your own ethics.
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The nature of the story isn’t so far-fetched either, and is arguably with as much foresight as Orwell, and as frightening as Stephen King.

If you claim to be a dystopian fan and have yet to read this literary feat, then stop claiming.

The book that coined the term “Big Brother is Watching” is a guide to what is fast becoming reality. Orwell saw the writing on the wall after his time with the Imperial Forces and his journalism, and knew better than to keep it to himself.
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Ahh, not the rats!

Three books of sheer thriller in a small confined space in a time ahead of ours. I read “Shift” in one night—all 565 pages. The others in the trilogy are equally impressive.

​This series has it all: from 3-dimensional characters to the landscapes and dystopian plot. Men are evil brutes, politicians are far worse; their schemes, incredibly cruel. Humanity is flawed and weak. What can only happen next is anyone’s guess.

The easiest read by far and the most fetching, Fahrenheit 451 documents a society where the intelligentsia are evil brutes and their tools, their books, the single cause of societal corruption.

Bradbury delves into our own history where book burning occurred, and turns the narrative into a work of art. The educated are the enemy because thinking causes misery—or is it they dissent against illogical governments?

Firefighters now run to alarms where neighbours rat out neighbours for their beloved book collections. It’s a page out of 1984 going one step further to ban the written word and to broadcast lies to a gullible, now feeble-minded population.

Relevant to today’s ‘memory-holing’ of Internet media, and the prevalence of ‘Double think’, Bradbury’s warning is stark.
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Read the book before viewing the movie if you can. . . before we burn this to ashes, too.

This movie depicts AI and its effects on society’s middle classes in a hauntingly real outlook. One single mother is faced with a gruelling choice of self-sacrifice for her family’s survival.

​A truly dystopian movie, where “getting older is [simply] not an option.”

What feels like something taken from the pages of Stephen King’s The Dome, Netflix’s Between offers insight into youth’s desperation when all those above the age of 22 die from a mysterious virus. The kids can’t leave their small town due to quarantine restrictions and eventually the world forgets their existence.
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But not all’s as it seems as the scientists swoop down on this dystopian experiment.

Gamer has received many a negative review since its 2009 release, and leaves me scratching my head as to why. This fast-paced movie warns of the dangers inherent to AI technology and our addiction to gaming. This very avoidable society is perhaps closer than we think with Musk’s labs currently designing chips for our thumbs and our heads.

Although the script could’ve done with some fleshing out, the movie is well worth the sacrifice for any dystopian fan.
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Are our thoughts really our own?

​As the game gets harder, the expectations become higher.
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I didn’t want to imagine myself walking into the workforce with the expectation of eventually earning my master’s degree or even a doctorate. I’m not saying I’m closing the doors to those potential opportunities in the future entirely, but completing my undergraduate education left me with a feeling many young people encounter when they are truly emancipated from the rules and guidelines of parents and teachers—the desire to jump into work and grow as a person (and grow your wallet in the process).

Still, like all things in life, there are some pseudo-workplace cultural expectations that put a fork in the road for you, forcing you to take the time to work on something that isn’t necessarily said out loud but is ever-present in the attitudes of your employers and colleagues: writing a book.

​Writing a book is similar to writing a thesis paper, except the whole world will look at it, and any mistakes you make will harm you more than a bad grade. In fact, they’ll affect your reputation. That said, this also opens up other opportunities for you that you might not have received otherwise.

I once read an article in college that told everyone to train for a marathon and complete it. That itself made me curious, but what shocked me was that the author continued and told the reader to put it on their resume under “personal accomplishments.” Is completing a marathon worth putting on your resume?
It’s a major personal achievement, but the marathon itself wasn’t the important detail. What the author wanted to emphasize is that employers want to see drive, commitment, and follow-through with potential and current employees. Taking time to do something that significant shows you are someone who can embrace challenges. The marathon example could easily be replaced with continuous volunteer service, completing your next degree, or writing a book.
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Specifically, I find that writing non-fiction is perhaps a superior option to most alternatives because it shows (assuming your book has to do with the field you are working in) that you are taking time to dive deeper into the topics and challenges many of your colleagues aren’t.

Imagine you and a peer who is essentially a professional copy of yourself are applying for the same job. You might even have both run marathons together for all we know, except what makes you stand out is the book you wrote discussing the very topics relevant to understanding how to tackle your potential new role should you get the job.
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While many thousands of Americans might run marathons in a given year, fewer people will take the time to work on a project that will forever have their name attached to it. Writing a book about a topic within your area of expertise or the field you wish to develop a career in demands and commands authority in that area. A book doesn’t just say you can write well; a book also means you have a mastery of the topics that help pay your bills. A book says that while your colleagues left work at the office, you were taking the time to advance your knowledge, expand your network, and embark on a challenge many begin yet rarely finish.

Writing and publishing a book lets your colleagues know you are worthy of respect, and respect is the basis of all relationships, both personal and professional.

You might call this the “celebrity factor,” but professionals will always remind you that you are your own brand. If you speak at a conference about ending world hunger, you will most likely be there because of the reputation of your employer or the organization you represent.
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For example, Oprah doesn’t need a long introduction. People know her without having a personal relationship with her. They know her because of her public appearances and reputation in the realms of journalism, entertainment, and humanitarianism. Sad to say, you aren’t Oprah, and you’re most likely never going to be Oprah, but you can be the first and very best “you” that you can be.

​The ability to earn “brand” recognition based on your own name alone is something a book can almost guarantee, especially by networking and marketing yourself wisely.
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Radio appearances, journal op-eds, and speaking at conferences is something authors can do more regularly than their peers without a book. You may not be Oprah, but when people within your field hear your name, they’ll think of you before they think of your employer, where you went to school, or any other tertiary details.

​Don Draper from the hit TV series Mad Men said it best: “If you don’t like what is being said, change the conversation.” This is, at its core, a leadership principle that can be applied to other facets of life. For our purposes, a book is almost certainly the best way to change that conversation.
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Do you think blue is a better color than purple? A book means you really believe it. Are people in the non-profit sector not paying attention to a very important blind spot that could harm an organization? A book means you care enough to try to save it.

Books change the world in ways very few things can, so with great intention comes great printability (or maybe Spider-Man put it differently)—or for every Milton Friedman, there is a Karl Marx.

​The first thing that comes to my mind each time I publish a book is, “What now?”
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The elusive “what now” is sometimes the answer itself because after the marketing campaign ends and the buzz dies down, your book is now in the wilderness, and maybe it will bring you back an opportunity in a week, or maybe a month, or perhaps even a few years.

​Two years after my first book was published, I still get invited to speak at events and write on topics that otherwise wouldn’t have been realistic opportunities if I hadn’t first published. This is in many ways a door you open and can never close again. However, with great risk comes great reward, and authors command a level of respect and authority that is unique to them and can help open roads that would otherwise never be available.
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Be bold, write about your passions, and be open to all opportunities that come with being a published writer in your own right.

Published under Creative Commons. Attributed to Foundation for Economic Freedom. ​(Written by Remso W. Martinez)

​Dystopian fiction offers a speculative glimpse of the future, one often experiencing a cataclysmic decline, with characters battling their way through environmental ruin, technological control, and government oppression. As a sub-genre of science fiction, the popular dystopian novel can challenge readers’ views about current social and political climates, offer warnings, and in some instances, inspire action. But how is dystopian fiction determined? First, let’s define the difference between the utopian and dystopian world.

What’s the Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia?

When Sir Thomas More coined the term “utopia” in his 1516 book Utopia, he was inadvertently shaping centuries of genre. With the advent of Utopia, which was about an ideal society on a fictional island, the dystopia was born.

Unlike utopian literature, dystopian literature explores and warns of the dangerous effects of political and social structures on humanity (Hugh Howey’s Wool Trilogy) , and what led the society to the totalitarian outcomes and the difficulty of correcting the situation. Often there’s no way back, and the character’s needs are striped down to their basic survival (Aral Bereux’s J Rae Books).

Utopian literature, on the other hand, often focuses on the individual and societal cost of maintaining a perfect world. Usually one individual’s sacrifice is necessary for the utilitarian society to flourish (Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas), or there may be a hidden secret that must never be revealed (Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars and Childhood’s End).

What Is the Significance of Dystopian Fiction?

Margaret Atwood once said, “If you’re interested in writing speculative fiction, one way to generate a plot is to take an idea from current society and move it a little further down the road. Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future.”

The significance of dystopian fiction on literature can vary from educating and warning humanity about current social and political structures, to reflecting an author’s beliefs on the pitfalls of society (H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine), to critiquing behaviorism (Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange), and cautioning on oppressive regimes (Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Orwell’s 1984).

5 Characteristics of Dystopian Fiction

Often times, dystopian novels focus on central themes that generally fall under these topics:

1. Government control
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Specifically, there is either no government or an authoritarian ruling body. The most contemporary portrayal of the Government Control feature is Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy.

Collins’ The Hunger Games takes place in a future nation built on the ruins of North America. The fictional Panem is ruled by President Snow’s totalitarian government, the Capitol. Just as our own society amasses vast amounts of wealth into the top one percent, Collins’ Capitol holds most of Panem’s wealth and uses this to control its citizens.

Each year, two children from Panem’s 12 poverty-stricken districts are mandatorily selected to participate in a televised death match called the Hunger Games.

George Orwell’s 1984 also presents the reader with a world under complete government control, known as the omnipresent surveillance of Big Brother, which enforces complete control over the citizens of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia – the three inter-continental superstates remaining after a world war.

2. Loss of individualism

The dangers of conformity are often written into classic dystopias like 1984. How should the needs of society as a whole compare to the individual needs? Authors writing in the dystopian genre will need to keep this question in mind.
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Two examples are Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, written in 1953, and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.

Fahrenheit 451 explores the censorship of books in a future society where increased technology and mindless entertainment dominate. The idea? To save the citizen from the misery of thinking freely, critiquing life, or being creative.

We , written in 1920, follows a spacecraft engineer living in One State. The citizens of One State wear uniforms and are referred to by number, and are forever refused privacy or individual belief.

3. Environmental destruction

Often set in places that are inhabitable, the dystopian environmental story documents a warning of impending destruction.

The one dystopian novel that comes to mind when discussing this characteristic, is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Written in 2006, the post-apocalyptic tale documents a father and son’s journey of survival to a more hospitable environment in which to live after an extinction-level event wipes out their old life.

James Dashner’s The Maze Runner series also chronicles the events of how a world is destroyed by solar flares and coronal mass ejection. In the first book, a group of teenage boys are stuck in The Glade and have to find their way of out of an ever-changing maze.

4. Technological control

In a dystopian novel, the advancement of science and technology goes far beyond providing tools for improving everyday life. In this particular take of dystopia, technology is depicted as a controlling, ubiquitous and inescapable force which creates fear-mongering tactics and a subservient culture. Oftentimes, the government can be seen herding the people like sheep.

Two standout authors capture this terrifying characteristic in the form of authoritarian bureaucracy: Huxley and Philip K. Dick.

Philip K. Dick’s 1968 short novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco where android robots are indistinguishable from humans, and mass extinction has led to artificial animals. Although it is supposed that the main character hunts down rogue AI before they can assimilate into society, the novel leaves the reader wondering if the protagonist is himself a sophisticated android hunting down the lesser AI, and if humanity was driven to extinction.

Philip K. Dick also warned of artificial intelligence advancements in Minority Report, where the Department of Pre-Crime looks into the future to arrest potential criminals before they actually commit a crime.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was written in 1932, and explores the danger of advancing technology too quickly. In the novel, the ruling World State uses powerful artificial reproduction conditioning technologies to control citizen class and actions.

All three books have since been adapted to film and streaming services.

5. Survival

Dystopian and even utopian worlds require some level of survival to be built into the narrative. Innate to the dystopian world are its inhabitants fending for themselves after a complete or almost complete destruction and devastation of their world.
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One instance of survival is found in the pages of an early Stephen King novel, The Running Man. Written and first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982, the novel takes place in 2025 and follows the story of an impoverished man living under an oppressive government. The protagonist is to compete on a life-threatening game show to earn money to care for his family.