Look, I have a confession to make. Whenever someone tells me they just finished yet another dystopian sci-fi novel, I involuntarily grunt and whine something about how we need to break away from post-apocalyptic settings and resource scavengers. I’ve made this sound and voiced it at book signings, faculty meetings when people mention what they’re reading these days, even a dinner party when we got on the subject of literature (we get asked about books a lot, obviously, what with being employed at a university). But the thing is, I keep reading them. Stayed up until two in the morning this very weekend reading one, in fact. Couldn’t put it down because I had to see if Julia escaped from the mutant monster unleashing destruction across the continent.
I caught myself doing it again last night, actually. I was knee deep in yet another story about survivors in a broken world, only this time it took place in underground tunnels, and they were fighting over the last purified water source. Good book, don’t get me wrong – not ground-breaking or anything that will seriously stick with me, but well-written and enjoyable. Not like I was reading Kurt Vonnegut or anything. Just straightforward dystopian fiction.
I’ve found myself wondering why lately. Well, actually, it started last spring at PAX Science Fiction Convention when I was on a panel called “Oh Geez Another Collapse of Society Panel” or some such clever title. We talked about how exhausted we were of these kinds of futures, how the genre was due for a change, how new authors should challenge themselves writing utopian fiction or at least thinking up different kinds of collapses. We were a panel of voracious readers who love science fiction, genuinely concerned about the death of creativity when it came to dystopian futures. High-minded crap, really.
And then I walked out to the vendor hall after our panel ended and what do I see? Dozens of people cosplaying various apocalypse fiction. The best costume was this guy who had put together this entire cowboy pimp outfit that was clearly made up of scavenged materials. Wasteland cowboy, if you will. Torn jacket with patches on it, pants made of two different fabrics, duct tape holding his boots together, and a hat made out of an old sticker someone else must have gotten during their adventures. And he was thrilled about it, too, buzzing around taking pictures and exclaiming about how badass his get-up was.
I see it online all the time too. I’m a member of several SFF discussion groups across different networks. Someone will say “ugh I can’t believe I have to read another book about society crumbling” and they’ll get dozens of likes and retweets agreeing that it’s overdone. But then someone else shares some fan art of a bombed city or mentions that new book that has society falling apart due to global warming and suddenly the thread explodes with people wanting to read it. Those fan art posts are the posts that get circulated all over, especially the ones that are just beautiful pictures of abandoned cities with lonely figures staring out at roads no one will ever drive down again.
I’ve even noticed it when I talk about books on my own website. Whenever I do a book review of some novel that takes place in a dystopian future, it gets significantly more response than anything else I write – even if I pan the book. People love to hear my take on the latest in dystopian fiction. But then I write this intricate breakdown of this amazingly hopeful sci-fi book and it dies on the vine with like two comments. We can’t help ourselves.
I think part of the issue is we’ve somehow made liking post-apocalyptic stories feel less than cool. Dystopian futures are for bestsellers, not literary science fiction. It’s brain candy, not serious reads that will make you think. And yes, part of that is true. So much of <a href=”https: //dystopianlens.co.uk/exploring-the-philosophical-themes-in-dystopian-sci-fi/”>dystopian sci-fi</a> these days is the same story of society crumbling and you have to learn to survive. But throwing out the entire concept is wasteful. Dystopian futures are some of the best ways science fiction can comment on modern society.
You know why? Because they let us imagine the worst things we fear about our society’s direction taken to their absolute extremes. Is the world going to end because of climate change? Dystopian future. Are we abusing technology until we’re slaves to our own creations? Dystopian future. Are corrupt governments going to take away our freedoms and force us into doing their bidding? You guessed it, dystopian future. Every things about our society we fear will end up culminating in some apocalyptic event that crushers civilization, usually America’s.
The best dystopian novels aren’t focused on the apocalypse or the collapse itself. Sure, that’s where they begin, but the story is about what’s left afterward. What happens to the humans who survive? How do they organise themselves? What works systems? What doesn’t? What parts of our society are we going to cling to when everything we know is thrown out? Authors like Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood have mastered this concept.
When she wrote the Parable novels, Octavia didn’t just want to show society crumbling, she wanted to explore what would happen if we had to recreate society from the ground up. Would we return to traditional ways? Would we mixin old values with new? Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on what could happen if society as we know it is suddenly thrown out, and how people will work with the structure left in place to survive.
I’ve been re-reading some classic dystopian novels because I’m doing a piece on how dystopian stories have changed throughout the years. When you really get into older dystopian novels you realise they weren’t written as genre stories but as cautionary tales. They weren’t trying to predict the future but shine a warning light on problems within society at the time. That’s what science fiction does best. It holds up a mirror to our world by projecting it into the future. We still read these books right now because they said something bigger than “what if everything fell apart?”
Like I said, what’s happened is dystopian futures have become mainstream. That means more of them getting published. And that means you get a lot of mediocre fiction about the same thing. Someone figured out that putting a teen protagonist and making them fight the government sells books, so we’ve been flooded with YA novels starring heroic teens taking down dictators. Or oppressive societies where you are squatted fighting to scrounge up enough scrap metal to eat. Some of them are okay books, but most of them don’t have anything new to say about how society could collapse.
But every once in a while there’s a book like Station Eleven or The Fifth Season that comes along that reminds me why I love these types of stories. Yes, they both follow every dystopian trope there is. Some kind of apocalypse happens and society is crumbling, and we follow a handful of characters learning to survive. But these books take that framework and show you what can be beautiful about survival. Kusei and her underground society, or how Evelyn clings to the past but also learns to let go.
I don’t think the problem is with dystopian novels. It’s what we’ve allowed them to become. We love the look of the world falling apart but we don’t want to actually think about what that means. Ruined buildings are cool and weird fashion made out of scraps feels romantically adventurous, but do we like what these stories say about our society? I think sometimes we read these books as a way to distance ourselves from our fear of the future. If we never explore that fear by diving into these stories, maybe we don’t have to face that these things could actually happen.
And maybe that’s perfectly fine. Not every book has to be some grand commentary on the world. Sometimes you read a book to unwind and just enjoy an imaginary world. Sure, we love to gripe about “another crappy dystopian novel” but we’ll all crack at the first sign of something with robots in it. I’m guilty of it too. But I’m trying to be better about examining why I like the books I do. Sure, I love reading about characters surviving in dark futures. But I also want more than just crappy stories that follow the same old regurgitated future of America falling apart.
So the next time someone tells me about a new book that takes place in a world they’ve created after society as we know it is destroyed, I’m going to think twice before I roll my eyes. Who knows, I may actually ask them about it. What’s the book really about? Sure, it’s a dystopian future but what’s the book exploring about that world? Does it take something we see in our society and exaggerate it to look at how sturdy the foundation truly is? Do these characters band together and learn something about humanity when everything is stripped away?
I keep reading these stories about survivors in the world’s ashes because we need them. We write and read them because there’s something comforting about seeing everything fall apart on the page. It’s how we process the fear of tomorrow. Yes, a lot of these books are bad, but that doesn’t mean the concept is flawed. We just need to start better examining why we like the books we do and ask the hard questions about whether or not they’ve actually got something new to say. But you can’t do that if we pretend like reading about dystopian futures somehow makes us less of a reader.
Kathleen’s a lifelong reader who believes science fiction is literature, full stop. From her book-filled home in Seattle, she writes about thoughtful, character-driven sci-fi that challenges ideas and lingers long after the last page. She’s a champion for under-read authors and timeless storytelling.