The following are a list of dystopian novels. By no means is it comprehensive, but I believe it covers the major ones that need to be read at least to understand the evolution and present state of dystopia. There’s a point at which they all begun to run together, where you’ve read so many of them that you notice how worn out the cliches are, but I’ve even included some of the poorer rip-offs of traditional dystopia.
- 1891 – The New Utopia by Jerome K. Jerome
- 1908 – The Iron Heel by Jack London (said to be the first dystopian novel of the modern era)
- 1907 – Lord of the World by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson
- 1923 or 1924 – Love in the Fog of the Future by Andrei Marsov
- 1924 – We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (some say this is the grandfather of dystopian novels)
- 1938 – Anthem by Ayn Rand
- 1895 – The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
- 1898/1910 – (When) The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells
- 1940 – Kallocain by Karin Boye
- 1949 – Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- 1931 – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- 1952 – Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
- 1953 – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- 1953 – One by David Karp
- 1961 – Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
- 1962 – A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- 1967 – Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
- 1967 – Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip Jose Farmer
-
1970 – This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
- 1976 – Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee
- 1979 – The Long Walk by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)
- 1982 – The Running Man by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)
- 1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- 1993 – The Giver by Lois Lowry
- 1993 – The Punishment of Luxury by Michael Carson
- 1994 – Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias edited by Kim Stanley Robinson (a collection with dystopian short stories)
- 1999 – Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
- 2002 – Feed by M. T. Anderson
- 2003 – Jennifer Government by Max Barry
- 2008 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- 2009 – The Maze Runner by James Dashner
- 2010 – Matched by Ally Condie
- 2011 – Divergent by Veronica Roth
- 2005 – The Uglies by Scott Westerfield
I do find it kind of funny to note how many of the earlier dystopian novels/stories are written by Russians or Socialists. Can we gather anything from that? Maybe, maybe not,