trope: Dystopian

High-Opp by Frank Herbert

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Mask: Author’s Preferred Text

I am the mask. The mask is me. America has fallen. Remnants of states cling together. The Pacific Northwest is now PacNorth. Democracy has gone off the rails. Citizens still vote, but only to vote away anything--or anyone--they don't like. Read more

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade Book 1)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the critically-acclaimed debut novel from Seth Dickinson, one of the rising new stars in fantasy. Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up and see red sails on the horizon. The Empire of Masks Read more

High-Opp by Frank Herbert
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From the New York Times–bestselling author of Dune, a dystopian novel in which a corrupted democracy leads to war between the privileged and labor classes.

EMASI! Each Man A Separate Individual! That is the rallying cry of the Seps engaged in a class war against the upper tiers of a society driven entirely by opinion polls. Those who score high, the High-Opps, are given plush apartments, comfortable jobs, every possible convenience.

But those who happen to be low-opped, live crowded in Warrens, facing harsh lives and brutal conditions. Daniel Movius, Ex-Senior Liaitor, rides high in the opinion polls until he loses everything, brushed aside by a very powerful man. Low-opped and abandoned, Movius finds himself fighting for survival in the city’s underworld. T

here, the opinion of the masses is clear: It is time for a revolution against the corrupt super-privileged. And every revolution needs a leader.

From Hugo and Nebula award winning author Frank Herbert, this posthumously published novel was written between his two classic books, The Dragon in the Sea and Dune.

A Star Curiously Singing (DarkTrench Saga)

A Star Curiously Singing (DarkTrench Saga)
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** Reader’s Favorite Gold Medal Award Winner **

Sandfly is a debugger. He is property, bought and paid for in an Earth under sharia law. All faiths but one have been banned. And the rule of the great Imam is supreme.

As a debugger, Sandfly has an implant in his head that connects him to the world’s technology—and doles out mental shocks to keep him obedient. All he wants is to fix bots and avoid shocks

Now he’s been called into Earth orbit. The masters have a new spacecraft—one capable of interstellar flight. On its maiden voyage, the only robot on board went mad and tore itself apart.

Why? Better question: does it pose any risk to humans?

When Sandfly reviews the bot’s final moments, he perceives something unexpected. Something impossible.

As Sandfly pieces together the clues, a trap spreads beneath his feet. If he solves the mystery, he may doom himself. And if he fixes the robot, he may shatter his world.

Suspenseful, unique, and awash in cyberpunk jive, A Star Curiously Singing presents a bleak future that might be closer than we think.

Mask: Author’s Preferred Text

Mask: Author's Preferred Text
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I am the mask. The mask is me.

America has fallen. Remnants of states cling together. The Pacific Northwest is now PacNorth.

Democracy has gone off the rails. Citizens still vote, but only to vote away anything–or anyone–they don’t like. Long-term wisdom loses to short-term pleasure.

And the Collectors come in the night.

Radial is a Collector. The instrument of the will of the people. You get voted away…Radial makes you disappear. The system works, and he is its servant. The rule of the people is the highest form of human government. He is a believer.

Until he is asked to collect someone who should never, ever be voted away.

Judge Dredd Year One: City Fathers (Judge Dredd- Year One Book 1)

Judge Dredd Year One: City Fathers (Judge Dredd- Year One Book 1)
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Anthem

Anthem
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Anthem is a novella by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand. This dystopian fiction was written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in the UK. The story takes place at an undesignated future date when mankind has entered another Dark Age. Technological advancement is now carefully planned and the concept of individuality has been eliminated. Equality 7-2521, a 21-year-old man, rebels by doing secret scientific research. He commits several transgressions. But his activity is discovered. He flees into the wilderness with the girl he loves and both plan to establish a new society based on rediscovered individualism.
The plot of the novella revolves around this young man who exclusively uses plural pronouns such as ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘they’ to refer to himself and others. The girl he meets is Liberty 5-3000, a 17-year-old Peasant girl who works in the fields. When he speaks to her, he discovers that she also thinks of him. Anthem was published in the US only after author’s next novel, The Fountainhead, became a best seller.

Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged
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Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?

You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy…why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction…why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph…why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill.

Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand’s most extensive statement of Objectivism—her groundbreaking philosophy—offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists.

Doomsday Morning

Doomsday Morning
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A classic, post-apocalyptic vision of America created by C. L. Moore, an undisputed master of science fiction’s golden age.

In the wake of a nuclear war, the totalitarian system known as Comus has restored order in a shattered America. Comus controls every aspect of American life, from communications to transportation to law enforcement, but cracks are beginning to show: rumors of a rebellion in California are brewing, and Comus’s leadership is aging. History is at a crossroads, and the man who will decide the outcome is a washed-up actor named Howard Rohan.

Leading a troupe of theatre players to perform in the heart of rebel territory, Howard’s true mission is to gather intelligence on a device that could bring down Comus. But Rohan finds himself slipping between his roles as a double agent and supposed revolutionary sympathizer, to the point where even he isn’t sure where he stands. As America edges closer to its reckoning, Rohan will need to decide who he’s been lying to: the rebels, Comus, or himself.

“A finely wrought dystopic vision where an oppressive future government utilizes communication networks to spread its tentacles across the United States.” —Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

“It need hardly be mentioned at this late date what a gloriously fine writer Moore was . . . she combined elegant yet colorful prose with a distinctive emotional flair and one helluva imagination.” —Fantasy Literature

Make Room! Make Room! (soylent green film)

Make Room! Make Room! (soylent green film)
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1966 Novel filmed as the soylent green 1973 movie

A detective hunts down a killer in a dystopian, overpopulated NYC in this classic science fiction novel that inspired the film Soylent Green.

Originally published in 1966, Make Room! Make Room! imagines a world at the end of the twentieth century where Earth is so overwhelmed by rampant population growth that it teeters on the edge of self-destruction. In New York City alone, thirty-five million people are squeezed into its packed boroughs, scrambling like rats for the world’s dwindling resources. The only food available is a product called soylent. And while the government tries to maintain order, the rich get richer and the poor stay underfoot.

Finding a killer in this broken world is one hell of a job. But that’s exactly what Det. Andy Rusch has been assigned to do. If he can stay alive long enough, he might just solve the biggest case he’s ever been on—unless humanity finally fulfills its promise and destroys itself first.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade Book 1)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant
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Published: 2016-11-29
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The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the critically-acclaimed debut novel from Seth Dickinson, one of the rising new stars in fantasy. Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up and see red sails on the horizon. The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies.

They will conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She’ll swallow her hate, join the Masquerade, and claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free. To test her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes.

But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

1984

1984
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George Orwell, born in 1903 in India was an English novelist, essayist and critic. He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and non-fiction works. His famous works include Animal Farm' and 'Burmese days'.