Dystopian novels are the novelty these days. However, as opposed to their 20th century predecessors, today's novels cater more to the young adult reader than to the more mature and jaded literary snob. Some have dared to equate Orwell with Collins, but to me that is simply blasphemous and ridiculous. The dystopian stories of yesterday tried to show readers the perils of authoritarian power and how it affected human interactions. Today's stories use despotic control mainly as a backdrop for romantic tension between the main characters. Though no less interesting in subject matter, these new dystopian novels can oftentimes fatally err in trying to seed their plots with excessive predictability and a profound lack of authenticity. Below are examples of yesterday's and today's dystopian novels. I prefer the former, as they are the original mold unsentimental for such genre.
Yesterday:
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. A Clockwork Orange by
Anthony Burgess
4. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
5. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
Midnight:
6. The Tripod trilogy by John Christopher
Today:
7. Pure by Julianna Baggott
8. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
9. Partials by Dan Well
10. Delirium (and its sequel Pandemonium) by Lauren Oliver
11. Divergent (and its sequel Insurgent) by Veronica Roth
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