Dystopian Fiction for Adults

Updated April 19, 2023
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The last : a novel
Jameson, Hanna
Paper Book
For fans of high-concept thrillers such as Annihilation and The Girl with All the Gifts, this breathtaking dystopian psychological thriller follows an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into nuclear war--along with twenty other survivors--who becomes...
Golden State
Winters, Ben H.
Paper Book
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder. In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all...
Bird box
Malerman, Josh
Paper Book
"A book that demands to be read in a single sitting, and through the cracks between one's fingers. There has never been a horror story quite like this. Josh Malerman truly delivers." -- Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool Written with the narrative tension of...
Red Rising
Brown, Pierce
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Pierce Brown's relentlessly entertaining debut channels the excitement of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. "Red Rising ascends above a crowded dys­topian field."--USA Today<...
The salt line
Jones, Holly Goddard
Paper Book
In an unspecified future, the United States' borders have receded behind a salt line - a ring of scorched earth that protects its citizens from deadly disease-carrying ticks. Those within the zone live safe lives in a society controlled by a common fear. Few have any reason to venture out of zone,...
Trashlands
Stine, Alison
Paper Book
"This thought-provoking apocalypse noir fires on all cylinders." -Publishers Weekly starred review From the author of Road Out of Winter, winner of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award, comes a resonant, visionary novel about the power of art and the sacrifices we are...
California : a novel
Lepucki, Edan.
Paper Book
The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they...
The trials of Koli
Carey, M. R.
Paper Book
"Absorbing, stunning, and emotionally rich." --Locus The journey through M. R. Carey's "immersive, impeccably rendered world" (Kirkus) -- a world in which nature has turned against us -- continues in The Trials of Koli, book two...
Gather the daughters : a novel
Melamed, Jennie
Paper Book
Never Let Me Go meets The Giver in this haunting debut about a cult on an isolated island, where nothing is as it seems. Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, ten men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a...
The raft
Strydom, Fred
Paper Book
"The day every person on earth lost his and her memory was not a day at all. In people's minds there was no actual event. . . and thus it could be followed by no period of shock or mourning. There could be no catharsis. Everyone was simply reset to zero." On Day Zero, the...
Not on fire, but burning : a novel
Hrbek, Greg.
Paper Book
Skyler saw it out of her window. A metallic object hovering over the Golden Gate Bridge, just before it collapsed and a mushroom cloud lifted above the city. Flash forward to a post-incident America , where the country has been broken up into two territories and Muslims have been herded onto the old...
City of savages
Kelly, Lee
Paper Book
"Red Dawn meets Escape from New York and The Hunger Games" (Booklist) in an action-packed dystopian fantasy filled with "prose [that] is gorgeous and brilliant" and "tells a satisfyingly dark tale through alternating the two sisters' points of view" (VOYA,...
The test
Neuvel, Sylvain
Paper Book
Award-winning author Sylvain Neuvel explores an immigration dystopia in The Test Britain, the not-too-distant future. Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test. He wants his family to belong. Twenty-five questions to determine their fate....
Wool
Howey, Hugh.
Paper Book
For suspense-filled, post-apocalyptic thrillers, Wool is more than a self-published ebook phenomenon―it's the new standard in classic science fiction. In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and...
Parable of the sower
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by LeVar Burton and an afterword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times). When...
Mazes of power
Wade, Juliette
Paper Book
This debut work of sociological science fiction follows a deadly battle for succession, where brother is pitted against brother in a singular chance to win power and influence for their family. The cavern city of Pelismara has stood for a thousand years. The Great Families of the...
Station eleven
Mandel, Emily St. John
Paper Book
This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to "The Mandelverse" ...
Poster girl
Roth, Veronica
Paper Book
"Poster Girl is a captivating story full of twists and turns--and no easy answers. I couldn't put this book down." --Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Girl, Forgotten  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth, a...
The Sky-Blue Wolves : a novel of the Change
Stirling, S. M.
Paper Book
S. M. Stirling presents the stunning and epic conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Change series, now in paperback. Many years ago, when advanced technology failed and humanity found itself in a turbulent, postapocalyptic world, extraordinary men and women birthed a new society...
Who fears death
Okorafor, Nnedi.
Paper Book
Now optioned as a TV series for HBO, with executive producer George R. R. Martin! An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa.  In a post...
Agency
Gibson, William
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "ONE OF THE MOST VISIONARY, ORIGINAL, AND QUIETLY INFLUENTIAL WRITERS CURRENTLY WORKING"* returns with a sharply imagined follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The Peripheral.   William...
Red clocks : a novel
Zumas, Leni
Paper Book
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. Five women. One question. What is a woman for? ...
Sleepwalk : a novel
Chaon, Dan
Paper Book
Sleepwalk is a high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big-hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed award-winning novelist Dan Chaon. "[Chaon] does madcap well and likes his characters, even the killers--especially the killers....
Walkaway : a novel
Doctorow, Cory
Paper Book
Kirkus' Best Fiction of 2017 From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, an epic tale of revolution, love, post-scarcity, and the end of death. "Walkaway is now the best contemporary example I know of, its utopia glimpsed after fascinatingly...

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