While it might be troubling how much the news currently feels like the early chapters of a dystopian novel, that doesn't mean all hope is lost! Here is a collection of what we're calling 'dys-hope-ias' – dystopian stories that provide hope that a better world can be rebuilt, even after everything has seemingly fallen apart. Whether that looks like fighting back against a military regime or simply continuing to make and share art in a ramshackle world, these stories are gripping and will leave you a little more optimistic than when you started reading.
The Rain Heron
Robbie Arnott
Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting and trading – and forgetting.
But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission. As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt – as myths merge with reality – both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love, and what they fear.
Toward Eternity
Anton Hur
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites – robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun – himself a recipient of nanotherapy – mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore?
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human – and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers
When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that’s seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.
Then the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They’ll earn enough money to live comfortably for years … if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.
But Rosemary isn’t the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in North America. The world will never be the same again.
Twenty years later Kirsten, an actress in the Travelling Symphony, performs Shakespeare in the settlements that have grown up since the collapse. But then her newly hopeful world is threatened. If civilization was lost, what would you preserve? And how far would you go to protect it?
The Testaments
Margaret Atwood
Return to the world of Gilead, fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, with this electrifying sequel that brings a new edge of hope to Atwood's dystopian classic.
The Republic of Gilead is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, two girls with radically different experiences of the regime come face to face with the legendary, ruthless Aunt Lydia.
But how far will each go for what she believes?
All Better Now
Neal Shusterman
A deadly and unprecedented virus is spreading. But those who survive it experience long-term effects no one has ever seen before: utter contentment. Soon after infection, people find the stress, depression, greed, and other negative feelings that used to weigh them down are gone.
More and more people begin to revel in the mass unburdening. But not everyone. People in power – who depend on malcontents and prey on the insecure to sell their products – know this new state of being is bad for business. Surely, without anger or jealousy as motivators, productivity will grind to a halt and the world will be thrown into chaos. Campaigns start up to convince people that being eternally happy is dangerous. The race to find a vaccine begins. Meanwhile, a growing movement of Recoverees plan ways to spread the virus as fast as they can, in the name of saving the world.
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
In the Metaverse – cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons – there is a new drug available: Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, it also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state.
This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier, YT. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.
The Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin
Shevek is a brilliant scientist who is attempting to find a new theory of time – but there are those who are jealous of his work, and will do anything to block him. So he leaves his homeland, hoping to find a place of more liberty and tolerance.
Initially feted, Shevek soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.
With powerful themes of freedom, society and the natural world’s influence on competition and co-operation, The Dispossessed is a true classic of the 20th century.
The Terraformers
Annalee Newitz
Destry’s life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her. But the bright, clean future they’re building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn’t exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. As she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she’s devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E’s future for generations to come.
A science fiction epic for our times and a love letter to our future, The Terraformers will take you on a journey spanning thousands of years and exploring the triumphs, strife, and hope that find us wherever we make our home.
The Future
Naomi Alderman
Lai Zhen is about to die. As an Internet-famous survivalist, she's spent her life prepping for the end of the world. But now, desperate and cornered in a mall in Singapore, she's mad she might go out not knowing what the hell is going on. If she makes it out alive, what kind of a future will be waiting for her?
Across the world, Martha Einkorn works the room at a gathering of mega-rich companies hell-bent securing a future just for them. Covert weapons, private weather, technological prophecy, when Martha fled her father's compound she may have left the cult behind, but if the apocalyptic warnings of his fox and rabbit sermon are starting to come true, how much future is actually left?
Martha and Zhen's worlds are about to collide. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha's relentless drive and Zhen's insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful – or the cataclysmic end of civilization.
