The economy is tanking, we're at war and the planet is getting hotter. But just how bad will it get? What if you could see the bleak future that you fear might be brought to fruition? Dystopic novels and stories offer the opportunity to explore such nightmares in waking time.

This subgenre of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction views human nature from completely outside of the exaggerated perfection of the Garden of Eden, while also accounting for current societal ills and postulating on what might occur in the near or distant future if these issues aren't addressed. The utopian ideal of the genesis of humans is destroyed — obliterated, even — and the anti-utopia rises from the tangle and ash.

Often employing a startlingly bleak postmodernist view, the dystopic novel challenges the very core of what defines us, what we're capable of and, often, how we're inextricably linked to the physical world despite what virtually wanders around in our own minds. And where would we be if the postmodern wasn't coupled with the existential, the questioning of a sense of self, identity?

Here are some of my favorites of the subgenre.

1. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Female authors address the dystopic universe and the issue of identity much differently than men do. Classic case in point: The anti-sexualization in Margaret Atwood's 1985 book The Handmaid's Tale versus that of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which was published in 1932. In both novels, the men have access to and control of women's bodies and their reproductive rights, but from vastly different perspectives and for equally polar reasons. Brave New World renders women little more than eager sex partners who pose no threat to “trapping” men through their desire for children and nuclear family. … continue reading