Here at Books of Brilliance, we love dystopian novels with a passion. Something about them makes us want to read them all the time. But there are lots of great dystopian novels to choose from. That is why we decided to list the 25 best dystopian novels of all time. Keep reading to see which books made our list!
Great dystopian novels can address problems in society by imagining the worst-case scenario. And while many of them never happen, it is still fun to imagine a world where it might. Authors have written novels about hundreds if not thousands of dystopias over the decades. You can see the full list below.
The 25 Best Dystopian Novels of All Time
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- The Children of Men by Phyllis White
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- The Maze Runner by James Dashner
- The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
- Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The Passage by Justin Cronin
- The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
Classics and More
There are a lot of great classics on this list. Books such as The Handmaid’s Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? made the list and rightfully so. They have shaped the genre and are at the forefront.
But there are also newer novels that have separated themselves from the rest. The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Station Eleven are amazing novels that must reads. The genre is always changing and we can’t wait to see what other novels make it into this list in the future.
Conclusion
That is all for the 25 best dystopian novels of all time list. What books should have made the list? Let us know in the comments below!
As a huge fan of dystopian literature, and having read most of the books on this list I can conclude that the author of this list hasn’t read very much dystopian literature if this is their top 25. Poor list.
Leaving out King’s The Stand and Robert McCammon’s Swan Song is unacceptable!
No mention of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller? I weep for you.
They haven’t read any of these. They just got a list of the most popular from a local library or something and then didn’t even bother to look up who the wrote the books. Children of Men is by P. D. James.
The world according to garp by John irving
Great list but I think you left out William Gibson’s Neuromancer. It started a whole new dystopian sub genre.
I think The Man in the Castle (Phillip K. Dick) is mandatory in any list of this kind. A real intelligent distopy that could easily replace some of those 21st century Hollywood like novels.
Lists or “articles” like this are designed to promote traffic and so it doesn’t matter if it’s good content or not, but this is a poor list. I read divergent when I was 16 or 17 and even then I knew what I was reading was a disposable YA summer read. Darkness at Noon is a big omission here, though on of many.
Malevil by Robert Merle
That hideous strength by CSLewis. París in the twenty century by Jules Verne
Well Ahadir good list however I do believe WOOL by Hugh Howey def deserved to be on the list. It came out as a series as SILO but somehow got lost in translation. Terrifying scenario- when a wolf is backed into a corner they will do anything to survive _- like, nuke the whole world ???
Steven Kings The Stand! How is this not on the list?
I would add A Boy and His Dog by
Harlan Ellison.