Daniel Keast

Stuff about Dystopian Novels Book Club

The Waiting Rooms - Eve Smith

This is a story set in a future where antibiotics are no longer effective due to overuse. People over the age of seventy are refused healthcare and end up in hospitals called waiting rooms.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

This month’s pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. I’ve read it before, but so long ago that I’d forgotten most of the details. In it, a group of boys crash land on a deserted island and attempt to build a society with each person filling different roles. Throughout the course of the book, this all falls apart, descending into arguing, fighting, and eventually murder.

Prophet Song - Paul Lynch

This month’s pick for the Dystopian Novels book club. It’s just been released on paperback after winning the 2023 Booker Prize. It tells the story of a family in the Republic of Ireland living through the rise of a totalitarian government.

Native Tongue - Suzette Haden Elgin

This was this months pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. It is a science fiction novel set in a future where women have been stripped of all rights in the US. Humans have gained contact with multiple alien species, and only a subset of linguist families called The Lines are able to communicate with them. There are a group of women who are creating their own language centred around the female perspective in the hope of freeing themselves.

The War of the Worlds - H.G.Wells

This was this months pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. I really thought I had already read this, but if that’s the case it was long enough ago that I didn’t really remember the details.

Bird Box - Josh Malerman

This is the Dystopian Novels Book Club pick for this month. I remember thinking that the Netflix film was okay, but very overhyped. I enjoyed the book quite a lot more, but maybe I’m just able to accept it on it’s own terms more easily without the hype.

They - Kay Dick

This month’s book club pick.

Babel - R. F. Kuang

This month’s book club pick. I loved most of this, but wish it spent less time lecturing me and gave some more nuance to the characters. I don’t really need convincing about it’s themes, and I think the message might have come across as more powerful if I was allowed to think about what was happening rather than being told how I should feel about it all the time.

Moon of the Crusted Snow - Waubgeshig Rice

The pacing felt much too slow. There are points where something exciting is supposed to be happening and the author spends paragraphs detailing where people are sitting and what clothes they’re wearing.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

This was a lot. So many ideas that just keep coming. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and really quite silly throughout. I thought it was great.

The Long Walk - Stephen King

A dystopia where 100 boys are in a competition to walk as far as possible. If you drop below 4mph for 30 seconds you get a warning, after three warnings you get shot.

I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman

40 women who are locked in a cage that is patrolled by men with whips escape when the men run out after hearing a siren.

The Machine Stops - E.M. Forster

A short story from 1909.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

I found the different perspectives on power interesting.

Severence - Ling Ma

This is the October pick for the Exeter Dystopian novels book club.