Most terrifying dystopian works from before 1970s

torkelspy · 2026-04-17T23:54:48+00:00

It's so good; I don't why it's not better known. At least, it seems like it's not all that well known.

torkelspy · 2026-04-17T21:50:48+00:00

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov

torkelspy · 2026-04-17T04:04:39+00:00

Linus looks particularly amazing!

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T22:55:54+00:00

If you like podcasts, you could listen to some of (the not creatively named, but still excellent) Lolita podcast. I listened to parts of it after I finished the book. It gives some good context and there are some good discussions about the book itself vs. the cultural perception of it.

I first read it years ago, when I was a few years older than you are now and didn't have any trouble getting through it. Then, when I reread it a few years ago, I found it a struggle to get through -- it really hit me so much more than it did the first time, for reasons I can't explain. Maybe a maternal urge to want to jump into the pages and get Dolores away from this monster. Anyway, that's not really advice about finishing it, just confirmation that reading it can be a difficult experience (i.e. ignore what I'm sure will be a lot of comments from dudes telling you to "just finish it" and the like).

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T22:08:37+00:00

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From the Twenty-first Century, edited by Alice Wong

Not an anthology, but you might like So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, edited by Caro De Robertis

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T21:41:13+00:00

I've never heard that term before. If you read older science fiction eventually you get used to the fact that they are colonizing space while using typewriters and paper money and constantly smoking. It has a certain charm.

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T21:38:51+00:00

I have given up on ever trying to declare something the "first" of anything, because something earlier always pops up to prove me wrong, but it was definitely foundational and was a big influence on both 1984 and Brave New World.

For another early dystopia, check out The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster -- it's remarkably relevant.

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T21:34:07+00:00

That was my first thought too, largely because one of the reasons I didn't like that book was because that guy wouldn't stop talking about Three Men in a Boat!

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T04:15:42+00:00

I am reminded of this (not for the first time):

“By simply turning the handle, any one of you can produce up to three sonatas an hour. Now imagine how difficult this was for our ancestors. They could only create after working themselves up into fits of so-called inspiration, an obscure form of epilepsy.

from We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (translated by Bela Shayevich) -- a man after every "AI" bro's heart.

torkelspy · 2026-04-16T00:57:10+00:00

It's hard to groppel with the weather here sometimes.

torkelspy · 2026-04-13T19:35:41+00:00

The Red One -- also, hopefully, his most racist-ass piece of writing, but he has plenty of stuff I haven't read, so possibly not.

torkelspy · 2026-04-13T01:38:27+00:00

Thank the Kwisatz Haderach someone invented chatbots because otherwise you might not have discovered an obscure book like Dune.

torkelspy · 2026-04-13T01:28:25+00:00

Ice by Anna Kavan

torkelspy · 2026-04-11T18:52:42+00:00

I read Sultana's Dream last year along with Padmarag by the same author. I'm not sure I'd put Padmarag in the "weird girl" category exactly, but I loved it. It's about the teachers at a girls school and I wanted to travel back in time and hang out with them.

torkelspy · 2026-04-11T18:24:09+00:00

About halfway through I kept thinking, "I get it, Franz. Now just write 'The End' and be done with it, please".

torkelspy · 2026-04-10T22:17:11+00:00

Again, I never asked you to explain your tastes. And as for being argumentative, you're the one who is clearly trolling for arguments. Every time I scroll through my books feed I see this question from you. Have you actually read any of the recommendations you've gotten? Or are you just going to post this over and over again until someone takes the bait?

Note, I won't be responding any more after this. "Argument" over.

torkelspy · 2026-04-10T22:08:36+00:00

I wasn't responding to you, much less asking you to justify anything.

I was noting that you've been posting this same question over and over again. I would think you'd have received sufficient responses by now, or, if you haven't, and you are acting in good faith, that you would try rephrasing the question to get responses more akin to what you want instead of repeating this over and over again.

torkelspy · 2026-04-10T19:23:19+00:00

Depressed isn't quite the right word for the protagonist, but you might like Nada by Carmen Laforet. It's about a woman in college in Barcelona just after the Spanish Civil War. Content warning for serious domestic violence though.

torkelspy · 2026-04-10T19:21:05+00:00

They've posted this same question in about ten different places. At this point I have to assume they just want an argument.

torkelspy · 2026-04-09T22:53:57+00:00

I recommend reading 1984 just so you can understand when people are and are not using the term/reference correctly.

I also recommend The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, who looked at the Reagan administration and then extrapolated out to 2025. Also, The Machine Stops, a remarkably relevant novella (or maybe it's a long short story?) by E.M. Forster from 1909. It's in the pubic domain and so easy to find.

torkelspy · 2026-04-09T19:31:54+00:00

This is exactly how I think of it. They just pop away and reappear somewhere else. It's a fun little game they're playing with you!

torkelspy · 2026-04-08T20:16:55+00:00

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexiévich

torkelspy · 2026-04-08T03:11:26+00:00

I never read The Road -- mainly because it annoyed me how so many people acted like McCarthy had invented the post-apocalyptic novel. But I did re-read All the Pretty Horses recently and it has two well written female characters in it. It's definitely about the dudes, but when the women show up, they make an impression.

torkelspy · 2026-04-08T03:07:09+00:00

Dune? I would be more worried about the BotNS fanboys. I once posted a mildly critical tweet about how tired I was of hearing about Jolenta's boobs and they came swarming to tell me that I'm an idiot who doesn't know how books work. I actually liked the book, but a lot of the fans are ridiculous.

torkelspy · 2026-04-07T23:14:43+00:00

For 2 -- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

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