Dystopian Novels

Dystopian novels can be scary. But they can also be useful.

These stories warn us of possible things to come. They show us the worst cases of what can happen to a society when we take freedom for granted.

If enough of us see our government going in the wrong direction, we can work to stop it before things get bad. We don't want to live in a place anything like depicted in these stories!

Of course, that assumes we are paying attention. Too often, we don't until something happens that is a bit too close to home.

This is one reason I recommend reading dystopian novels. They can cause us to get curious about what's really going on in our world.

Things can seemingly change overnight. But what we may not be aware of is that the change has been slowly and steadily building over time.

This happens when a group of people wants to control others. One example is members of fundamentalist religions. They believe they have the only truth and that it's "God's will" that they rule over others.

This is the basis for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

She tells a terrifying story of what could happen if strict Christian fundamentalists controlled our country.

We see lots of references to it in social media these days. Because here in the United States, we seem to be getting ever closer to our own scary version of Gilead. Let's hope that never, ever happens.

Read more here.

There is also the popular The Handmaid's Tale series, a Hulu original.

The morning of the reaping, Katniss Everdeen sneaks into the woods to hunt. She and her friend, Gale, come here often to hunt for food. This is strictly forbidden, but they have no choice. It's either take the risk or they and their families will starve.

Katniss has been taking care of her mother and sister since their father was killed in a mine explosion. She was eleven then. Prim was seven.

Now Katniss is sixteen, and Prim is twelve. She's now old enough to be included in the reaping. But she is as safe as any of them can be. Her name has been entered only once in the drawing. The odds are in her favor.

Not so for Katniss. Her name is in there twenty times, as she sometimes entered her name in exchange for food.