Dystopian sci-fi books: 11 award-recognized novels about futures gone wrong
Dystopian fiction imagines societies that went wrong, slowly or all at once, and the people who live, resist or survive inside them. These are the award-recognized books worth your time.
If you read just one: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, because it is the defining dystopia of the last fifty years.
Control and power
1. The Handmaid's Tale
Won the Arthur C. Clarke Award; finalist for the Locus and Nebula Awards (1987) ·
In the Republic of Gilead, women have lost every right, and one woman remembers the life she had before.
2. Never Let Me Go
Finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2006) ·
Students at an English boarding school slowly learn what their lives are for. Quiet and heartbreaking.
3. Some Desperate Glory
Won the Hugo Award; finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2024) ·
A young woman raised on a militarized station to avenge a destroyed Earth begins to question everything she was taught.
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Finalist for the Nebula Award (1969) ·
A bounty hunter tracks escaped androids in a ruined world where owning a real animal is a status symbol. The basis for Blade Runner.
Collapse and survival
5. Parable of the Sower
Finalist for the Locus and Nebula Awards (1995) ·
As society collapses in 2020s California, a teenager with an unusual gift builds a new belief system to survive.
Good to know: Violent in places.
6. Parable of the Talents
Won the Nebula Award; finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2000–2001) ·
The sequel follows Lauren’s community as an extremist movement takes power.
7. Station Eleven
Won the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2015) ·
After a pandemic, a traveling company performs Shakespeare across a changed world. More hopeful than most dystopias.
8. A Canticle for Leibowitz
Won the Hugo Award (1961) ·
After a nuclear war, an order of monks keeps knowledge alive through a new dark age.
Crowded, poisoned futures
9. Stand on Zanzibar
Won the Hugo Award; finalist for the Nebula Award (1969) ·
An overcrowded 2010, told through news clips, ads and dozens of voices around one corporate and political crisis.
Good to know: Fragmented by design.
10. The Sheep Look Up
Finalist for the Nebula Award (1973) ·
A United States choking on pollution, told through many characters as the country falls apart.
11. The Windup Girl
Won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (2010) ·
Corporations control food and seeds in a future Bangkok fighting to stay independent.
Good to know: Contains sexual violence.
How we chose
Every book in this guide won or was a finalist for at least one of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus or Arthur C. Clarke awards. Each book page lists its full award history with sources. Page counts come from English print editions and vary by edition. 11 books in all.