Fiction that reads like Fahrenheit 451

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood (1986)

Offred, a Handmaid, describes life in what was once the United States, now the Republic of Gilead, a shockingly repressive and intolerant monotheocracy, in a satirical tour de force set in the near future.

Jennifer Government, by Max Barry (2003)

In a corporate-governed future world where people take the last names of the companies they work for, merchandising officer Hack Nike tries to get out of a contract that requires him to shoot teenagers, a situation that results in his unwitting involvement with an agent who is out to get Hack's employer.

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess (1986)

Presents Burgess' satire of the present inhumanity of man to man through a futuristic culture where teenagers rule with violence, and includes the final chapter deleted from the first American edition.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde (2002)

In a world where you can actually get lost (literally) in literature, Thursday Next, a notorious Special Operative in literary detection, races against time to stop the world's Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature, forcing her to dive into the pages of a novel to stop literary homicide, in a wildly imaginative, mesmerizing thriller.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (2010)

In a colortocracy where you are what you see, young Eddie Russett has no ambition to be anything other than a loyal drone of the Collective. But everything changes when he moves with his father, a respected swatchman, to East Carmine. There, he falls in love with a Grey named Jane who opens his eyes to the painful truth behind his seemingly perfect, rigidly controlled society.

Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank (1959)

A story of a group of people who rely on their own courage and ingenuity to survive in a town which escaped nuclear bombing.

Too Loud a Solitude, by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim (1990)

This parable of censorship and the modern state centers on Hanta, a trash collector whose habit of salvaging and reading discarded books has brought him both the richness of the classics and the ridicule of his boss.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley (1946)

Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom .

The Children of Men, by P.D. James (1993)

In 2021, with the human race becoming extinct because of the infertility of all males, Oxford historian Theodore Faron is drawn into the schemes of an unlikely group of revolutionaries out to save society.

The Telling, by Ursula K. Le Guin (2000)

An observer from Earth for the interstellar Ekumen, Sutty is assigned to a new world in which a ruthless monolithic Corporation, seeking rapid technological advancement, has outlawed ancient beliefs and customs, but as Sutty journeys deep into the countryside and mountains, she discovers the Telling, the old faith of the Akans, a banned religion that teaches her about the meaning of her own existence.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr. (1959)

First published in 1959 to critical acclaim and enduring popularity, the novel follows the struggle of the Monks of the Order of Saint Leibowitz to preserve the remnants of civilization after a nuclear war and wield them against tyranny.

1984, by George Orwell (1949)

Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.

Anthem, by Ayn Rand (1953)

Depicts a lone dissenter's struggles in a future collectivized state.

The Temple, by Steven Spender (1988)

An autobiographical novel written during the author's youth tells of privileged and carefree young men at Oxford whose hedonistic escapades end abruptly under the reign of Nazism.

Europe Central, by William T. Vollmann (2005)

A series of interconnected stories seeks to contrast the moral decisions made by famous and everyday individuals with regard to the warring authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century, from a pair of generals who collaborate with the enemy to two heroes who place themselves at risk for their countries.

The Merro Tree, by Katie Waitman (1997)

Mikk of Vyzania, the galaxy's finest performance master, defies the government ban on the performance of the Somalite songdance, risking his life to overthrow the stranglehold of censorship.

A Gift Upon the Shore, by M.K. Wren (1990)

Amid the collapse of civilization, Mary Hope and Rachel Morrow, two survivors of the devastation wreaked by natural disasters and nuclear war, create a cache of books in an attempt to preserve the past.

We, by Eugene Zamiatin, translated by Gregory Zilboorg (1952)

D-503, a mathematician in the one thousandth year of the One State and the chief architect of the Integral, threatens national security when he falls in love with the beautiful I-330 and rediscovers the meaning of passion and the soul. A Russian classic.

4/10

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