A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
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Story involving the rumoured “whisper line”: 2 points in a subterranean prison between which it is possible to communicate
I have vague memories of a sci-fi story that involves "the whisper line" as a crucial plot device. The whisper line refers to 2 secret points in a highly oppressive prison institution between which it ...
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1980's children's novel about present-day post-nuclear USA?
I'm looking for the title to a book I read in the 80's about a family set in the present day surviving after a nuclear holocaust. The whole family survives for a time. The little girl hides under a ...
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129 views
Identify Story: Dystopian Children's Novel About Subterranean Class System
This is a book that haunted me for years.
A girl lives on a very low level of an ant-hill-like society where most people live underground (supposedly due to a polluted surface). Most of the people ...
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140 views
Looking for late 70s short story anthology, we'd call it YA now. May have included Leiber's “A Pail of Air”
Read this in the school library - all the stories were very dysotopian. One involved a character named 'Emelen' who by the end of the story discovers they are just one of many discarded clones (MLN). ...
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A book my brother-in-law read when he was growing-up in the 70's/80's, possibly post-apocalyptic.
It sounds like a post-apocalyptic story from what he told me. The only details he could give me other than that was a character called Kincaid (unsure of spelling) and a group called the Kriss (again ...
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253 views
Short-story ID about man who finds electricity in a dystopian society only to be driven into wilderness
I remember almost all of the story details except the name and author! Here are some bigger points:
I believe it's an older story - between the 60s-70s.
People in this future are encouraged to ...
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1answer
661 views
How much was Equilibrium influenced by Fahrenheit 451?
I see some similarities between the movie Equilibrium and the book Fahrenheit 451. Does anyone know if there is actually any association? or am i just looking at the extremely basic ideas of ...
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What is this novel set in a future where telepaths are persecuted?
Here's what I remember about the book:
It was published in the 1980's as a mass market paperback.
The cover features people in white jumpsuits.
One of the telepathic characters is a ...
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271 views
1970/80s YA novel about dystopian divided country of cities and countryside?
I read this book as a kid in the 80s at school. Its about a dystopian country where the protagonist lives in a dirty city environment (there are no longer book as they are deemed unsanitary because ...
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2answers
337 views
Is there a precursor to the Culture?
The Culture, from the Iain M Banks novels, seems to be a merger between a utopia and a dystopia. Is this a new phenomenon or do other examples exist?
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What novel was set in a dystopian future and featured a boy searching for his missing father?
I'm hoping someone can identify this young-adult/children's sci-fi book. I read it in 1996-1997, but I remember thinking it was written in the 1980s.
The main character was a boy (maybe in his early ...
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Set of stories printed in IASFM, involving a universe where false Utopias are created, and the protagonists attempt to combat such
Ok, I read this as a kid, so, about 1985 or so would be the latest it might have been printed; the copies of IASFM (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine), however, were from a Yard Sale, and could ...
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403 views
Seeking title and/or author of dystopian science-fiction novel from late-70s/early-80s
In the novel, humans all lived underground and were decanted - not born, were undersized, short-lived, emotionally-empty, and prone to suicide and freak-outs. Above ground there were mechanized ...
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4answers
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In the original Mad Max movie, is there actually any reference to an apocalypse?
While the Wikipedia article on Mad Max says:
The film opens "a few years from now"
in Australia, in a dystopian future
where law & order has begun to break
down at the end of the 'Oil ...
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Trying to remember the name of a female, Canadian, children's sci-fi author from the 80s
I read a number of books when I was around 10-15 years old (roughly 1985-1990) by a female, Canadian, sci-fi author. I can't remember her name (maybe Amy something?) or the titles of any of the books ...
