Difference between revisions of "Newest Dystopian Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Dystopian Fiction]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Dystopian Fiction]]
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[[Category:Dystopian Fiction|*]]__NOTOC__  
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{{Frontpage
*[[image:Wilson_Extinction.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1474927343?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1474927343]]
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|isbn=B0DB64PYV5
 
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|title=The White Rose
===[[The Extinction Trials by SM Wilson]]===
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|author=Dave Baines
 
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|rating=4
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 
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|summary=In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away.
Storm and Lincoln live on Earthasia, a continent ruined by overpopulation. Space is scarce and energy and food are rationed. Education is minimal and mostly focused around searching for new, efficient food sources. Storm's mother has died and she never knew her father, so she lives in one of Earthasia's overcrowded ''shelters'', goes to school for one day per week and wrestles hay bales for a job. Lincoln's sister is dying from the blistering disease and he has no access to the healthcare that could save her. It's a mean, desperate existence for them both and so they are first to volunteer for the Stipulators' trials for a new mission to the neighbouring continent of Piloria. The aim is to retrieve dinosaur eggs so that a virus to kill them can be engineered and the citizens of Earthasia will have access to the space and abundant food sources Piloria offers... [[The Extinction Trials by SM Wilson|Full Review]]
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author= Kay Chronister
<!-- Curtis -->
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|title= Desert Creatures
*[[image:Curtis_Water.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0995465754?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0995465754]]
 
 
 
===[[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
 
 
 
Something has happened, something very nasty and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one of only a handful of animals living below the waves. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vet, as she remembers recent events, looks after the animals and falls into a world of intrigue.
 
 
 
It is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right from the start but I will try to avoid the main ones. [[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis|Full Review]]
 
<br>
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Chris Beckett
 
|title= America City
 
 
|rating= 4
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
 
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
|summary= ''America City'' tells the story of Holly, an ambitious Publicist who sets aside her own political beliefs in order to help the ambitious Senator Slaymaker with his Presidential campaign. Set in the 22nd century, the novel tells of an incredibly disunited United States, where the effects of climate change have created deep divisions between the affluent Northern States, and the South, which is frequently ravaged by extreme weather. Holly and Slaymaker hope to change this, working together on the plan they believe to be the solution to the problem of where to place the thousands of Americans who have been made homeless by devastating storms.
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|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786491524</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1803364998
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Phill Featherstone
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|author=Thomas D Lee
|title= Paradise Girl
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|title=Perilous Times
|rating= 3
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|rating=3
|genre= General Fiction
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|genre= Fantasy
|summary= Kerryl Shaw lives on a Yorkshire farm – a somewhat idealised one that survives on a few hens and two or three cows and a few sheep.  The kind of farm that might have been profitable in the 1950s but by the time Kerryl has arrived should have been struggling. A teenage boy not pulling his weight, now that the grandparents are old and the father is dead, would not be met with exasperated indulgence.  There are no stock-hands, no farm managers, no applications for subsidies, or worries about the tax return. Maybe the unwelcome wind turbine covers the costs of the rest of it.  Already, in setting, it's feeling a little unreal.  But maybe we can forgive that…
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|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785898728</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=We See Everything
 
|author=William Sutcliffe
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lex lives in what used to be London. Today, it is a closed-off, bombed-out area known as ''The Strip''. Nobody comes in and nobody can go out. Drones are a constant presence overhead. Alan spends all his time watching The Strip. His talent as a gamer got him the job of drone pilot. He hasn't bombed anyone yet but he's hyped up to do it. It's fighting terrorism, after all. Alan's observation target is a high-profile target - a man high up in the resistance organisation known as ''The Corps''. Alan calls him #K622. But Lex calls him Dad.
 
  
Lex and Alan will never meet. But their lives will collide in devastating ways...
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Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408890194</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356518523
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Roberts
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|isbn=B0BQXSYYTF
|title=The Real-Town Murders
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|title=Just Looking
|rating=3
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|author=Matthew Tree
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=If you had the choice would you live your life online?  In the future this may be possible, with the development of full realised virtual reality you may feel that the online world is more real than your ownEven today we spend hours each day looking at phones or checking statusesThe only thing is that with most people online, some of us will have to stay in the real world to deal with unexpected events – such as a real town murder.
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|summary=It was the summer of 2035 and on a cruise ship in Marseilles, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a man!  He's watching the tornado - they're more common in Europe these days - that's keeping the cruise ship in port and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierre, a French journalist in his thirtiesHe writes for a relatively new paper, the right-wing ''La Tribune Gauloise'' and he's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as the difference between 'France' and 'the French'His partner, Helen, who's English and Jewish, keeps him in check to some extent.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473221455</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= K S Merbeth
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|author= Susi Holliday
|title= Raid
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|title= The Last Resort
|rating= 4.5
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|rating= 3.5  
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
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|genre= Thrillers
|summary= A brutal road trip in a blighted landscape that pulls no punches. We travel with Clementine, a bounty hunter, in a world without heroes or hope.
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|summary=A group of strangers gather on a private island. They have been invited to an all-expenses paid retreat to test a brand-new product from the mysterious Timeo Technology company. The group includes a games designer, social media influencer, gossip columnist and hedge fund manager. Everyone seems to have an area of expertise that makes their attendance necessary. All except Amelia whose presence is a mystery. We follow the group as they explore the island, and each other's histories and it becomes clear that they all have a dark secret they would rather keep hidden. As the clock ticks down, these well-kept secrets are revealed, and it soon becomes clear that this luxury retreat is really a gilded cage. In a race against time, Amelia must struggle to uncover the reason for her attendance and protect the rest of the guests from the increasingly sinister accidents that befall them. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356507734</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1542020018
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Ben Oliver
 +
|title= The Loop
 +
|rating= 3.5
 +
|genre= Teens
 +
|summary= Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop?
 +
|isbn=1912626551
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Val McDermid
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|author=Margaret Atwood
|title=Resistance: A Race Against Time to Save Mankind
+
|title=The Testaments
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=It began so innocently, at a music festival in Northumberland. There were some stomach upsets, but what do you expect when the weather's bad, there's inadequate sanitation and 150,000 people out to enjoy themselves?  Journalist Zoe Meadows is covering the event and she's filing her copy from the back of a food van run by her friends Sam and Lisa. Sam's fussy about the food he serves - he's The Sausage Man - and he regularly checks out his suppliers.  In his business you just can't be too careful. The stomach upsets seem to last for 24 hours, an unpleasant 24 hours, but then it seems to be over.
+
|summary= Finally! Almost forty years on, we have a sequel to  [[The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood|The Handmaid's Tale]]. I don't want to tell you too much about the plot because it's a novel that is entirely plot driven. Suffice it to say that ''The Testaments'' takes place fifteen years later, fifteen years after Offred gets into a van, not knowing what will happen next. It's told by three narrators: Aunt Lydia, who is secretly writing her memoirs in Ardua Hall; Agnes, a girl brought up in Gilead with the expectation she will marry a commander; Daisy, a rebellious teenage girl in Canada who knows of Gilead only from school lessons and its Pearl Girl missionaries who occasionally call into the store owned by her parents...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785295934</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1784742325
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Cory Doctorow
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|isbn=1789018870
|title=Walkaway
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|title=Something to Tell You
|rating=2.5
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|author=David Edwards
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
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|rating=4
|summary=Science Fiction is not always what it seemsYou may think that you are reading an exciting space adventure about many tentacled aliens, but in fact it is an allegory for race relations in modern America.  The best books are able to balance the hidden meaning of the book, whilst still entertaining the reader with a great storyThe worst can feel like an author preaching directly to the reader and leaving their story to struggle in the background.
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786693054</amazonuk>
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|summary=Sam Murray and Bert Leinster had been friends for a long timeBert was Sam's boss at CERN, but this never seemed to affect the way that the families got on.  Bert's wife, Natalia, was Russian and seriously rich.  Their twins, fifteen-year-olds Allie and Josh, went to a private boarding school, but at weekends they were great friends with Sam's two children, Liam and HannahSam's wife, Briony, was head of product research at Nestlé.  Life was good for all eight of them, until Sam - a particle physicist - spotted that the rate at which Higgs Boson particles were hitting the earth had risen exponentially.  It's enough of a problem for Sam and Bert to drag the head of CERN, Prof Ralph Moyeur, out of a family lunch.  Then Bert started having conversations with a plant called Lily.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Contagion: Book 1 (Dark Matter)
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|isbn=1789550149
|author=Teri Terry
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|title=Poster Boy
|rating=4.5
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|author=N J Crosskey
|genre=Teens
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|rating=5
|summary=It's not a spoiler if I tell you that Callie dies because she does die and she dies in the first few pages of ''Contagion''. Callie - Calista - disappeared more than a year ago. Her brother Kai is still looking for her, hopeful that she will be found alive and well. But Callie isn't alive and well. She's been taken to a secretive medical facility on the island of Shetland, experimented on, and then burned to death. But Callie survived the burning in non-corporeal form. How?
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408341727</amazonuk>
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|summary=I first read 1984 in school, in the late seventies when 1984 still seemed like a long time in the future.  It came and went quickly enough.  Some of us may have breathed a sigh of relief that Orwell's nightmare had not (quite) come to pass.  Others, I think, were out there already working on making sure that all he got wrong was the date.  Crosskey hasn't put a date on the nightmare.  If she had, I suspect it would not be as far in the future are 1984 was when I first read Orwell.  If she had, I suspect it might hardly be in the future at all.  A lot of what happens in ''Poster Boy'' is already happening. Sadly. Frighteningly. In the blurb, Christina Racher says "…but keep it far from anyone who might be tempted to turn its fiction into reality".   My only response to that is:  too late!
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen Phillips
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|isbn=0241349176
|title=The Beautiful Bureaucrat
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|title=The Last
|rating=4.5
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|author=Hanna Jameson
|genre=General Fiction
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|rating=5
|summary=Meet Josephine. Married to Joseph Jones, she has kept her maiden name to keep at least some character to her identity.  As opposed to her new boss, who has no gender, no face, and horrid halitosis.  The job Josephine is forced to choose is a simple one, of taking a file's paper contents, clicking up the subject on a huge database, entering a date newly printed on the sheet, and repeating. Told to obey strict secrecy rules, she starts to find unusual signs of malignance all over – a man in a grey sweatshirt following her, post redirected when nobody knows where Josephine and Joseph are even living from one month to the next, and a husband missing from the marital bed more and more often…  Is there a way for her find a spark of happiness in the humdrum, windowless cell she works, and the horrid housing that is all the couple can afford?
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273328</amazonuk>
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|summary=Jon Keller is in a hotel in Switzerland in the remote countryside when the world ends. He has no idea if his family is alive, he has no idea what's going on in the nearest city, or if the nearest city has been obliterated. Shocked, amid the mass hysteria and exodus, Jon decides to stay at the hotel rather than attempt to get to the airport and home. He's not alone, twenty other people also stay and gradually form a small community. One day, when helping the hotel manager, Jon finds the body of a girl deemed to have been killed before the world ended. The community descends into a deep mistrust as Jon becomes fixated on finding this girl's killer and finding the truth about what is possibly the last community on earth.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Toner
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|isbn=1473203287
|title= The Weight of the World (The Amaranthine Spectrum)
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|title=Summerland
 +
|author=Hannu Rajaniemi
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction  
|summary= One thing great science fiction needs is solid world building. When I pick up a book like this, I need to imagine that the universe has existed before the plot has started and will continue to do so after: it needs a strong sense of history and future. With this book, and series, I feel like I have just had a brief glimpse into something much larger. A great deal happens in the plot, but even more is happening, and has happened, across the Firmament.
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|summary=Imagine a world in which death was no longer something to fear but something to aspire to. After the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, the Big Smoke for the recently deceased. In 1938 the British Empire is caught up in a race against Soviet spies and dealing with a mole buried deep in the heart of Summerland. When Rachel White, an ambitious SIS agent, becomes suspicious about the potential rogue agent, she must decide how far she is willing to go and how much she is willing to risk to uncover the truth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211395</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= G X Todd
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|isbn=1683690613
|title= Defender
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|title=Garrison Girl (Attack on Titan)
|rating= 5
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|author=Rachel Aaron
|genre= Dystopian Fiction  
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|rating=4.5
|summary= ''We have all become strangers to each other and, worse still: enemies. The human spirit that once tethered us together has now divided us as surely as any ocean ever could.''
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction  
 +
|summary=''You want me to be like everyone else and spend my life hiding inside the walls where it's safe, but that's an illusion. So long as there are titans out there… no one is safe''
  
Defender describes a post apocalyptic world in the which destructive voices have entered people's minds. In three short weeks, these voices have persuaded people to kill their most loved ones and themselves resulting in significant proportions of the worlds population being wiped out. Those who have survived, with voices and voiceless alike, are few and far between.
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In the dystopian world of Attack on Titan, humanity hides behind the safety of high impenetrable walls to keep out the enemies outside. Known as titans, these enemies are impossibly tall human-like creatures, with sharp hungry teeth and regenerative powers. Difficult to kill and innumerable they roam the Earth looking for prey, and whilst the walls have always kept them out, that has begun to change…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472233085</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Johanna Sinisalo and Lola Rogers (translator)
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|isbn=1444944525
|title= The Core of the Sun
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|title=The Survival Game
|rating= 4
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|author=Nicky Singer
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
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|rating=5
|summary= In a different world, women are bred to be beautiful, man-serving and submissive, little more than pretty faces on walking reproductive machines. All the intelligent, independent women are being removed from the gene pool through forced sterilisation, compelled to while away their days doing menial jobs until the blessed end comes. To the world, Vanna is one of the former, an eloi with few rights and of whom there are few expectations beyond being well groomed and keeping her man well fed. But she has a secret – she is not dim at all. She is one of the clever ones, who is playing dumb to further her cause. In between her college courses in good housekeeping, (which she's flunking, to perfection), she has the small matter of a drug addiction to feed, and the mystery of her true-eloi sister's disappearance to solve.
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611855373</amazonuk>
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|summary=Mhairi Anne Bain is fourteen years old and is on her way home to the Isle of Arran. But Mhairi's world has been ravaged by climate change and the mass movement of people and it is one defined by borders, checkpoints and soldiers with guns. Mhairi has made it across Africa and onto a plane to Heathrow  - which is more than can be said for Muma and Papa. She's even made it out of the detention centre at the airport. And during this journey, Mhairi has learned that you can't rely on anyone else and you can't allow anyone else to rely on you...
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ryan Graudin
 
|title=Blood for Blood
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Second and final book in sequence set in a world where Germany won WW2 and Nazi experiments on Jewish children has produced shapeshifting humans. Can Yael defeat the Wehrmacht? Interesting, moving and absorbing.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780622058</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Call
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|isbn=North_84K
|author=Peadar o Guilin
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|title=84K
 +
|author=Claire North
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=The Aes Sidhe are back. And in their quest to win back Ireland from humankind, they have placed a magical seal around the entire island. Nobody can get in or out. North? South? Doesn't matter any more. What does matter is ''The Call''. At some point during adolescence, every teenager is transported to the Sidhe realm, that grey, colourless land to which they were banished thousands of years before. If they can evade the vengeful faerie kind for a full day (just three minutes in the human world) then their lives are spared, although they are often sent back with horrific mutilations. Fewer than one in ten children survive.
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|summary=Theo can, he calculates the worth of each person to the penny. ''The Company'' own everything and everyone, including handing out punishments for crime. Theo sleepwalks through life keeping his head down whilst working for the Criminal Audit Office. Doing just enough work to avoid anyone noticing him, he calculates, without emotion, the cost of the crimes filling his inbox. They are variables on a spreadsheet, a simple mathematical equation, the expense of solving the crime added to how much the victim would have contributed to their community. Prisons are uneconomical so criminals in this world pay their debt to society in cold hard cash.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>133804561X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adrian J Walker
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|isbn=0356510700
|title=The End of the World Running Club
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|title=Everything About You
 +
|author=Heather Child
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
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|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=When the end of the world as we know it comes, Edgar is totally unprepared. Still slightly drunk from drowning his sorrows, and in a panic, he throws random items, including his daughter, down into his cellar, and then he and his family eke out a nightmarish existence in the dark until their supplies run out.  Fortunately they are lucky, and they are rescued from the cellar. As they emerge back into the world they see the ruin and disaster around them, caused by hundreds of large asteroids hitting the earth. Large areas of the country have been destroyed.  Groups of people left alive scavenge houses and towns, turning feral, trying to find what's left to help them to survive. Edgar's family are rescued by a small remaining army unit, but he and his wife and children become separated, and so begins Edgar's desperate race to reach his loved ones, who are hundreds of miles away, before they leave on an evacuation ship for another country.
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|summary=In the future, your social feed is your entire existence. A.I. is here and it is all around you. It fills your fridge, it keeps up to date with your friends and fulfils your wishes. It is also stealing your jobs and, possibly, loosening your grip on reality. Freya is unexpectedly given a beta testing version of the latest smart specs, glasses which give her all the information she'll ever need, right in front of her eyes by barely thinking about it, complete with a personality to guide her. The problem is that the personality on the glasses is that of her missing and presumed dead sister. Freya is thrown and unsettled by this. Her mum tells her to stop using them or at the very least to reset them to a different personality. But Freya just can't do this. Hearing her sister's voice again is like she's right there, and although she knows this is just Ruby's data, part of Freya can't believe that it can be this accurate, it can't be this Ruby. Is it just possible that something more is feeding this personality than Ruby's data?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785032666</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Children of Icarus
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|isbn=Wilson_Extinction
|author=Caighlan Smith
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|title=The Extinction Trials
 +
|author=SM Wilson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=Daedalum's children have one collective ambition. They pray to be chosen as Icarii - honoured ones between the ages of ten and sixteen who will enter the labyrinth, find their way through it to Alyssia, and become angels. Every child yearns to be chosen. Every parent yearns for their child to be chosen. Clara, our girl's best friend, is the most devout of everyone. She knows she is destined to become an angel. Our girl, though, does not want to be chosen. In her society, this is such a badge of shame that she keeps silent. And, along with Clara, chosen she is.
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|summary=Storm and Lincoln live on Earthasia, a continent ruined by overpopulation. Space is scarce and energy and food are rationed. Education is minimal and mostly focused around searching for new, efficient food sources. Storm's mother has died and she never knew her father, so she lives in one of Earthasia's overcrowded ''shelters'', goes to school for one day per week and wrestles hay bales for a job. Lincoln's sister is dying from the blistering disease and he has no access to the healthcare that could save her. It's a mean, desperate existence for them both and so they are first to volunteer for the Stipulators' trials for a new mission to the neighbouring continent of Piloria. The aim is to retrieve dinosaur eggs so that a virus to kill them can be engineered and the citizens of Earthasia will have access to the space and abundant food sources Piloria offers...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782024921</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Simon Mayo
+
|isbn=Curtis_Water
|title=Blame
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|title=Water & Glass
 +
|author=Abi Curtis
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 +
|summary=Something has happened, something very nasty and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one of only a handful of animals living below the waves. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vet, as she remembers recent events, looks after the animals and falls into a world of intrigue.
 +
 
 +
It is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right from the start but I will try to avoid the main ones.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Beckett_America
 +
|title=America City
 +
|author=Chris Beckett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=''A small hand in hers. 'Is it our fault?' Abi said nothing.'' These tender words show the situation. Ant (a teenaged girl) and Mattie (her younger brother) are innocent and in a prison – HMP London, no less.  Since the death of the EU and a huge, all-conquering recession, people are being imprisoned left, right and centre for the crimes of their parents and their parents in turn, meaning anyone with any slightly dodgy firm or habit in their family that might have taken money away from the common good is having their children imprisoned.  And even though Ant and Mattie are ''legitimately'' in there, due to their parents' activities, they've since been adopted by people who have themselves been accused and imprisoned, thus making them real tabloid-fodder as the worst criminal family in Britain. Surely, then, there's no hope?
+
|summary=''America City'' tells the story of Holly, an ambitious publicist who sets aside her own political beliefs in order to help the ambitious Senator Slaymaker with his Presidential campaign. Set in the 22nd century, the novel tells of an incredibly disunited United States, where the effects of climate change have created deep divisions between the affluent Northern States, and the South, which is frequently ravaged by extreme weather. Holly and Slaymaker hope to change this, working together on the plan they believe to be the solution to the problem of where to place the thousands of Americans who have been made homeless by devastating storms.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552569070</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Featherstone_Paradise
 +
|title=Paradise Girl
 +
|author=Phill Featherstone
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 +
|summary=Kerryl lives far away from the urban twenty-first century on a remote Yorkshire farm. The farm is high up on a hill and it's a family endeavour - grandparents, mother, Kerryl. There's a market town below but Kerryl's family is concentrated on the farm and the hard but beautiful living associated with it. Kerryl, though, is a fiercely bright girl - she's won a place at Cambridge University and is looking forward to going. She loves poetry.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Concentr8
+
|isbn=Sutcliffe_See
 +
|title=We See Everything
 
|author=William Sutcliffe
 
|author=William Sutcliffe
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=In a speculative near-future London, there's a new wonder drug to treat ADHD. Concentr8 is cheap and effective. So effective that the mayor has instituted a programme to identify children for early, preventative treatment. Almost every troublesome teen in London is taking it, often before they've actually become troublesome. But then an austerity drive sees the program cut abruptly. Riots break out, led by the unmedicated teens.
+
|summary=Lex lives in what used to be London. Today, it is a closed-off, bombed-out area known as ''The Strip''. Nobody comes in and nobody can go out. Drones are a constant presence overhead, food is short and life is hard. But there's a girl he likes and she can make him forget almost anything. Alan spends all his time watching The Strip. His talent as a gamer got him the job of drone pilot. He hasn't bombed anyone yet but he's hyped up to do it, whatever his mother thinks. It's fighting terrorism, after all. Alan's observation target is a high-profile target - a man high up in the resistance organisation known as ''The Corps''. Alan calls him #K622. But Lex calls him Dad.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408866242</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Roberts_Real
 +
|title=The Real-Town Murders
 +
|author=Adam Roberts
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 +
|summary=If you had the choice would you live your life online? In the future, this may be possible, with the development of fully realised virtual reality you may feel that the online world is more real than your own. Even today we spend hours each day looking at phones or checking statuses. The only thing is that with most people online, some of us will have to stay in the real world to deal with unexpected events – such as a real town murder.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=Merbeth_Raid
 +
|title=Raid
 +
|author=K S Merbeth
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 +
|summary=A brutal road trip in a blighted landscape that pulls no punches. We travel with Clementine, a bounty hunter, in a world without heroes or hope.
 +
}}
 +
 +
Move on the [[Newest Emerging Readers Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 13:12, 3 September 2024

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Review of

The White Rose by Dave Baines

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away. Full Review

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Review of

Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope. Full Review

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Review of

Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

3star.jpg Fantasy

Hate is the path of least resistance

Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no-one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call. Full Review

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Review of

Just Looking by Matthew Tree

4.5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

It was the summer of 2035 and on a cruise ship in Marseilles, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a man! He's watching the tornado - they're more common in Europe these days - that's keeping the cruise ship in port and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierre, a French journalist in his thirties. He writes for a relatively new paper, the right-wing La Tribune Gauloise and he's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as the difference between 'France' and 'the French'. His partner, Helen, who's English and Jewish, keeps him in check to some extent. Full Review

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Review of

The Last Resort by Susi Holliday

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

A group of strangers gather on a private island. They have been invited to an all-expenses paid retreat to test a brand-new product from the mysterious Timeo Technology company. The group includes a games designer, social media influencer, gossip columnist and hedge fund manager. Everyone seems to have an area of expertise that makes their attendance necessary. All except Amelia whose presence is a mystery. We follow the group as they explore the island, and each other's histories and it becomes clear that they all have a dark secret they would rather keep hidden. As the clock ticks down, these well-kept secrets are revealed, and it soon becomes clear that this luxury retreat is really a gilded cage. In a race against time, Amelia must struggle to uncover the reason for her attendance and protect the rest of the guests from the increasingly sinister accidents that befall them. Full Review

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Review of

The Loop by Ben Oliver

3.5star.jpg Teens

Set during the aftermath of a Third World War where methods of punishment for criminal activities have been amped up to a horrific level by machines, The Loop follows the precarious existence of adolescent Luka Kane. In a world of Have and Have Nots where Alts [cyborgs] have power over Regulars, he is trapped inside a living hell with no chance of escape. A detonator has been sewn inside his heart connecting him to a trigger held by the guards who can end his life with one squeeze. Luka is taunted by limited access to his memories and relentlessly drained of energy through a gruelling daily torture ritual. Doomed to Delay [a risky medical trial where he is a guinea pig for Alts in place of execution] after Delay he is in despair. His prison is based on the model of an infinity loop designed to make its inmates suffer. With the only glimmers of hope being the rumours of rebellion outside and the visits of sympathetic Alt guard Wren, can Luka ever be free? Why has he been imprisoned? What waits for him if he can break the loop? Full Review

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Review of

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

4.5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Finally! Almost forty years on, we have a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. I don't want to tell you too much about the plot because it's a novel that is entirely plot driven. Suffice it to say that The Testaments takes place fifteen years later, fifteen years after Offred gets into a van, not knowing what will happen next. It's told by three narrators: Aunt Lydia, who is secretly writing her memoirs in Ardua Hall; Agnes, a girl brought up in Gilead with the expectation she will marry a commander; Daisy, a rebellious teenage girl in Canada who knows of Gilead only from school lessons and its Pearl Girl missionaries who occasionally call into the store owned by her parents... Full Review

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Review of

Something to Tell You by David Edwards

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Sam Murray and Bert Leinster had been friends for a long time. Bert was Sam's boss at CERN, but this never seemed to affect the way that the families got on. Bert's wife, Natalia, was Russian and seriously rich. Their twins, fifteen-year-olds Allie and Josh, went to a private boarding school, but at weekends they were great friends with Sam's two children, Liam and Hannah. Sam's wife, Briony, was head of product research at Nestlé. Life was good for all eight of them, until Sam - a particle physicist - spotted that the rate at which Higgs Boson particles were hitting the earth had risen exponentially. It's enough of a problem for Sam and Bert to drag the head of CERN, Prof Ralph Moyeur, out of a family lunch. Then Bert started having conversations with a plant called Lily. Full Review

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Review of

Poster Boy by N J Crosskey

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

I first read 1984 in school, in the late seventies when 1984 still seemed like a long time in the future. It came and went quickly enough. Some of us may have breathed a sigh of relief that Orwell's nightmare had not (quite) come to pass. Others, I think, were out there already working on making sure that all he got wrong was the date. Crosskey hasn't put a date on the nightmare. If she had, I suspect it would not be as far in the future are 1984 was when I first read Orwell. If she had, I suspect it might hardly be in the future at all. A lot of what happens in Poster Boy is already happening. Sadly. Frighteningly. In the blurb, Christina Racher says "…but keep it far from anyone who might be tempted to turn its fiction into reality". My only response to that is: too late! Full Review

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Review of

The Last by Hanna Jameson

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Jon Keller is in a hotel in Switzerland in the remote countryside when the world ends. He has no idea if his family is alive, he has no idea what's going on in the nearest city, or if the nearest city has been obliterated. Shocked, amid the mass hysteria and exodus, Jon decides to stay at the hotel rather than attempt to get to the airport and home. He's not alone, twenty other people also stay and gradually form a small community. One day, when helping the hotel manager, Jon finds the body of a girl deemed to have been killed before the world ended. The community descends into a deep mistrust as Jon becomes fixated on finding this girl's killer and finding the truth about what is possibly the last community on earth. Full Review

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Review of

Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Imagine a world in which death was no longer something to fear but something to aspire to. After the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, the Big Smoke for the recently deceased. In 1938 the British Empire is caught up in a race against Soviet spies and dealing with a mole buried deep in the heart of Summerland. When Rachel White, an ambitious SIS agent, becomes suspicious about the potential rogue agent, she must decide how far she is willing to go and how much she is willing to risk to uncover the truth. Full Review

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Review of

Garrison Girl (Attack on Titan) by Rachel Aaron

4.5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

You want me to be like everyone else and spend my life hiding inside the walls where it's safe, but that's an illusion. So long as there are titans out there… no one is safe

In the dystopian world of Attack on Titan, humanity hides behind the safety of high impenetrable walls to keep out the enemies outside. Known as titans, these enemies are impossibly tall human-like creatures, with sharp hungry teeth and regenerative powers. Difficult to kill and innumerable they roam the Earth looking for prey, and whilst the walls have always kept them out, that has begun to change… Full Review

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Review of

The Survival Game by Nicky Singer

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Mhairi Anne Bain is fourteen years old and is on her way home to the Isle of Arran. But Mhairi's world has been ravaged by climate change and the mass movement of people and it is one defined by borders, checkpoints and soldiers with guns. Mhairi has made it across Africa and onto a plane to Heathrow - which is more than can be said for Muma and Papa. She's even made it out of the detention centre at the airport. And during this journey, Mhairi has learned that you can't rely on anyone else and you can't allow anyone else to rely on you... Full Review

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Review of

84K by Claire North

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Theo can, he calculates the worth of each person to the penny. The Company own everything and everyone, including handing out punishments for crime. Theo sleepwalks through life keeping his head down whilst working for the Criminal Audit Office. Doing just enough work to avoid anyone noticing him, he calculates, without emotion, the cost of the crimes filling his inbox. They are variables on a spreadsheet, a simple mathematical equation, the expense of solving the crime added to how much the victim would have contributed to their community. Prisons are uneconomical so criminals in this world pay their debt to society in cold hard cash. Full Review

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Review of

Everything About You by Heather Child

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

In the future, your social feed is your entire existence. A.I. is here and it is all around you. It fills your fridge, it keeps up to date with your friends and fulfils your wishes. It is also stealing your jobs and, possibly, loosening your grip on reality. Freya is unexpectedly given a beta testing version of the latest smart specs, glasses which give her all the information she'll ever need, right in front of her eyes by barely thinking about it, complete with a personality to guide her. The problem is that the personality on the glasses is that of her missing and presumed dead sister. Freya is thrown and unsettled by this. Her mum tells her to stop using them or at the very least to reset them to a different personality. But Freya just can't do this. Hearing her sister's voice again is like she's right there, and although she knows this is just Ruby's data, part of Freya can't believe that it can be this accurate, it can't be this Ruby. Is it just possible that something more is feeding this personality than Ruby's data? Full Review

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Review of

The Extinction Trials by SM Wilson

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Storm and Lincoln live on Earthasia, a continent ruined by overpopulation. Space is scarce and energy and food are rationed. Education is minimal and mostly focused around searching for new, efficient food sources. Storm's mother has died and she never knew her father, so she lives in one of Earthasia's overcrowded shelters, goes to school for one day per week and wrestles hay bales for a job. Lincoln's sister is dying from the blistering disease and he has no access to the healthcare that could save her. It's a mean, desperate existence for them both and so they are first to volunteer for the Stipulators' trials for a new mission to the neighbouring continent of Piloria. The aim is to retrieve dinosaur eggs so that a virus to kill them can be engineered and the citizens of Earthasia will have access to the space and abundant food sources Piloria offers... Full Review

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Review of

Water & Glass by Abi Curtis

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Something has happened, something very nasty and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one of only a handful of animals living below the waves. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vet, as she remembers recent events, looks after the animals and falls into a world of intrigue.

It is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right from the start but I will try to avoid the main ones. Full Review

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Review of

America City by Chris Beckett

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

America City tells the story of Holly, an ambitious publicist who sets aside her own political beliefs in order to help the ambitious Senator Slaymaker with his Presidential campaign. Set in the 22nd century, the novel tells of an incredibly disunited United States, where the effects of climate change have created deep divisions between the affluent Northern States, and the South, which is frequently ravaged by extreme weather. Holly and Slaymaker hope to change this, working together on the plan they believe to be the solution to the problem of where to place the thousands of Americans who have been made homeless by devastating storms. Full Review

Featherstone Paradise.jpg

Review of

Paradise Girl by Phill Featherstone

3.5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Kerryl lives far away from the urban twenty-first century on a remote Yorkshire farm. The farm is high up on a hill and it's a family endeavour - grandparents, mother, Kerryl. There's a market town below but Kerryl's family is concentrated on the farm and the hard but beautiful living associated with it. Kerryl, though, is a fiercely bright girl - she's won a place at Cambridge University and is looking forward to going. She loves poetry. Full Review

Sutcliffe See.jpg

Review of

We See Everything by William Sutcliffe

5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

Lex lives in what used to be London. Today, it is a closed-off, bombed-out area known as The Strip. Nobody comes in and nobody can go out. Drones are a constant presence overhead, food is short and life is hard. But there's a girl he likes and she can make him forget almost anything. Alan spends all his time watching The Strip. His talent as a gamer got him the job of drone pilot. He hasn't bombed anyone yet but he's hyped up to do it, whatever his mother thinks. It's fighting terrorism, after all. Alan's observation target is a high-profile target - a man high up in the resistance organisation known as The Corps. Alan calls him #K622. But Lex calls him Dad. Full Review

Roberts Real.jpg

Review of

The Real-Town Murders by Adam Roberts

3star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

If you had the choice would you live your life online? In the future, this may be possible, with the development of fully realised virtual reality you may feel that the online world is more real than your own. Even today we spend hours each day looking at phones or checking statuses. The only thing is that with most people online, some of us will have to stay in the real world to deal with unexpected events – such as a real town murder. Full Review

Merbeth Raid.jpg

Review of

Raid by K S Merbeth

4.5star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

A brutal road trip in a blighted landscape that pulls no punches. We travel with Clementine, a bounty hunter, in a world without heroes or hope. Full Review

Move on the Newest Emerging Readers Reviews