The Dystopian Craze!!!

We used to read a lot about the modern world,

Or about how the old world has affected our current one.

The Past with the Present.

Now, we'll read about the future.

And our consequences.

Dystopian: An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.

Possession by Elana Johnson

Expected publication: June 7th 2011 by Simon & Schuster

Vi knows the Rule: Girls don't walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn...and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.  But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them...starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous--everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn.  This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

Memento Nora by Angie Smibert

Expected publication: April 2011 by Marshall Cavendish Children's Books

Nora, the popular girl and happy consumer, witnesses a horrific bombing on a shopping trip with her mother. In Nora’s near-future world, terrorism is so commonplace that she can pop one little white pill to forget and go on like nothing ever happened. However, when Nora makes her first trip to a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic, she learns what her mother, a frequent forgetter, has been frequently forgetting. Nora secretly spits out the pill and holds on to her memories. The memory of the bombing as well as her mother’s secret and her budding awareness of the world outside her little clique make it increasingly difficult for Nora to cope. She turns to two new friends, each with their own reasons to remember, and together they share their experiences with their classmates through an underground comic. They soon learn, though, they can’t get away with remembering.

Human.4 by Mike A. Lancaster

Expected publication: March 8th 2011 by EgmontUSA

Humanity, like computers, can be upgraded.  And old versions disappear. . . . At some unspecified point in the future, when technology is as advanced as possible and we are a race of super beings, some old audio tapes are discovered.  On the tapes is the story of fourteen-year-old  Kyle Straker.  Hypnotized, Kyle missed the upgrade of humanity to 1.0.  He isn't compatible with our new technology. And through the recording, he narrates what the upgrades really mean.  And it's absolutely terrifying.   Sci-fi futuristic and technological apocalypse in the style of War of the Worlds, I am Legend and The X-Files.

Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky

Hardcover, 352 pages

Expected publication: May 23rd 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Maddie lives in a world where everything is done on the computer. Whether it’s to go to school or on a date, people don’t venture out of their home. There’s really no need. For the most part, Maddie’s okay with the solitary, digital life—until she meets Justin. Justin likes being with people. He enjoys the physical closeness of face-to-face interactions. People aren’t meant to be alone, he tells her. Suddenly, Maddie feels something awakening inside her—a feeling that maybe there is a different, better way to live. But with society and her parents telling her otherwise, Maddie is going to have to learn to stand up for herself if she wants to change the path her life is taking. In this not-so-brave new world, two young people struggle to carve out their own space.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Hardcover, 400 pages

Expected publication: January 11th 2011 by Razorbill

Read the First Chapter

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.  Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.  Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone--one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship--tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.  Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Dystopian is the genre of tomorrow. Ever since Hunger Games and Matched it seems to be picking up interest, will it take over the the Vampire Throne?