Welcome to the future, or at least our top five Wednesday list about the future! This week, Chelsey and I talk about our top five favourite futuristic books.
When we were originally coming up with this list we decided to give ourselves one more limitation. There would be no post apocalyptic fiction on this list. Both Chelsey and I have gotten a little over saturated with post apocalyptic novels. It’s a genre that used to be so few and far between (in popular culture) but now is absolutely everywhere. You can’t go five minutes without hearing “In a world destroyed by x…”
1. THE UGLIES SERIES – SCOTT WESTERFELD
We both love this series.
The technology in this world is amazing and fun. They have bungee suits where you can jump off a building just bounce a few times. The characters use hover boards to get around everywhere, and I really wanted one. The way that the society was organized was fascinating and a little terrifying.
The Uglies Series is about the future but isn’t post apocalyptic. There has been a trend recently where these two words are used interchangeably. There was no apocalypse in the world of The Uglies. Society was just reorgainzed into what was considered a utopia (but really is a dystopia the more you look at it).
If you haven’t read The Uglies series, you should check it out. It’s a weird little quartet that put author Scott Westerfeld on the map.
Check out our reviews of two other Westerfeld books. Watch our review on his vampire novel Peeps here and his critique on YA and YA writing culture Afterworlds here.
2. GHOST IN THE SHELL – MASAMINE SHIROW
Chelsey and I read Ghost in the Shell for one of our university courses. It was a pretty cool cyberpunk story. Ghost in the Shell follows a team of cyborg operatives as they hunt down a hacker who is hacking people’s brains.
One of my favourite conversations in this book happens when someone asks the main character if she would ever retire. The main character responds that if she were to retire all of her cybernectic parts would have to be returned to the police force. She would have to give up herself, so it wasn’t worth it. This comment was both interesting because it dealt with one of the story’s major themes of identity and dark because it promised a bleak future for the character we’ve become attached too.
Ghost in the Shell questions what is the true meaning of identity. It’s heart felt, humorous and a little creepy at times. If you’re a fan of graphic novels or manga you should check it out. We also recommend you watch the anime adaption from 1995. The anime captures the heart and soul of the book.
3. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE – PHILIP K. DICK
A lot of Philip K. Dick’s novels deal with the future. When choosing a Philip K. Dick novel for this list I narrowed it down to two of my favourites. The Man in the High Castle and A Scanner Darkly. The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history novel where the Axis Powers win World War Two. Germany and Japan split up the United States between the two of them. The majority of this novel takes place in San Francisco and when I originally read the novel I was there visiting friends.
At the time of filming this video Amazon Prime has adapted The Man in the High Castle into a tv series. They’ve uploaded the pilot and I’m super excited to watch it.
Briefly: A Scanner Darkly is about drug culture. Read the book, maybe watch the movie? The film is rotoscoped, meaning I couldn’t watch it without feeling nauseous, but if you have a stronger stomach than me, you might enjoy it.
4. BRAVE NEW WORLD -ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World is considered the quintessential science fiction novel. Society has reached perfection, or at least that’s what the people believe. When the main character visits one of the only Savage Reservation and meets a man who has grown up away from the controlling cities you realize just how messed up this world actually is.
Brave New World is a novel that I want to reread soon. When I first read the book I remember the ending sticking with me for weeks. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.
5. IDORU – WILLIAM GIBSON
This novel follows two main story. The rockstar Rez is dating a computer generated idol. One of our main characters Chia Pet McKenzie is sent by his fan club to Japan to find out if the rumours of him marrying her are true.
The other narrative follows Colin Laney, a researcher who is hired by Rez’s team to figure out why exactly he is insisting on marrying what they only see as a computer program.
Again this novel deals with the meaning of identity and computer culture. Idoru was also ahead of it’s time and predicts a few staples of internet culture today. Laney uses what he called Nodel points when he’s researching. What he does it takes a look at a person’s online presence to get a better handle on their character and predict their actions. This means looking at their posts, their emails and their online shopping and search history. At the time this was seen as very futuristic. Nowadays this is a common place idea.
William Gibson is a big name in cyberpunk and science fiction and Idoru is a good place to start. If you haven’t read the novel and are looking for a quick fun story, we recommend you check this one out.
As I mentioned above, when we were coming up with this list we came across a lot of lists that used the terms post apocalyptic and futuristic interchangeably. The future doesn’t have to be a post apocalyptic wasteland, but why are we so obsessed with it? Where are the positive and wacky futures? I’m getting so sick of stories that divide people into factions.
If you have any futuristic or scifi novels that break the mode please recommend them to us in the comments!
Until next week and next Wednesday, happy reading!
