The best dystopian fantasy books that don’t leave you depressed

This is the second book in The Great Cities Duology, and it almost defies description.

The weird premise of the series is that when cities get “real” enough, they are “born” in the form of an avatar who represents and protects the essence of the city itself. The magic in this book is at once garish and sublime. Yet the tone is stubbornly hopeful.

Crazy, right? And yet… and yet … I swear I have felt an aliveness, a soul, in some cities, and a complete absence of a soul in others. Cities whose inhabitants fight for their uniqueness, who refuse to allow corporate hegemony to scrape away what makes their city what it is. Everything you need to fight against dystopia.

I read this in high school, and it enlightened me/scarred me/grounded me (take your pick – for me, it depends on the day).

Spoiler alert – the premise of this book is that we may not have as much free will as we would like to believe. Forces – corporate, existential, and otherwise – may be manipulating all of humankind in ways we are powerless to control. Damn depressing.

So why does this book give me hope? Because the power of love can create meaning in our lives regardless of the s&*t storm of whatever dystopia we are inhabiting. Doesn’t hurt that Vonnegut is an amazing satirist. Just saying.

In this fourth book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Earth was supposedly destroyed by Vogons, but the protagonist Arthur Dent discovers it hasn’t been after all. So more apocalypse-adjacent than dystopian.

Like Vonnegut, Adams explores the inhumanity of man (and in this case, aliens) in a future dystopian world. Once again, the antidote to the depressing human condition is … wait for it … love. Not as sappy as it sounds.

Set in alternative Salem, The Once and Future Witches imagines what would have happened if: 1. Witches were, in fact, real, and 2. The patriarchy was using black magic to suppress their power.

What I absolutely loved was how the author used the idea of witchcraft as code for female power and solidarity. Women have always had to hide their power in their apron pockets. This book takes that literally.

The dystopian control of women in this book is in the same vein as The Handmaid’s Tale, but their vindication at the end makes this book not depressing at all.

This is one of those books that explores the seedy underbelly of the “princess marries prince and lives happily ever after” fairy-tale plot.

Also set in a dystopian patriarchy, what makes this book ultimately uplifting is the power of women to use cunning and misdirection to protect each other and themselves.

I loved the pragmatic nerdiness of Marra, the reluctant heroine, who is unwilling to let her sister suffer for the good of the kingdom. The band of misfits who help her overturn an evil empire makes this a weirdly uplifting read.