The best worst ways the world could end in a book

I read Fahrenheit 451 in my first year of high school and it left the biggest impression on me. It was such a meta theme: a tale of what might happen if the world decided to burn books. I couldn't fathom such an apocalypse initially, but as I paged through it and grew to see abuses of technology I became quite alarmed at the book’s prophetic message. It’s certainly a cautionary tale of censorship, but beyond that, it rekindled my love for reading and my curiosity for tradition. As a writer, this book reminded me that literature is not meant merely to capture attention and evoke emotion, but to provide truth and foundation to the human experience. The Old Testament Prophets, the New Testament Apostles, the Ancient Philosophers, the Renaissance Poets, they all had an important message to pass on, and this book highlights that truth.

Some of the most deep and memorable conversations I've had with my friends entailed "how do you recreate civilization after civilization collapses?" I found that Lord of the Flies humbled my utopian ideas as it presents some logical steps of social disintegration. What's great about this story is that it's not even set in a remnant of civilization, but drops us straight onto an island. The cast of characters is so perfectly written as we see children trying to not only survive but to create their own civilization on this island. I found these images to be vivid and perfectly chosen as it displays the wild and naive state of man when man’s hubris runs rampant. It’s a retelling of the Tower of Babel, of man’s proclivity for religion and hiearchy, and warns the reader of our own hubris when we attempt to redefine society.

This book is really exciting and appealed to my love for espionage, political intrigue, and all things dystopian. Although it’s a political commentary, the book is a suspenseful narrative following an ordinary man who begins to peel back the curtain of his society and the assumptions he has made of it. While the book opened my eyes to the potential of abuse of nations and governments, it also taught me of the dangers of indoctrination that can sometimes even be apolitical. Most of all, Winston Smith to this day is one of my most beloved characters for whom my heart broke continually for in this book.

Brave New World is a fascinating story that illustrates a dichotomy of a pleasure-seeking progressive society pitted against a rustic and rigid fundamentalist society. It’s the tale of McWorld and Jihad, of tyrannical Chaos and Order. I found myself haunted by the illustrations we see in this book, of how far society might break down social norms for the sake of being “advanced” as well as the image of a cloistered society that slowly loses its own grounding and civility as it clings to “the old way”. This was perhaps the hardest read of this selection, not a feel-good at all, but a provocative and rewarding one to be sure.

I think it important to acknowledge newer dystopian among the classics, and I feel The Hunger Games to be a bright and powerful new story in this genre. Why I love this story is that it comments on the grizzly measures a collapsing society will go to suppress and dope up its citizens while also providing us with a suspenseful and action-packed tale of a young woman forced to fight in a modern colosseum. The world-building and imagining of this modern Rome society was vivid and really immersed me, and has challenged me as a writer to think of new methods to immerse my own audience into my stories.