Books like Oryx and Crake

This book is a parenting manual.

The boy is every boy. He asks if they're still the good guys. The man says yes, carrying the fire. This transaction between a father and a son, stripped of everything else: carry what you're given, keep walking toward the promise, because it's who you are.

Everything soft has been burned off this book, and what's left is a father deciding, hour by hour, what he's handing over.

The book offers an in-depth exploration of how an anarchist, anti-capitalist society without money or government would work and juxtaposes it against a more familiar, wasteful, capitalist world. It's thought-provoking and can be a great tool for self-exploration because this world isn’t easy to live in and has its own challenges.
Even though it took me a long time to get into the story, once I did, I was fascinated by all the details. It's unlike other stories. It offers ideas that don't often get explored in speculative fiction, and it left me with a lot to think about.

The widening partisan divide between Red and Blue in the United States today gives me nightmares.

I read a lot of history, so I know how closely today’s divisions resemble those before the Civil War. Which is why Omar El Akkad’s American War resonates so deeply with me.

In 2074, four Deep South states secede over the passage of new legislation banning fossil fuels—and a Southerner assassinates the President.

The Red and Blue states are now at war again. And that’s my nightmare brought to life. 

This book tells a strong story about censorship and has perhaps a "light" dystopian feel.

I liked this book because Bradbury’s characters are well drawn and, like Orwell, he creates a strong story. It reminded me of past events in the 30’s. A fireman, following orders to confiscate and destroy books because the authority does not want people to develop constructive thinking. Gradually turning against his boss, the fireman kills his boss and joins a group of people who memorise books and store content for the future.

I found this a thought-provoking story and hope that, considering the censorship laws we have today at home and in countries like Russia and Iran, this is one story that does not come true.

As shocking as I felt Kubrick’s film was, I think the book is possibly more startling. Some scenes Kubrick played for laughs are described as violent and sadistic in the novel. If, like me, you are a fan of the film, it’ll fill in some blanks for you. Ever wonder why Alex and his friends drink milk?

The book is written in futuristic teen-speak that did take me a while to get my head around, but this ultimately adds to the strangeness of the insular world these ‘droogs’ inhabit. Though it was first published in 1962, I think this is still a very relevant and unflinching look at the place of violence in society.

Now for some facts, although they will appear stranger than the fiction above. Born with a club foot and unable to join the army during World War II, Sydney Gottlieb became a leading covert warrior. For years, he oversaw some of the CIA’s most controversial programs. He developed poisons to kill foreign leaders and officials, and he worked in MKULTRA, the Agency’s program for mind control, which included the use of LSD, drugs, isolation, and other invasive experiments and forms of torture on witting and unwitting subjects.

The book is a detailed, if harrowing, history. It is even more impressive as most of the documents on these programs were destroyed by Gottlieb himself in 1973, under orders from the CIA Director at the time, Richard Helms. 

Not everything that seems harmful does us harm, and not everything that seems good does us good.

I love books that make me reconsider the world I live in, and although Brave New World was published in 1932, its use of empty entertainment, sex, drugs, and medicated happiness as instruments of social control feels startlingly contemporary.

In dystopias built around punishment, power forces people to obey; here, pleasure makes them willing. The Romans already understood this through panem et circenses, and I see the same mechanism around us today. We fail to notice the cage because we are too busy seeking it out and locking ourselves inside.

This book broadened my perspective and taught me to look at apparent comforts with more suspicious eyes.

This book combines two of my favorite genres—horror and science fiction.

It was written in the early 1950s when science ruled, and the Atomic bomb threatened. The end of the world was a favorite science fiction topic back then, but Matheson (who wrote in both horror and sci-fi genres) did the unthinkable by combining classic vampire tropes with an apocalyptic thriller. 

The fun for me is that there is not just one vampire, but a whole world of them! And the vampire hunter (always part of a team in most horror stories) is all alone in his fight for survival. The vamps are still nasty critters—they die but can reanimate by drinking human blood.

It’s a classic vampire fight throughout, until there is a surprise ending! It’s a Vampire-zombie-plague. How can you resist?

I have never read a novel so close to prophecy.

Published in 1995, Parable starts in July 2024 amidst the election of an autocrat who, by the sequel Parable of the Talents, literally pledges to “make America great again.” I started my platform in 2015 in the same context.

This novel pulled me into its harrowing tale of how to survive civilizational collapse: the dismantling of systems, norms, and climate change that we are all currently going through.

The lesson is ultimately about embracing change, caring for and trusting each other in community, and coming up with our own ways of being together. So many of our ancestors have survived periods of collapse by the same principles. These ancestral lessons still guide me, and I believe are critical to surviving AI dystopia.

Climate change aside, what scares me the most about technology today is the capacity for bioengineering to run amok.

What happens when scientists monkey around with deadly viruses—and one escapes from the lab? What if some rogue researcher creates an entirely new lifeform that proves toxic to humans? Or some experimental microbe—an effort to save the world’s butterflies, for instance—proves to kill off bees instead?

This novel, which won major awards, depicts a frightening future world wrought by bioengineering. And you wouldn’t want to live there anymore than I do.