Dystopian fiction has captured the imaginations of countless readers as they consider life in worlds at once eerily similar and shockingly foreign to their own. This book showcases the most recent research on dystopian fiction. Sixteen chapters explore literary and popular dystopian novels focusing on the genre as a form of social critique.

Dystopian fiction captivates us by depicting future worlds at once eerily similar and shockingly foreign to our own. This collection of new essays presents some of the most recent scholarship on a genre whose popularity has surged dramatically since the 1990s. Contributors explore such novels as The Lord of the Flies, The Heart Goes Last, The Giver and The Strain Trilogy as social critique, revealing how they appeal to the same impulse as utopian fiction: the desire for an idealized yet illusory society in which evil is purged and justice prevails.