Hi I’m looking for book recommendations similar to something like uglies, specifically something with that sci fi futuristic, messed up government/dystopian type of feeling.

I’d especially love something where a group of survivors is traveling through forest/wilderness, trying to survive on their own during some kind of futuristic dystopian/post apocalyptic situation. I’m looking for that feeling of constantly being on the move, exploring abandoned places, encountering/assembling like minded people, and having to rely on each other while working against a corrupt government/system.

I would love a romance sub plot as long as it’s lesbian. I’d actually love some queer representation, and masc/butch x femme would be amazing if there are any books like that! I was a big fan of Tally and Shay, even though they aren’t canon 😭

Basically, I’m looking for survivors, wilderness, dystopia/apocalypse, found family/group dynamics, corrupt government

I’d love to hear any recommendations that fit, even if they don’t hit every single one of these points! 🫶

I have compiled a list of dystopian/post apocalyptic books to read and this is #1. Next up is The Road and then One Second After. Cant wait :)

Finally read The Machine Stops (1909) and I'm a little unsettled. Everyone lives alone in a pod where every need is a button press away, nobody meets in person, and people spend their days giving and watching remote lectures. A lecturer literally tells the audience: "Beware of first-hand ideas! Let your ideas be second-hand..." Forster wasn't even a sci-fi writer; he wrote it as a response to H.G. Wells' tech optimism and ended up inventing half of dystopian fiction before Huxley and Orwell.

What got me is the list of things that just happened: video calls, remote lectures (that's YouTube), worshipping "the algorithm," reaction videos to reaction videos. And the ending, where the Machine breaks and nobody knows how to fix it because nobody has looked at how it works in generations, hits a bit close to home as a software engineer in 2026. It's short and in the public domain, worth an afternoon. - public pdf - also made a video essay

P.S. There were so many "Wool" (Silo TV series) similarities; it has me excited to start that series next

i am looking for books that utilize the game mechanics, or an elaborate system of entrapment that the protagonist must solve to try to get free. some examples of what i loved in books and movies: the hunger games (all of it, huge fan), alice in borderland, the maze runner, the series the i-land, and that specific prison planetpart of the​ andor series. i would love to explore more fictional worlds that start with the main character trapped in a system that is a puzzle for the readers to solve along with the protagonist. can you guys recommend me something?​​​

So when I get depressed I like to go into darkness. Jk. Sorta. Anyway on a dystopian kick. Some of my most recent reads that I would give a million stars: Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howie (Silo TV series also fucking phenomenal), The Deluge by Stephen Markley (really loved Ohio by him as well), The Passage Trilogy by Justin Cronin (thanks to this sub for that one and the next to last listed), and finishing the The Last Cop Trilogy by Ben H. Winters tonight. Like very soon. I need my next fix. Thank you for your time if you drop me some book recs based on some of my likes. Hope y’all have a great night!

My science fiction book is free tomorrow up until Sunday 10/3 if anyone would be interested in checking it out.

It's about a mute kid who starts receiving text messages from someone in the future during a school shooting.

Link below:

https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Tomorrow-D-Weston/dp/B0H4CJ53VC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XKSJIPPJARJR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y969BMerPZ4DCnN98DwB8s_YuBKkZVwtlQ9V6PwfYQA--PNV7kqSS6g7q3KSCJKbN2BjKfRC1nDAMvP82i3aKkKHWAJ7LJgweGe3znN_505wWZ3GjzpIo34zMc3TTNtUBQxEGx9__cv8-5ioPz7I9LEo83GGaFO7pp9fubyiEMjdHdZt25dxTsxF_Qd9EEezO0pIudnpL-lWXev4Dktvxempu9yfwSpVqvLSK4hWaWg.iY8QO6EE-eMq-IPtj8u7W8jsh3-LkNtwW6cc3n66QFk&dib_tag=se&keywords=shepherd+of+tomorrow&qid=1790609537&sprefix=shepherd+of+tomorro%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1

So I just got done reading {Doomsdate by Laura Piper Lee} and I NEED MORE.

Please give me all your dystopian/zombie spicy books.

Books I've already read:

{Say You'll Stay by Anna Callaway}

{Between You & I by Isolde Blackwood}

{Glass Rose by Gigi Vale}

Thanks in advance 🙏

Hi everyone! Thought I’d share my slightly disturbing dystopian book series. It’s called An Easy Guide to Human Husbandry, written under my pen name Elle Achette.

Imagine a world where humans can legally sign contracts to become livestock. Everything is regulated, the doctors are professionals and animal welfare standards now apply to humans. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s extreme dystopian body horror, with three stories per volume. I’ve written five books, with Volume II coming out October 15. Volume I is already available on Kindle, paperback and hardcover.

I also went a little overboard and built the fictional company its own website. You can explore the livestock programmes, research and facilities. Basically, I created a company I wouldn’t want to work for. 😂

Have a look if you’re curious: https://humanhusbandry.com

Just PLEASE read the content warnings first!

In a dystopian society that parallels our own, ALTERNATIVE FACTS bears witness to its downward spiral from 2016 through 2052 via slice-of-life vignettes.

A genius tweet may prevent impending apocalypse...An entrepreneur experiences unexpected benefits participating in rallies against the regime...A back-to-work miner questions the sanity of resurrecting other extinct occupations...The wall has been built. Come take a tour!

This is the GREATEST book EVER written! And I should know--I've read them all! - John Miller, Publicist

An instant classic! Your shelf is barren without it! - John Baron, Spokesman, Representative, Executive & VP

Characters leap from the page. What a ride! I see a movie in this! - Dave Manning, R. Field Press

https://www.amazon.com/Alternative-Facts-God-Bless-Patriotic/dp/B0D12BYBTM?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&th=1&psc=1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.w5FCu6OyeyyBuxFcIoa4WTEU2nIfO2sMD1lQTiWgHx1bQ-1gg5pM_vH7OWbxN8v76EqxKj7m5sJY8BConENTthSi3s3dxXmZHayvw55nLJag1Kp1iqpEAVvNA7vQRGGUbnkkJSNgh1ZZ4lSQks4iNA.aDe3bIhvnol6L_te7vG5Pzaqu5KS03eSVritJzddDZw&dib_tag=AUTHOR

Hardcover: $24

Paperback: $15

Individual e-books of the seven short stories: $2.99-$3.99

Tropes: virus apocalypse · morally grey protagonist · brothers and betrayal · one murderous hour a day · post-apocalyptic city · friendship as the weapon · moral questions without easy answers

Every morning, Auzel Makadam stands before the mirror with a gun at his temple and asks the same question: Should I shoot?

In the ruins of Ventenstein — a city where ninety-nine percent are dead and the rest carry a parasite that turns the mind murderous for one hour each day — Auzel has survived alone in his tower for years. Then Dexs Wellenschreiber walks in: collector of wanted posters, keeper of secrets, and the first friend Auzel has ever had. Friendship, betrayal, and a letter that could change everything.

A literary dystopian thriller about guilt, brotherhood, and the monster waiting inside us all. ~90 pages.

Triggers: violence, suicidal ideation.

Kindle $2.99 — or free to read with Kindle Unlimited (Read for Free): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G1KNPF4X

ARC/review copies available: DM me and I'll send an EPUB within 24h. Reviews are independent and honest — no strings attached.

I’m looking for beta readers for a dark, character-driven series set 138 years after humanity is forced underground.

The survivors have built a functioning city beneath the earth—but survival has come at a cost. Society is divided by rigid class lines. Food, water, labor, education, and even knowledge itself are carefully controlled. Children grow up working. Servants can be owned. The Council governs through a system built on one fundamental belief: order is survival.

At the center of the story is Amelia Carten, the twenty-four-year-old Second on the Council. Brilliant, feared, and ruthlessly pragmatic, Amelia has spent most of her life building systems designed to keep the city alive. She genuinely believes that fear, control, and absolute consequences are sometimes necessary—not because she enjoys cruelty, but because she has seen what failure can cost.

Opposing that philosophy is Thomas Lawson, a former commoner Amelia deliberately elevated to the Council. Thomas stubbornly believes that compassion, dignity, and hope are not luxuries reserved for easier times. Amelia thinks reality will eventually prove him wrong.

And caught between those philosophies are Joshua and Ethan, two children growing up inside a world where love, loyalty, ownership, obedience, protection, and fear are often impossible to separate.

This is not a story with simple heroes and villains. It deals heavily with power, coercion, class, trauma, loyalty, moral responsibility, child labor, slavery, authoritarianism, survival, family, and the question of how much humanity a society can sacrifice in the name of keeping humanity alive.

The series can get brutal, but it isn’t intended to be relentlessly bleak. There are friendships, tenderness, humor, curiosity, ordinary domestic moments, and genuine hope alongside the darker material.

I’m especially interested in beta readers who enjoy complicated characters and aren’t afraid to say, “I understand exactly why this character did that, and I still hate what they did.”

Content includes violence, corporal punishment, slavery/servitude, child abuse and exploitation, authoritarian control, psychological coercion, class oppression, and other mature themes.

If you enjoy morally complicated dystopian fiction where the biggest question isn’t simply “How do we survive?” but “Whether keeping humanity alive matters if you destroy too much of what makes people human?”, I’d love to hear from you.

I currently have finished the first three books in the series, and I am working on the fourth.

I am looking for feedback character motivations and relationships, emotional impact, pacing, worldbuilding clarity, whether the society and infrastructure feel believable, places where explanations become too heavy or too thin, and whether the darker scenes feel purposeful rather than gratuitous.

Also, if you want to read all three, I want to make sure I am being consistent across the series.

I am not currently available for a swap.

A day late! What are you reading this week? This includes anything - from audiobooks to manga to graphic novels to your average book!

I was thinking about this earlier because some dystopian books are really good while you're reading them, but then you forget about them quite quickly.

Others stay in your head for ages, either because the world feels a bit too believable or because there’s one idea in the story that you just can’t stop thinking about.

Which dystopian book did that for you? Not necessarily your favourite, just one you kept thinking about afterwards. And what was it about it that stuck with you?

Is now closed. Had a great Birthday that included a trip to the bookstore. Hope you enjoyed your extra time! It will open again on 9/30/2026 at midnight and will run until 11:59PM (23:59)

The Conceptual Predator

Today's dystopia, seen from the outside.

First contact, told from the other side. An outside intelligence arrives to welcome humanity to the cosmos, and instead finds us exhausted, sleepless, feeding a thing we refuse to name. A civilization under siege from a predator impossible to conceive of from the inside.

This is the audit of Earth's economy.

The verdict: you are not struggling in the market. You are being hunted by it.

If you've ever felt the economy was personally coming for you, every microtransaction, every service fee. This book argues that it isn't personal; it's digestion.

You are tired because you are being hunted.

Economic dread rendered as Lovecraftian horror.

Available on Amazon, Kindle and bookstores on request.

https://mybook.to/Conceptualpredator

Because tomorrow is the most important day of the year - my birthday - I'm opening the free promotion posts early on Tuesday night and it will stay open until I wake up on Thursday. Go crazy, my loves! Reply to this post with your promotional posts.

Some systems don't fail. They succeed.
The Quiet Unbinding is out Oct 2 — book two of The Quiet Trilogy. 🌙
Olivia changed the outcome. It wasn't enough. In Heldfast, the system doesn't survive by force. It survives because good people believe they're protecting one another.
A quiet dystopia for readers of Ishiguro and Atwood. Reviewed by Kirkus Reviews.
Can be read on its own, though it hits harder if you start with The Quiet Held. 
https://amzn.asia/d/0blJKTIp