The Bleak Books Project
Updated Feb. 2017: I don't know if I will ever be able to read dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction again. It is all far too realistic, even more so than when I first got into it.
(Re-dated so I can more easily find the damn thing; started 3 Dec. 2009.)
Broken down by various categories; to be updated as necessary and as I remember.
Books I have read and determined to be bleak and I mean BLEAK and would like more of the same, thus the lists:
-The Sheep Look Up (Brunner)
-A Canticle for Liebowitz (Miller)
-Doomsday Book (Willis) [debated this; certainly grim, and plenty sad, too]
-The Gate to Women's Country (Tepper)
Books I thought might end up bleak but don't quite make the list though they made a good show of it:
-The Forever War (Haldeman)
-Stand on Zanzibar (Brunner)
-Timescape (Benford) [it was pretty grim, but I can't remember now if I thought it was bleak]
Books I have been told were bleak and but I disagree:
-Smilla's Sense of Snow (Hoeg) [the setting is definitely bleak; the novel less so]
-Left Hand of Darkness (LeGuin) [tried to read it; couldn't make it past about halfway. Dull. Which is not bleak]
-The Lathe of Heaven (LeGuin) [who told me this was bleak?? LIES!]
Books that might be bleak but I haven't got to them yet and also books I read so long ago I can't remember if they were bleak or not but some people think they are and maybe I'll reread them:
-1984 (Orwell)
-Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) [read a looooong time ago]
-The Sparrow (Russell)
-Brave New World (Huxley) [tried to read in my teens. might attempt again]
-Dinner at Deviant's Palace (Powers)
-No Blade of Grass (Christopher) [might have read @age 12; can't hardly remember]
-On the Beach (Shute)
-The Jagged Orbit (Brunner)
-Quicksand (Brunner)
-The Road (McCarthy)
-The Long Emergency (Kunstler)
-World Made by Hand (Kunstler)
-A Handmaid's Tale (Atwood) [have read multiple times; can't recall if really bleak or just horrifying]
-Oryx and Crake (Atwood) and sequel
-Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
-Daughters of the North (Sarah Hall)
-The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)
-The 5th Sacred Thing (Starhawk)
-The Crucible of Time (Brunner) [what is it with Brunner!]
-Test of Fire (Bova)
Special category: Books I wish had been bleak, because THEY DESERVED IT:
The Rapture Effect (Carver)
Originally posted here, where I'd prefer comments, because fuck Livejournal: http://hrafn.dreamwidth.org/21510.html. There are currently
.
(Re-dated so I can more easily find the damn thing; started 3 Dec. 2009.)
Broken down by various categories; to be updated as necessary and as I remember.
Books I have read and determined to be bleak and I mean BLEAK and would like more of the same, thus the lists:
-The Sheep Look Up (Brunner)
-A Canticle for Liebowitz (Miller)
-Doomsday Book (Willis) [debated this; certainly grim, and plenty sad, too]
-The Gate to Women's Country (Tepper)
Books I thought might end up bleak but don't quite make the list though they made a good show of it:
-The Forever War (Haldeman)
-Stand on Zanzibar (Brunner)
-Timescape (Benford) [it was pretty grim, but I can't remember now if I thought it was bleak]
Books I have been told were bleak and but I disagree:
-Smilla's Sense of Snow (Hoeg) [the setting is definitely bleak; the novel less so]
-Left Hand of Darkness (LeGuin) [tried to read it; couldn't make it past about halfway. Dull. Which is not bleak]
-The Lathe of Heaven (LeGuin) [who told me this was bleak?? LIES!]
Books that might be bleak but I haven't got to them yet and also books I read so long ago I can't remember if they were bleak or not but some people think they are and maybe I'll reread them:
-1984 (Orwell)
-Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) [read a looooong time ago]
-The Sparrow (Russell)
-Brave New World (Huxley) [tried to read in my teens. might attempt again]
-Dinner at Deviant's Palace (Powers)
-No Blade of Grass (Christopher) [might have read @age 12; can't hardly remember]
-On the Beach (Shute)
-The Jagged Orbit (Brunner)
-Quicksand (Brunner)
-The Road (McCarthy)
-The Long Emergency (Kunstler)
-World Made by Hand (Kunstler)
-A Handmaid's Tale (Atwood) [have read multiple times; can't recall if really bleak or just horrifying]
-Oryx and Crake (Atwood) and sequel
-Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
-Daughters of the North (Sarah Hall)
-The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)
-The 5th Sacred Thing (Starhawk)
-The Crucible of Time (Brunner) [what is it with Brunner!]
-Test of Fire (Bova)
Special category: Books I wish had been bleak, because THEY DESERVED IT:
The Rapture Effect (Carver)
Originally posted here, where I'd prefer comments, because fuck Livejournal: http://hrafn.dreamwidth.org/21510.html. There are currently
.