Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

 62%

24.05.24

Billed as an eccentric futuristic romance, this was actually more of a terrifying dystopian satire - funny at times, certainly clever and inventive, but neither cosy nor reassuring. Which isn't a bad thing, especially as some of the ideas are oddly plausible, but it suffered from a lack of emotional connection to the characters' rather desperate plights.

Pretties - Scott Westerfield

 52%

10.05.24

This suffered from the usual 'second in a trilogy' problem of being more of a bridge to the last book than a destination in itself. It had moments of brilliance but mostly the author seemed not to know where the story was going, so it was hard to care. And the heroine's superpower for attracting the attention of useful young men - just bogus, as she might say.

The Book of Koli - MR Carey

 54%

27.09.23

Carey specialises in post-apocalyptic dystopian survival stories, lovingly worldbuilding often at the expense of the plot. The Girl with All the Gifts worked better than this, which meandered about, much like the rather passive narrator. I wonder whether this was originally the first third of a longer book rather than the first in a trilogy.

Uglies - Scott Westerfield

57%

31.07.23

Interesting concept and world building, with its pace hampered by being split into a trilogy, so that, in the end, it felt incomplete.

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

59%

22.01.23

Beyond all the tediously detailed science (which I mostly skipped) and the ultimately pointless backstory (which I mostly skimmed), this is a sweet story about an unlikely inter-alien friendship that saves two worlds. I didn't warm to Weir's rather amateurish writing style, and would have liked to know much more about the journey to where they ended up, but it gets points for the lovely interactions between the two main characters.

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

 72%

22.05.22

I loved this. I described Never Let Me Go as 'science fiction with depth' and this explores the same themes from a different angle. You don't need a thrilling plot to create a compelling story, and this beautiful, gentle and detached narrative encompassed the nature of humanity, of diversity and love and life and death. And how I cried for poor, sweet Klara at the end.

Floodland - Marcus Sedgwick

52%
30.05.20

This is set in my neck of the woods - or rather floods, if the dystopian climate chaos described here comes to pass. Even so, I struggled to find much, well, depth, and read it in less than three hours.

Followers - Megan Angelo

63%
27.05.20

A oddly compelling account of shallow people leading shallow lives and then sort of, maybe, regretting it. It's a strange mixture of competent, fluid prose and a creaky, US-centric plot.

Vox - Christina Dalcher

54%
03.06.19

'Overblown feminist dystopia' says one review, and I'm inclined to agree. Only Margaret Atwood should tackle 'The Handmaid's Tale'. Any valid points were mostly lost among the clunky prose, underdeveloped characters and the fact that the whole of America seems to consist of about 100 people in Washington.

Memory of Water - Emmi Itäranta

Didn't finish

I read about half of this and didn't actively dislike it, but I lost the desire to pick it up again. An intriguing concept, and it's impressive that the author wrote it in both English and Finnish, but ultimately it's rather dull and preachy.

When the Floods Came - Clare Morrall

66%
08.04.18

As post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels go, this was a lot of fun. A well-imagined situation, with interesting characters. Best not to think about the coincidences and plot holes too much.

Blame - Simon Mayo

59%
21.11.17

Yes, the (DJ) Simon Mayo, or at least his ghostwriter - it was edited well enough for me to suspect extensive rewrites but be still my cynical heart. An intriguing concept, unusually executed, even if it all seemed a little loose plotwise. I only read it because my nine-year-old asked me to vet it but I'd say the violence and complex politics would put it in the 12+ (YA) category.

The Girl With All the Gifts - MR Carey

61%
18.10.16

As derivative zombie thrillers go, this was quite a page turner, at least at first. The second half sagged a little with its own self-importance.

The Chimes - Anna Smaill

49%
06.07.16

Reading a book about how music sounds is never going to quite work. Reading a retro-futuristic dystopian book about how types of music that don't exist sound is never going to work at all. Hampering characters with no memories is also going to make rounding them out a tad challenging. All in all, this reads more like an undeveloped first draft - or a heavily cut draft of a much longer book.

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

65%
25.10.15

So compelling yet so clunky - it's that Twilight dilemma. The awkward plotting, the self-important narrator and the general need for a thorough edit don't seem to matter quite as much when there's such an exciting and original story.

Wool - Hugh Howey

Didn't finish
19.06.14

This was promising, with a clever, intriguing opening. But it was so slow that it almost went backwards, and the pattern of 'introduce a character, make reader like them, kill them off' soon got annoying and disruptive. And its status as the first in a trilogy put me off - whatever happened to standalone science fiction and fantasy books?

Malorie Blackman - Noughts and Crosses

53%
12.05.14

I like Malorie Blackman so I sought out this young adult classic. It's bleak but then most YA novels are (hooray for Louise Rennison and her silliness). The politics of the dystopian world are cleverly imagined and the complexity of the characters' situation is clear. But it just didn't seem very well written or plotted, so it wasn't as gripping or convincing as I'd hoped.

The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness

71%
08.02.14

An unflinching dystopian vision of violence, squalor and moral bankruptcy, you say. The narrator subjected to unrelenting pain and disappointment, you say. Hang on a mo while I look for the barrel with the laughs in it. It's the sheer quality of the writing that buoys the story along, carefully measured and complex. At its heart, it's a meditation on choice and its consequences. Well, it's certainly worth choosing to read it.