Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic fiction: Tropes and Novels

I guess the YA Dystopian fiction genre has exploded over the past few years. So that's cool. The only problem is, when I look for more books to read within the genre, I end up seeing "rave reviews" for books that turn out to be very much not to my taste. You don't really get a list of tropes used by the individual books until you've already started reading them.

I think reviews should be more honest. People often talk about either how much they love a certain book or about how much they hate it, but they less often say, "I liked A, B, C about this book, but I hated D, E, F about it." So in this post I'm going to explore dystopian fiction tropes that I like and dislike, and how the books that I've read in this genre use these tropes.

I think my least favorite dystopia trope has already been covered--it's when the main character is basically a mindless, unquestioning part of the clearly illogical dystopian society and some sort of outside force (or supporting character) forces the main character to change his/her views. I'm not interested in a character who doesn't have any of their own thoughts. Wake me up when the book is written from the point of view of the secondary character who forces the main character to question their lives (even if the second character ends up dying, or turning evil).

Here is what I do like when it comes to post-apocalyptic or dystopian fiction:

A main character who makes good choices. Don't betray your friends and then expect me to forgive you easily. Also, if the main character is stuck between two awful choices, make them think of a third option (I'm talking to you, One More Day Spider-Man¹). Think, or force your way out of a bind through sheer determination. This is fiction; use your imagination!

A good cast of supporting characters. If the main character is the only good guy out there, what exactly am I rooting for?

A happy ending, or at least a not-completely-depressing ending. (Except for classical tragedies, where the main character is brought down by a fatal flaw.) That's my own personal thing, and I know different people have different tastes, I just don't get why anyone would want to read a book that, afterwards, makes them not want to get out of bed in the morning.

So here are all the dystopian novels I've read and what I thought about them:

(The sections for each book below have spoilers for that particular book.)

1984: I read this book six years ago and haven't re-read it since, so it's possible that I'm not remembering all of the details accurately. But the thing that sticks out the most in my mind is that I didn't agree with the author's premise here, and that soured the whole book for me. It's not that I don't think that such a society could come into existence, in theory. However, based on the ending, it seems as if Orwell's argument is that once such a society came into existence, there would never be any way of overthrowing it, which I don't buy. When people are oppressed like that, they will eventually rebel en masse. Also, the way that the whole society is explained by O'Brien is a little bit two-dimensional--I can't believe that he would be so transparent about the Party's motivations. If it were a TV show, the main characters would have sneaked a recording device into the room and then broadcasted the speech for the whole world and there would have been a massive revolt. Alas.

On the other hand, I liked the character of Julia and was impressed that Orwell wrote such a strong female supporting character back in the 40s. So there's that. I kind of wish I could have read this book from her point of view.

Brave New World: Kind of the polar opposite of 1984. The society in Brave New World was much more intriguing than the society in 1984, and the fact that they actually rewarded people who didn't fit in made the idea of this type of society being sustainable seem a lot more realistic.

As opposed to 1984, I found the book's treatment of women to be very problematic. The only female main character happens to be the only one of the main characters who never rises above the World State's brainwashing. Throughout the book, she keeps on almost getting there, but not quite. And then she ends up stuffed in a fridge. Also, if I'm not mistaken, all of the male main characters (except for John, obviously) are Alphas, while Lenina is a Beta. Boo.

The Giver: Yes, it falls prey to the incurious protagonist trope I described, but I think Jonas can be forgiven considering he's 12 years old when the book starts. This was probably the first dystopian novel I ever read, so it has a special place in my heart. (Speaking of which, why do I keep seeing this on YA lists? Just because a children's book is enjoyable for teenagers and adults doesn't make it YA.) I like Lois Lowry as a writer because her books are very mature for children's books, but they're not so dark as to give child-me nightmares for weeks (as opposed to, say, Babar the Elephant).

The Hunger Games trilogy: Lovvvvvvvvve. Katniss is the epitome of what I consider to be a "strong" female character, not because she's so tough and skilled, but because her actual character is strong. She takes action, uses her brain, has a strong moral core, and does the right thing in most cases. She sacrifices herself for her sister, figures out how to defeat the Gamemakers at the end of Book 1, figures out about the clock and the lightning in Book 2, figures out how to stop District 13 from creating another totalitarian state after the Capitol's downfall (I'm not sure I approve of her actions, but it's possible that this is the only way she could have stopped Coin), saves Peeta a thousand times, saves the other victors from District 13, saves District 2 from themselves, et cetera. Yay Katniss.

The Uglies trilogy: In this case, I can't really fault Tally for wanting to be pretty and go to parties. However, I'm not a fan of the choices she makes throughout the book. The fact that she goes looking for the Smoke on Special Circumstances's orders is forgivable, because she doesn't know any better. But once she gets there and changes her mind? Stupid stupid stupid! There are so many things she could have done differently. I mean, she could have at least said, "Hey guys, I have a tracker on me, don't worry I was only lying to them so they would let me go, what do you think I should do with this?"

I'm also not a fan of the Tally/David pairing. I liked Tally and Zane in Pretties because they were on common footing--both of them pretties who rebelled against the status quo and woke themselves up. But Tally and David can't fully relate to each other. David can never understand why Tally made the choices she did (and like I said, I wasn't impressed either) because he's never lived that life. He's always been free and has no frame of reference from which to understand her. It will never not be true that Tally's thoughtlessness caused David's father's death, and it will never not be true that David doesn't know what it's like to grow up in the city or have your mind altered. I don't think these are things that they can realistically get past.

However. I did like a lot of things about this series. My favorite part was the imagination of the author and all of the stunts, especially the hoverboarding, but also the flight jackets and the ice prank and all that (I don't really remember details; I think I read these books at least two years ago). I also liked how Tally had to start each book from square one and how the second and third books, she again was able to successfully overcome her programming. I felt bad for her in those two books because all of the progress that she'd worked for had been erased, but I liked how the book reached the conclusion that everyone, despite their brain damage, had the ability to overcome their surgeries and rewire their brain.

Glow: I'm not sure whether this is technically dystopian fiction, but considering that Earth is dead and the only two living societies that exist are the two ships, and knowing what we do about their leadership...yeah, it probably qualifies. Anyway, the book was decent, although all of the characters seemed...how do I explain it? Kind of immature. Or not well-explored. They were reacting to the situations that they found themselves in, but I didn't get much of a sense who they were when not put in life-threatening situations. And when I reached the end, I was completely confused about where the author was going. Who are we supposed to root for? It seems like Waverly is supposed to be the protagonist, but then why is she aligning herself with someone she knows is a psychopath? Are we supposed to be rooting for Kieran? That's not fair either, because Waverly has legitimate PSTD issues and Kieran didn't respect that. Why would I want to read the next book if the first book left off in a place where both main characters are this unlikeable?

Open Minds: So I have a confession, and it is as follows: I never liked Heroes, not even the first season. I liked the idea of Heroes, just like I like the X-Men depending on who's writing them, but I always found Heroes to be a boring show with two-dimensional characters, weak story logic, and a lackluster plot. Not to mention that complete randomness of the story in determining who was a villain and who was a hero. Anyway, I felt that this book did it much better. Not that it's exactly the same thing, but the idea and execution of jackers was similar to concepts that have come up many times in the X-Men (and at least once in Heroes), and it was done very well. Kira is a sympathetic protagonist, and for the most part, she makes very good decisions (except for dating Simon--I mean, I like him later on in the book, but when she started dating him it was a strange choice). The supporting cast was not as strong, story-wise, as it could have been, but I'm hoping that'll change later on in the series.

Lord of the Flies: I haven't read this since high school, but I remember liking it but not liking it at the same time. I didn't agree with the author that people are evil at heart and that without civilization, we'd all just lose it and kill each other for no reason. And yet, it was a good read. Honestly, I can't remember why I liked it. Maybe I just liked Simon.




And now, books that I decided not to continue reading:

Fahrenheit 451: I wanted to like this because I loved Martian Chronicles. And yet--brainwashed, completely incurious adult main character. How was I supposed to relate to someone who had made it to adulthood without ever questioning the society that he lived in? How is this guy going to be my eyes and ears to this dystopian world?

Matched: Saw the trope and moved on.

Delirium: Likewise.

Feed: The sample I got from Kindle actually looked okay; it was the reviews that turned me off of this one. "Wow, this is so true, Facebook and Twitter are turning us all into mindless zombie drones!"² People, advertising has been around for a long time. Furthermore, there have always been people who are more intelligent and less intelligent, more articulate and less articulate, more gullible and less gullible. Maybe this is more visible with Facebook, but trust me, the world has no shortage of people who hate both/either avoid commercials (and start flame wars when their favorite website starts to use text ads for revenue) and/or get into philosophical discussions about whether language is prescriptive or descriptive.

Also, it looked like it was veering into that Secondary-Character-Woke-Me-Up-And-Changed-My-Life territory.


Books on my to-read list:

The City of Ember (I already started this one, actually, but I haven't made up my mind yet)
V For Vendetta
Watchmen
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Unwind
The House of Scorpion
Battle Royale


Audience participation time! How do you, Reader, feel about the tropes I talked about above? What are your favorite and least favorite tropes in the genre (or in fiction as a whole)? Do I need to find a synonym for the word "trope" (used ten times in this post) and, if so, what do you suggest? Also, do you want to recommend or complain about any books you've read based on this post?

<sub>1. Pick up the phone and call Westchester, you doofus; they have a guy there who can grow hearts from scratch!
2. Disclaimer: I stopped using Twitter because everything I wanted to post was longer than 140 characters and I got fed up with it.</sub>