In many ways, George Orwell’s 1984 has become the benchmark by which all other dystopians are judged. And for the readers who loved the tale of Winston versus ‘Big Brother,’ they are always looking for books that can compare in some way. Here are a few books I‘ve come across recently that have something in common with it.

THE CIRCLE
Replace an all-seeing authoritarian government with an all-seeing Facebook-type of company and you have The Circle, by Dave Eggers. This might be the closest thing I’ve found to a modern day ‘1984,’ with many of the same ideas of personal freedom versus the group’s lack of true identity being discussed. It even has a set of three contradictory mottos like ‘1984’. Instead of Big Brother saying:

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

The Circle says:

Secrets are lies
Sharing is caring
Privacy is theft

If you loved ‘1984’, I think you’ll enjoy ‘The Circle.’

HIGH-RISE
Although it doesn’t have an all-knowing tyranny or any of the themes found in ‘1984,’ High-Rise, by JG Ballard does have something important in common with Orwell’s work. Both books use the setting as the driving mechanism to push their social allegory. In ‘High-Rise,’ one apartment building encapsulates all of society by housing the lower class tenants on the bottom floors, the middle class tenants on the middle floors, and the upper class tenants at the top of the building. The scenario gives Ballard the same type of ability to drive home the social messages that made ‘1984’ so incredible. But whereas Orwell thrives under this type of approach, ‘High-Rise deteriorates into your typical anarchy type of story. I would only recommend ‘High-Rise’ only to fans of dystopian that can’t get enough of the genre.

WE
More than any other book, We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is the book you have to read if you loved ‘1984.’ And it shouldn’t be any other way. After all, ‘We’ is the book that inspired Orwell to write his masterpiece. ‘We’s government of OneState is eerily similar to that of ‘Big Brother’, both authors write about authoritarianism with an air of absurdity, and the major theme is the individual versus the state, just like in ‘1984’. Everyone who loved ‘1984’ should read this book at least once.

THE THETA TIMELINE
I have to end with my own book, The Theta Timeline. My goal with this book was to create a novel that could continue what Orwell did in ‘1984,’: give readers a dystopian that is at times satirical, infuriating, scary, and all too possible, all while delivering an important warning. If you’ve been looking for the next ‘1984’ or if you just enjoy realistic, character-drive stories, you should definitely check out The Theta Timeline.

If you read any or all of these books, I’d love to hear what you think. Drop me a line!