Books like “Fahrenheit 451”

What to read after “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
We
Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
Similar atmosphere: “Satire” and “Dystopia”
In the glass city of OneState, citizens live by a strict timetable and are known only by numbers. When the mathematician D-503 begins to keep a private journal, a woman named I-330 draws him into a movement that wants to tear down the walls of the ordered world.
2
Anthem
Ayn Rand · 1938
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
In a future run by the collective, the word I has no meaning and all work is done for the good of all. Equality 7-2521 breaks the rules by doing forbidden research and falling in love, then flees a society that cannot allow an individual to exist.
3
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell · 1949
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
In the totalitarian superstate of Oceania, every thought and word is watched. Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting the past, until he starts a diary and a secret affair. His small rebellion against a system that controls reality itself slowly closes in around him.
4
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess · 1962
Similar atmosphere: “Satire” and “Dystopia”
- Satire
- Dystopia
Alex, a teenager who loves violence and classical music, leads his gang through nights of brutal crime. When the state captures him, it offers to cure his impulses with an experimental treatment, making him the subject of a system that manufactures both good and evil.
5
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley · 1932
Similar atmosphere: “Satire” and “Dystopia”
In a future where citizens are engineered for contentment and kept calm with a drug called soma, Bernard Marx and the Savage John discover the cost of a stable, pleasure-driven society. John's arrival from a reservation exposes the emptiness behind the World State's comfort.
6
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr. · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
- Forbidden Knowledge
After a nuclear war, monks in a desert abbey preserve the few books that survive, including a blueprint signed by a martyred engineer. Across centuries they copy, guard and argue over the relics while civilisation slowly rebuilds and then repeats its old mistakes.
7
Uglies
Scott Westerfeld · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
- Dystopia
- Rebellion
In a future where everyone turns pretty at sixteen through surgery, fifteen-year-old Tally longs for the operation. When her friend runs away instead, Tally is sent to find her, and learns what the surgery and the society that demands it really cost.
8
The Darkest Minds
Alexandra Bracken · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
- Dystopia
- Rebellion
After a disease kills most American children, the survivors develop dangerous powers and are locked in government camps. Sixteen-year-old Ruby escapes and joins a group of runaways searching for a safe haven, while learning the cost of her own abilities.
9
Wool
Hugh Howey · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
- Dystopia
- Rebellion
In a future where the air outside is deadly, people live in a buried silo and are told that anyone who asks to go outside will be sent there to die. When a sheriff starts asking questions about the world beyond the walls, the silo's careful order begins to crack.
10
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain's assistant and prisoner of war in Dresden, becomes unstuck in time, living his life out of order among moments in the war and on another planet. His flat, looping account turns a firebombing and a life's small cruelties into a dark joke about fate.
11
Red Rising
Pierce Brown · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
- Dystopia
- Rebellion
On a future Mars, a miner from the lowest caste learns that the paradise he was promised does not exist and that his people are slaves. He is remade as a member of the ruling class and sent into a brutal contest where he plans to bring the whole system down.
12
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick · 1968
Similar atmosphere: “Dystopia”
- Dystopia
In a dust-choked future, a bounty hunter is paid to retire androids that have escaped to Earth and passed as human. As he tracks them down he starts to question what makes a life real, and whether he can trust his own memories.