Blogroll

World War II almost killed Animal Farm

Find a list of the best 20th-century novels, and you’re likely to find both George Orwell’s 1984 and his Animal Farm. The former, published in 1949, is such a classic of dystopian literature that it’s hit the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists twice in the last four years. Yet his first tale of dictatorships, Animal […]

Book Review: The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

By now, the printed word must feel like a mashup of Tom Sawyer and the movie Groundhog Day. For probably a couple decades now, it has attended its own funeral over and over and over and over, ad nauseum. But if we assume one of those countless pronouncements of death is correct, what about words […]

Book Review: The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers

Almost of necessity, dystopian literature has its roots in concerns of the times in which it is written. It is an author envisioning a potential future in which something already existing or on the horizon heads in a bad direction. What author Jane Rogers recognizes in her award-winning The Testament of Jessie Lamb is the […]

Book Review: Ephemera by Jeffery M. Anderson

Although the seeds were planted earlier, dystopian literature has flourished in 20th century nutrients — the rise of fascism, ideological conflicts, global industrialization, and seemingly limitless advances in technology. Pessimism isn’t a prerequisite to realize there is a potentially detrimental synergy in the coalescence of these changes. It undoubtedly provides plenty of opportunity to envision […]