Reddit reviews The Road (Vintage International)

The Road because it made me cry.

Oryx and Crake is one of my favorite books ever. It's about class segregation and rampant bioengineering leading to the development of a new species of human. The companion volumes (not sequels) are The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam - covering the same time period with different perspectives. It's being adapted for HBO.

Another post-apocalyptic book by Margaret Atwood is The Handmaid's Tale. It's not so much post-apocalyptic as dystopian, but the US has devolved into a theocracy.

Not as far into the future and focusing on two normal sisters trying to continue living with the "new normal" after a virulent flu pandemic is Into the Forest. It's pretty heavy on the symbolism, but it grew on me over time.

For a much easier read, there's World War Z (no real relation to the movie), which is told in interview format about how different people and countries survive a zombie apocalypse.

The Road is about a man and his son during a nuclear winter.

Post-apoc is hot right now. Some of the genre is supernatural horror as opposed to natural disaster, so you may have to be selective. The following all involve non-supernatural scenarios.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Earth Abides by George Stewart.

Lucifer's Hammer by Niven & Pournelle.

One Second After by William Forstchen.

Wool by Hugh Howey.

The Remaining by DJ Molles.

The Stand is one of my favorites. I've compiled a list of other books that might be of interest to you.

Oryx and Crake

Handmaid's Tale

World War Z

On the Beach

Wool

The Road

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McCarthy-ebook/dp/B000OI0G1Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=


http://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607743&sr=1-1&keywords=1984


http://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldous-Huxley-ebook/dp/B00JTYQJ3K/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607785&sr=1-1&keywords=brave+new+world


http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels-ebook/dp/B000FBFMZ2/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607819&sr=1-1&keywords=altered+carbon


http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B000O76ON6/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607849&sr=1-1&keywords=neuromancer


http://www.amazon.com/Fahrenheit-451-Novel-Ray-Bradbury-ebook/dp/B0064CPN7I/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607872&sr=1-1&keywords=farenheight+451


http://www.amazon.com/Cats-Cradle-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XRELGQ/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607936&sr=1-1&keywords=cat%27s+cradle


http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Five-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XVYLDU/ref=sr_1_3_twi_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419607936&sr=1-3&keywords=cat%27s+cradle

you have a delusional belief about reality. reality is impossible to understand on an absolute level. direct communication is impossible. transmission of true intent is impossible.

we learn a symbolic system of expression (language), and we identify with our use of those symbols in our thoughts. we also have animal impulses that can fill our mind, and sometimes we identify with these, and other times we feel controlled by them. for example, does hunger feel like you?

in any case, any communication is magic. people have been working on this language (collection of symbols) forever. this language is somehow transmuted and evolved by needs and wants of humans back since the dawn of language. when you say "mother" or "car", it evokes a set of impressions within you. you might say "mother" and it will give you a positive emotional tone, but you're saying it to another person who has a negative emotional tone. everyone's symbolic system of impressions and associations is different.

still, people argue over the technicalities of certain symbols using nothing but other symbols. we argue over the technicalities of those symbols. we are doing this with squiggles and lines and sounds, like an occultist reciting invocations.

we are all completely fucking mad, wandering around in the dark. you are depressed because you think that we're not supposed to be this way, but we are. it's the only way for us. communication is magic, so the best option available is get better at magic. stop using magic to frame the world negatively and demotivate yourself.

i can't convince you of this shit. i would encourage you to find some sort of developmental spiritual practice. i can't tell you what.

the most convincing treatise on the madness of humans i've ever read is beelzebub's tales to his grandson, but you have to make the effort to read it. if you prefer novels, the road and blood meridian by cormac mccarthy or slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut give some sort of picture of the madness of the world. aleister crowley has a ton of fascinating writings. the book of lies and the book of law are short and strange.

you think you know things that you have no idea about. nobody can help you unless you let go of this.

Adult Dystopian Recommendations:

• Oryx and Crake – Jimmy/Snowman coasts through life fueled mainly by ennui. His only rebellion is to be mediocre when his advantages in society (white, upper (maybe middle) class, Western male) have him poised for success. Glenn/Crake deliberately turns himself into the Big Bad in order to correct the wrongs he sees in society. Whether his main issue is with human nature, sucking the planet dry, socially stratified capitalist society, willful ignorance, or insatiety and curiosity is unclear. Oryx sees it all and accepts them all, knowing that she’s too unimportant to do anything except pick up the pieces and provide comfort in the meantime.
  
  
• The Year of the Flood – The world and especially capitalist society is stacked against you, but resourcefulness and an open mind will serve you well.
  
  
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Quiet rebellions like memory and record-keeping can be subversive also. But it’s only actions that set the stage for change. And the people you (maybe?) save will interpret everything differently from your intentions anyways.
  
  
• Never Let Me Go – Is it truly a dystopia when only a small group is affected? If you’re thinking of reading this, do not under any circumstances watch the movie trailer. The slow build to “something is not quite right” is part of the charm.
  
  
• Into the Forest – Literary fiction. More about acceptance and regression to a [“natural”](#s "and feminist, which apparently means incestuous but Deep! and Thematically! incestuous") state.
  
  
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Historical fiction about Chinese reeducation camps, but still pretty dystopian. Bourgeois teenage boy questions his educated, upper-class roots and teaches peasant love interest about Western literature. [She](#s "abandons him for a capitalist dream because the lesson she took from it was that love was worthless. Basically, they both take away the worst parts of each other’s starting philosophies and smash them together.")
  
  
• Wild Ginger – If historical fiction is happening, why not another Cultural Revolution one? If you keep your head down, you might just survive long enough to grow up and really see the hypocrisy – stuff even greater than what you saw as a kid.
  
  
• 1984 – Isn’t this more about how the system will break you and leave you a husk of your former self if you trust anyone completely? So you should be smart and skeptical and never assume things are in your best interest just because someone’s telling you so.
  
  
• Brave New World – Have to admit, at 12 this had me thinking that maybe fascism wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The despair and existential crisis aspects weren’t hitting me then: I just noticed how happy almost everyone else was.
  
  
• The Road – All about bleakness and futility and carrying on because the hope of family’s the only good thing left?
  
  
• Fahrenheit 451, where the people in charge are corrupt specifically concerning that thing you're fighting against.
  
  
• World War Z – I’m almost hesitant to call this dystopian, because even though it’s about a freaking zombie apocalypse, it’s uplifting to hear all the stories of human resourcefulness and ingenuity and the mental strength you didn’t think was there. Of course, some of the stories covered are “logical responses” gone bad.
  
  YA-ish Dystopian Recommendations:
  
  
• Feed – It doesn’t work out for the only [person](#s "(Violet)") who truly fought the system (she’s beaten down so horribly that it’s heartbreaking that even the reader wants to look away), but she does technically inspire one other person to at least notice what’s going on in the world, even if it’s probably too late.
  
  
• Hunger Games – Katniss is really only involved because she has nowhere else to go. Side characters have real motivations for being involved, but she really is a figurehead along for the ride and that’s OK. The story is about that and how she copes.
  
  
• The Selection – cough Popcorn cough. America is highly motivated by money (For her struggling family, of course). Ignoring the love triangle stuff, her ideal is to move from serfdom to literally any other [political system.](#s "And this never happens. The political buildup you see in The Selection and The Elite is stomped all over in the vapid cheesecake of the love hexagon finale.")
  
  
• Incarceron & Sapphique – Finn’s rebellion is that he just wants out to someplace that must be better. Claudia lives in artificial luxury and rebels mostly just for personal rebellion, not anyone else’s sake.
  
  
• The Giver – Probably more MG, but how did running away from one collective society automatically become “capitalism is best?” Jonah runs away because he’s learned enough to make his own moral decisions about one of the helpless members of his society (and artificial protection sounds socialist to me). I can’t remember reading the sequels.
  
  
• The Book Thief – Again, MG and historical fiction about a bombed out German town in WWII, but I think a setting like that qualifies it as dystopian. Technically, Liesl fights the system by stealing (possibly forbidden) books from the wealthy and by not reporting the Jew in the basement, but that last one is just showing loyalty to her new family. Her entire upbringing predisposed her to not trust the System, especially a War System, anyways.
  
  Other Dystopias:
  
  
• Matched and Delirium will be considered together because they are the same damn book, right down to the Boy-Who-Could-Have-Been-Chosen-If-Not-For-Rebellion! and the protagonist’s government-approved hobby. Delirium has better writing. Matched is easier to read and has more likable characters. We get it, teenagers should be allowed to date who they like and mommy and daddy non-biological guardians shouldn’t say no. Also, it sucks to have a guidance counselor Make A Schedule for you in order to prepare you for an office job equivalent that’s full of busywork but one of the few respectable positions left. The horror! Seriously, in what world is that rebelling against socialism? You know, that thing that promotes trade schools and equal rights for everyone, even the people you don’t personally like?
  
  
• Divergent – I’m going to let someone else handle that one because urgh. I know a lot of people like it, and it’s YA, so someone else, please support, qualify, or refute.
  
  I’d also be curious to hear what /u/bethrevis has to say about the societies on Godspeed and elsewhere and where they fit into this opinion piece.
  
  Guys, I think I just wrote an English essay. And probably put more work into it than I did in high school. And I won’t even get an A because it’s the internet and we deal solely in lolcats.
  
  But tl;dr: Adult dystopias (that I’ve read) tend to be about the futility of existence or the necessity of self-sacrifice to get a result. The YA dystopias I liked were a little more hopeful (usually) and didn’t support this opinion piece’s thesis. The ones I didn’t like made me understand the hate for dystopias.

The Road, also by McCarthy is another good one to check out.

​

Best,

Geoff Jones

Author of The Dinosaur Four
(Not even remotely literary) :)

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.

World War Z, by Max Brooks

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

I started to type out a few others, but then re-read your post, and realized that the books I was recommending were heavy on psychological and existential angst.

You should give us a little insight as to what genre you like, since every reader is different. Here are a few of my favorites from some random genres.

Fantasy: A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Neverwhere, American Gods.

Sci-Fi: The Illustrated Man, Gold.

Dystopian Fiction: The Stand, The Road.

Classic Fiction: Flowers For Algernon,

Philosophy: Thus Spake Zarathustra, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Whatever Else: Fight Club, Fast Food Nation

edit: formatting

The vocabulary isn't difficult at all, but McCarthy definitely has a unique style of writing, it could take a bit to get used to. You might want to read a bit of it before deciding to buy it.

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy-ebook/dp/B000OI0G1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394422327&sr=8-1&keywords=the+road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - link