These Dystopian Novels Are Just Too Ridiculous

Dystopian fiction has always been absurdly far-fetched. No wonder school boards keep banning these books. Too unrealistic for classroom consumption.

I blame Tolkien for starting all these dystopian novels with his silly little book Lord of the Rings about Frodo and a Fellowship on a quest to destroy a magic ring. Like who in their right mind would want to destroy a ring with power.

That ridiculous premise set the tone for everything that followed.

Take Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The premise requires accepting that politicians would actually debate restricting women's interstate travel for healthcare. That elected officials would stand before cameras and argue about tracking women's movements across state boundaries. Absolutely deranged. What's next, requiring pregnancy registration? Forcing doctors to report miscarriages to law enforcement? Come on, Margaret.

Suzanne Collins and her Hunger Games. What is that nonsense all about? Wealthy elites treating politics like reality television while ordinary citizens fight over scraps? The Capitol hosting champagne brunches while districts can't afford insulin? Please. No modern democracy would tolerate billionaires playing dress-up while teachers work second jobs. That's just silly.

George Orwell's 1984 might be the most laughable of all. A government instructing citizens to reject observable reality? Leaders branding documented evidence as "fake news"? The Ministry of Truth rewriting history while everyone watches? Orwell clearly never understood how fiercely people defend factual accuracy. Americans would absolutely revolt before accepting such transparent gaslighting. We're way too smart for that.

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes and Dave Eggers' The Circle are both an overreach of gibberish. Corporate surveillance tracking every click, purchase, and location? Biometric data harvested through phones people willingly carry everywhere? Citizens trading privacy for convenience without reading terms of service? Sure, guys. And I suppose people would also let tech billionaires buy social media platforms just to control public discourse. Totally unrealistic.

Lord of the Flies requires believing that civilized individuals quickly abandon social contracts when stressed. That humans naturally sort into tribal factions based on fear and manipulation. That educated people would dehumanize entire populations to consolidate power. That reasonable discourse would dissolve into name-calling and mob mentality. William Golding clearly had zero faith in humanity. Bit dramatic, honestly.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World presents an even more preposterous scenario. Government controlling education to manufacture compliant citizens? Politicians banning books that make them uncomfortable? School boards purging curricula of anything that challenges preferred narratives? Textbooks rewritten to erase uncomfortable historical truths? The entire premise collapses under scrutiny. American parents would storm school board meetings before allowing such blatant indoctrination. Oh wait.

Ernest Cline's Ready Player One suggests that mass entertainment could distract entire populations from systemic collapse. That people would scroll through endless content while democracy crumbles. That corporations would exploit technology addiction for profit while infrastructure fails and inequality explodes. That citizens would know everything's broken but choose Netflix over organizing. Pure science fiction. We'd definitely notice if oligarchs were consolidating power while we binged television. Definitely.

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower might be the most far-fetched. Climate scientists issuing increasingly desperate warnings while politicians call it a hoax? Corporations prioritizing quarterly profits over preventing environmental catastrophe? Wildfires and hurricanes intensifying while everyone pretends this is normal? Society collectively agreeing to ignore thermometers and melting glaciers? Butler crafted a world where mass delusion trumps observable reality. Girl, please. Nobody's that stupid.

Emily St. John Mandel wrote Station Eleven about civilization fragmenting after a pandemic that people refused to take seriously. K.M. Szpara's Docile imagines medical debt forcing people into servitude contracts because healthcare bankrupts families. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 features authorities burning books to suppress dangerous ideas and inconvenient histories.

These authors share a fundamental flaw: they underestimate American exceptionalism, democratic resilience, and our collective commitment to constitutional principles. They assume societies would sleepwalk into authoritarianism despite history screaming warnings. They imagine people would sacrifice freedom for security, truth for entertainment, justice for convenience, healthcare for tax cuts, and education for partisan talking points.

Thank God we live in reality, where none of this absurd fiction could possibly happen. We're far too enlightened for dystopia. We learned from history. We value expertise.

After all, we live in the United States of America, land of the free. Many wars have been fought to secure our rights and freedoms. We fear nothing, because our government works for us and only us.

These books are bogeymen in print. They are fiction. We definitely read the books we're banning. We absolutely understand irony.

Good thing, too. Otherwise these novels might feel less like cautionary tales and more like instruction manuals. That would be embarrassing.

This is satire, by the way. But you get the point, right?

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.