Dystopian Science Fiction Classics Collection: Brave New World, 1984, & Animal Farm

By: Aldous Huxley, George Orwell

Narrated by: Museum Audiobooks cast

Dystopian literature is a genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in a nightmarish world. The term dystopia refers to a society characterized by misery, squalor, or oppression, and the theme is most commonly used in science-fiction and speculative-fiction genres.

Dystopian Science Fiction Classics Collection:

Book one: Brave New World. Set in 2540 CE, Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley that was published in 1932. The novel takes place in a futuristic society called The World State, where life revolves around science and efficiency. Emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children, and citizens are socially engineered into an intelligence-based hierarchy. People are kept in a passive state through their consumption of a soothing drug called soma, and trouble-makers are exiled to various islands. The characters include Bernard Marx, a sleep-learning specialist, Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer, Lenina Crowne, a fetus technician, and John, also known as “Mr. Savage”. Brave New World was ranked at number five on the Modern Library’s 1999 list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Book two: 1984 is a novel by the British author George Orwell. Considered a classic of dystopian fiction, the book has contributed many terms to common usage, including "Big Brother", "doublethink", "newspeak", and "thoughtcrime", while the adjective "Orwellian" in the context of government deception, surveillance, and misleading terminology has entered the English language. The narrative unfolds in an imagined future when most of the world has fallen prey to omnipresent government surveillance, propaganda, and endless war. Great Britain has become a province of the super state Oceania, which is ruled by the Party, whose leader is called Big Brother. The Party employs the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Winston Smith, the protagonist, is an ordinary worker who secretly despises the Party and dreams of rebellion. Time Magazine included the novel on its 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, and it is placed at number 13 on the editor’s list and at number six on the reader’s list of Modern Library's 100 Best Novels.

Book three: Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in the UK in 1945. It is the tale of farm animals that rebel against the farmer, intending to establish a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. With stirring slogans, they set out to create utopia. However, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state worse than it was before under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. This is the setting for one of the most revealing satiric fables of all time - an acerbic tale for adults that records the process from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism which is even worse. When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was its target. Today it is quite clear that wherever and whenever freedom is suppressed, the message of George Orwell’s masterpiece is still relevant. Time Magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It also features at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels.

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