Battle Royale

Takami, Koushun. Battle Royale, San Francisco, CA: Viz Media, c2003.

Battle Royale is a controversial dystopian novel that tells a story of class of high school students who part of totalitarian regime are pitted against each other on a deserted island for three days and only one can survive.

The novel has been highly criticized for its use of intense violence as it explains in graphic detail how each student hunts and kills another.

Fast paced and filled with adrenalin Battle Royale is a page turning science fiction thriller that does explore themes such as totalitarian governments, survival and competition in teenagers.

While being compared to Lord of the Flies and the Hunger Games this novel differentiates itself with its transgressive style becoming a contemporary transgressive classic.

Fight Club

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club, New York: W. W. Norton & Company ,1996.

How to maintain your identity and your masculinity in a world of consumerism? That is one of the many questions provoked in Fight club as it follows an anonymous narrator struggling with insomnia until he meets the charismatic Tyler Durden who together create an underground boxing club which quickly obtains many members who all try to regain their masculinity through fighting and anarchic acts of mischief.

Fight Club which was adapted into a highly successful film starring Brad Pitt feels like a piece of apocalyptic fiction and is darkly humorous in its tone.

Intended mature audiences those who can handled its intensity will find it quite enjoyable and it is a must have for generation X individuals.

Clockwork Orange

Burgess, Anthony.A Clockwork Orange, New York: Norton, c1967

This bleak dystopian science fiction novel which was famously adapted into an Academy Award nominated film follows Alex and friends through their sociopathic ultraviolent escapades.

Written as a first person narrative the novel highly uses a futuristic slang called “nadsat” while adding more intrigue but additionally making it a little harder to comprehend.

Thought provoking with its questions of morality and free will Clockwork Orange has long been considered a classic and is even named in the Modern Library’s 100 best novels.

An interesting science fiction staple, a must read for people over 18 interested in transgressive fiction.