Dystopian Fans Spoke, We Listened. Here Are Their Favorites!
Are you ready to be transported to hauntingly realistic futures? Our selection offers a glimpse into harrowing and unsettling futures, exploring the human experience in societies plagued by chaos, oppression, and destruction. From post-apocalyptic landscapes to totalitarian regimes, our range of dystopian audiobooks is sure to captivate and challenge you. Our expert narrators bring these worlds to life, immersing you in the story and its characters, as they navigate the dangers and complexities of their worlds. Whether you're a fan of classic dystopian tales or looking for fresh, contemporary voices, our collection has something for everyone. Listen now and explore these dark and thought-provoking universes.
Dystopian Audiobooks Statistics
Total Audiobooks in this Category:
810 audiobooks
Total Authors in this Category:
882 authors
Average Audiobook Length:
10.56 hours
Average Audiobook Rating:
3.92/5
Author: George Orwell
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Audio Length:
@1x speed 11.50 hours
@1.5x speed 7.67 hours
@2x speed 5.75 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
1984 Audiobook
These are the watchwords for The Party, which governs Oceania with absolute authority. In Airstrip One (formerly known as England), the omnipresent viewscreens, which the people watch and by which in turn are watched, remind everyone that "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU."
Winston Smith, member of the Outer Party and diligent worker in the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites history, is dead. He already knows it, for he has committed thoughtcrime. "Thoughtcrime doesn't entail death," he notes in his forbidden journal, "thoughtcrime IS death." As he starts his journey as a thought criminal seeking actual truth, he encounters Julia, beautiful and tempting; O'Brien, member of the Inner Party and potential ally against tyranny; and the truth about a party seeking power for power's sake. And this truth, it will not set him free.
1984: New Classic Edition, written in 1948, is a cautionary tale. Orwell saw, in the burgeoning Cold War, a terrible future, and detailed it in this lasting novel which has been translated into 65 different languages; the dystopic future of 1984 remains as poignant and timely in any year and in any era.
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, an English novelist who used his works to comment on the perils of social injustice and totalitarianism. A journalist by trade, he was best known during his life for his essays and columns in newspapers and magazines, famously describing the effects of poverty in Paris and northern England as well as covering the Spanish Civil War. He wrote most of 1984 while ill, being diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1947. Still, he persisted, writing one of the most important works in the English language, responsible for such neologisms as "doublethink," "Big Brother" and "memory hole" and immortalized in the term "Orwellian." He died at the age of 46 on January 21, 1950.
“the world that he has created with bogbrother...a supreme, beyond god existence...thoughtcrime, thoughtpolice ...it filled my heart with the horror of what if...all the things that we take for granted are taken away...even the liberty to think is forshaken...i shudder at the thought of it...”
— Abhinav
Author: Pierce Brown
Narrator: Tim Gerard Reynolds
Audio Length:
@1x speed 16.25 hours
@1.5x speed 10.83 hours
@2x speed 8.13 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
Red Rising Audiobook
“This book has a lot of similarity with "The Hunger Games Series", but it is so much more. It touches on question of morality, psychology and society in a very deep and engaging way. If you like books where the main protagonist is a genius and has to master impossible situations, you will love this one. 5/5 for superb narration. Reynolds really was feeling it while he read.”
— Michael
Author: N. K. Jemisin
Narrator: Robin Miles
Audio Length:
@1x speed 15.50 hours
@1.5x speed 10.33 hours
@2x speed 7.75 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Fifth Season Audiobook
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.
“This is a story about love. Pain. The perseverance of self, and worst of all, endings. The world ends in so many ways for all the characters here, but living through that ending makes this beautiful, amazing story that much better. Jemisin never disappoints all while taking intense subject matter and turning it into an examination of self. LGBT characters, positive polyamory, people of color, stunning writing all while holding hands with the apocalyptic narrative.”
— Theon
Author: Ernest Cline
Narrator: Wil Wheaton
Audio Length:
@1x speed 15.75 hours
@1.5x speed 10.50 hours
@2x speed 7.88 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
Ready Player One: A Novel Audiobook
The worldwide bestseller--now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines--puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win--and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
“Loved it! A recommendation from books on the nightstand was so interesting I picked the book up full of doubt and finished it in a weekend. All the 80's references were such fun. Reminded me of skipping work with a friend to play galaga and miss PAC man all day.”
— Melissa
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Narrator: Kirsten Potter
Audio Length:
@1x speed 10.75 hours
@1.5x speed 7.17 hours
@2x speed 5.38 hours
Station Eleven (Television Tie-in): A novel Audiobook
A New York Times Bestseller
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
“Mandel’s spectacular, unmissable new novel is set in a near-future dystopia, after most — seriously, 99.99 percent — of the world’s population is killed suddenly and swiftly by a flu pandemic. (Have fun riding the subway after this one!) The perspective shifts between a handful of survivors, all connected to a famous actor who died onstage just before the collapse. A literary page-turner, impeccably paced, which celebrates the world lost while posing questions about art, fame, and what endures after everything, and everyone, is gone.”
— Amanda Bullock, Vulture
Author: Dave Eggers
Narrator: Dion Graham
Audio Length:
@1x speed 13.75 hours
@1.5x speed 9.17 hours
@2x speed 6.88 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Circle Audiobook
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
“In this taut, claustrophobic corporate thriller, Eggers comes down hard on the culture of digital over-sharing, creating a very-near-future dystopia in which all that is not forbidden is required…Eggers has a keen eye for context, and the great strength of The Circle lies in its observations about the way instant, asynchronous communication has damaged our personal relationships…A speculative morality tale in the vein of George Orwell.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Margaret Atwood
Narrator: Margaret Atwood, Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Derek Jacobi, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal, various narrators, Mae Whitman
Audio Length:
@1x speed 13.25 hours
@1.5x speed 8.83 hours
@2x speed 6.63 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale Audiobook
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
“Narrator Ann Dowd, known for her role on the television adaptation, is formidable as Aunt Lydia. Hearing her resonant narration of diary entries allows listeners to feel the horror of early Gilead, be disturbed by the aunt’s complicity, and discover her secrets. Bryce Dallas Howard’s sweet narration of the Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A provides a window onto the extreme restrictions of girlhood in Gilead. Mae Whitman’s snarky rendition of Witness 369B’s testimony reflects a privileged youth in Canada, where she unwittingly triggers dramatic changes. Listening adds an entirely new dimension to a riveting tale. Atwood narrates section headings and her note, and Tantoo Cardinal and Derek Jacobi nail the scholarly conclusion. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
Author: Russell Wilbinski
Narrator: Neil Hellegers, Neil Hellegers
Audio Length:
@1x speed 8.25 hours
@1.5x speed 5.50 hours
@2x speed 4.13 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Great Filter: A Post-Apocalyptic Gamelit Novel Audiobook
What no one predicted was the sudden message that appeared before every living soul moments before impact, a message from "The Administrators" revealing our entire world and everything in it to be a species simulation. According to the message, Humanity had been reset over a million times and every single time we could not prevent our own extinction.
No more resets for humanity. No more chances.
They would leave our world an irradiated disaster, but to keep things interesting, they would convert our species simulation to a game for their twisted entertainment.
Digital or not, real or not, I have a family to protect. A wife and daughter who need me, universe be damned. I say bring it on. Welcome to the end of the world.
Welcome to The Great Filter.
“This is one of the most unique apocalyptic books I’ve ever listened to & my library is overflowing! Having a husband that games & being a wife that isn’t afraid of picking up a controller, this book is satisfying to the prepper minded - gamer enthusiast that played Fallout for 72 hours straight when a new edition released! When a character‘s action is described, the anticipation of a game prompt is palpable and the author delivering on those expectations is so gratifying! I haven’t even finished the book and I checked to see if this is a series. I’ll keep an eye out for Russell Wilbinski.”
— Vickie W.
Author: Matthew Reilly
Narrator: Sean Mangan
Audio Length:
@1x speed 13.25 hours
@1.5x speed 8.83 hours
@2x speed 6.63 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Three Secret Cities: A Thriller Audiobook
A shadow world behind the real world…
When Jack West, Jr. won the Great Games, he threw the four legendary kingdoms into turmoil.
A world with its own history, rules and prisons…
Now these dark forces are coming after Jack...in ruthless fashion.
That is reaching into our world—explosively…
With the end of all things rapidly approaching, Jack must find the Three Secret Cities, three incredible lost cities of legend.
It’s an impossible task by any reckoning, but Jack must do it while he is being hunted...by the greatest hunters in history.
With Matthew Reilly’s signature “wave after wave of nonstop action” (Booklist), The Three Secret Cities is an electrifying rollercoaster ride of a thriller.
“Three Sacred Cities, by master Matthew Reilly, is a page turning, breathless, loss off sleep thrill ride. Continuing the Jack West global destruction series, Three Sacred Cities must be found to save the world. Only problem, Jack is being hunted by those whose toes he stepped on. Being on a roller coaster while standing on one foot, balancing a stack of plates on a toothpick and needing to use the bathroom leave one unable to put the book down. Fast paced, balls to the wall.”
— Suntea
Author: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Narrator: R. C. Bray
Audio Length:
@1x speed 10.25 hours
@1.5x speed 6.83 hours
@2x speed 5.13 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
Hell Divers Audiobook
The New York Times and USA Today bestselling series
They dive so humanity survives …
More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers—men and women who risk their lives by skydiving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need.
When one of the remaining airships is damaged in an electrical storm, a Hell Diver team is deployed to a hostile zone called Hades. But there’s something down there far worse than the mutated creatures discovered on dives in the past—something that threatens the fragile future of humanity.
“This book for me is a solid six stars as Nicholas Sansbury Smith delivers yet again. Hell Divers unbelievably takes it another notch above his excellent Extinction Cycle series…The author has crafted yet another engrossing apocalyptic world in which we are plunged…If Hell Divers is anything to go by then this trilogy is destined to become a classic.”
— The Lazy Book Reviewer
Author: A. American
Narrator: Duke Fontaine
Audio Length:
@1x speed 14.25 hours
@1.5x speed 9.50 hours
@2x speed 7.13 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
Surviving Home: A Novel Audiobook
“Going Home (book #1) – Resurrecting Home (book #5) - Good story line, interesting characters, and filled with survival concepts to ponder. If you are looking for a good series of audiobooks on post-apocalyptic survival I found the Going Home series very enjoyable. Some reviews I have read stated items like a 60lb backpack is unrealistic and this or that is factually incorrect. If you are looking for a survival documentary or how-to series this is not it.”
— Lew
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Narrator: Tom Stechschulte
Audio Length:
@1x speed 6.75 hours
@1.5x speed 4.50 hours
@2x speed 3.38 hours
Overall Rating:
Narrator Rating:
Story Rating:
The Road Audiobook
Cormac McCarthy is one of America's most celebrated novelists. Born in 1933, he has written ten books, including The Road and No Country for Old Men. His 1985 book Blood Meridian won the honor of being among books chosen for Time magazine's list of 100 best books written between 1923 and 2005. His book The Road was also listed in 2005 as Time Magazine's best book written in the last ten years. There is speculation that McCarthy will at one point be nominated for the Nobel prize in literature, as well.
The Road is an astounding tale of nature and perseverance, of hope and deliverance. It is appropriate for all audiences young adult and up, and is sure to be on any avid reader's wish list.
“Cormac McCarthy out does himself with this piece of writing. His style's cut and dry. If you'd like to know the symbolism behind his use of the only one name throughout the book, Elijah, I'll tell you if you email me. However, you must first prove to me that you read it.”
— LP