 | Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Buy used from: £5.50 Hardhitting, engrossing novel about a young woman's dangerous journey through a near lawless U.S, and the philosophy she preaches in an effort to make sense of the surrounding chaos.
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 | Parable of the Talents (Earthseed) by Octavia E. Butler
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £4.39 If possible, an even more gut wrenching read. Our heroine's faith is put to the supreme test when radical Christian fundamentalists threaten her fledgling Earthseed community.
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 | The Handmaid's Tale (Contemporary Classics) by Margaret Atwood
Buy new: £2.98 / Used from: £1.68 Perhaps the most famous feminist dystopia, Atwood's book renders women mere breeding vessels in a society governed by right wing religious extremists. A frightening, thrilling, 'thinking' book
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 | Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 This book just blew me away. The breadth of the author's biological, cultural and anthropological knowledge is outstanding. Prescient? A most unnerving vision of the future.
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 | Herland (Dover Thrift Editions) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Buy new: £1.25 / Used from: £0.01 The ultimate feminist utopia - a completely matriarchal society. Take time to read this one carefully. It has the potential to reshape your ideas on everything from motherhood to mythology.
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 | Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Buy used from: £1.99 Junior high school students meet the TV show Survivior.- with the aim being to kill each other off! Can a repressive future government use fear to turn us against our beliefs? A hard lesson learned.
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 | Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Buy new: £3.85 / Used from: £2.80 Can't really say much that hasn't already been said. I first read this book when I was 17, (now 22), and it changed the way I looked at the world. Read it.
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 | The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
Buy used from: £0.01 An oldie, but a goodie. Fear and persecution run rampant in a post apocolyptic society where even slight genetic mutations are work of the devil. Interesting ending - does it let the whole book down?
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 | The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Buy new: £2.42 / Used from: £0.50 This book will completely redefine your ideas of gender - if in fact gender CAN be given a definition. Also some very interesting ideas on religion.
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 | We (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Buy new: £3.48 / Used from: £3.75 Can every aspect of human existence be reduced to scientific formulae? Nope, and that's the message we learn alongside our protagonist throughout the course of this book. Stunning stuff.
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 | Brave New World, and, Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
Buy used from: £5.77 If I'm being honest, the science in the first few pages almost put me off - very complicated! But stick with it - it's a classic for good reason. Don't forget to read the companion piece, BNWR.
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 | Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Popular Classics) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Buy new: £1.80 / Used from: £0.01 Not for everyone, but one of my all time favourites. Still retains a poignant message about the inherent dangers of science and technology found in a large majority of subsequent science fiction.
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 | A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) by Anthony Burgess
Buy new: £3.09 / Used from: £2.58 I love the way this book looks at the function of language, both as a repression mechanism and as a means of alienating oneself from mainstream society. Fascinating, but it'll kick you in the guts.
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 | Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Buy used from: £1.62 I'm halfway through this one, and I don't like it. Seems to go against the general opinion, but there it is. I'm still reading in the hope it gets better. I'll let you know.
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 | Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
Buy used from: £2.76 A beautiful book. Despite it's simplistic city=bad, nature=good message, the gorgeous imagery will really get under your skin. Great characters, too.
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