The XX By Angela Chadwick And 4 Other Feminist Dystopian Novels That Aren’t The Handmaid’s Tale

Rosie and Jules long to be parents. When a medical breakthrough which enables two women to have a female baby is announced, they are first in line to be part of the clinical trial. But - as with the first IVF families - there are those that disagree. Bigoted politicians, sharp-elbowed columnists, and evangelical protesters are all keen to have their say. The women are forced to hide their news, which in turn tests their family and friends. With the pace of a thriller and the ideas of a sci-fi novel, XX is a cracking high concept read about the simplest of ideas: equality. Feminist sci fi for people who think they'd hate it…

Longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize, this debut novel was called 'a gripping, sinister fable' by Margaret Atwood herself. Three sisters are living on an island, separated from the rest of the world, its 'toxicity' .. and of course the men who are out there. It's a bleak, cultish plan, keeping them in perpetual fear and respect of their father, who they know as 'the King'. Then three males turn up on the island, disrupting everything they've ever known. Not quite sci fi, but eerily close to feeling real, it has deservedly been one of this year's break out novels.Three sisters live on an island, separated from the rest of the world, its 'toxicity' .. and of course the men who are out there. It's a bleak, cultish plan, keeping them in perpetual fear - until three males turn up on the island, disrupting everything they've ever known. Deservedly one of this year's break out debuts.

Written with the sparse beauty one would expect from the author of Remains of the Day, this is nevertheless an utterly chilling, ultimately heartbreaking slice of science fiction. Set largely in Hailsham, a quiet English boarding school, it looks at the lives of children who are in fact clones, bred merely for the harvest of donor organs. But what makes them human? What of their dreams? Where do their hopes go? These are the questions we see asked as the children hit adolescence, where independence of spirit coincides with the beginning of their 'harvesting'. Bleak, but completely absorbing. Hailsham is an English boarding school attended by children who are in fact clones, bred merely for the harvest of donor organs. But what of their dreams? Their futures? These are the questions asked as the children hit adolescence, when independence of spirit coincides with the beginning of their 'harvesting'. Bleak, but completely absorbing.

Published in 1992 but set a mere three years from now, PD James's dystopian thriller is set in an England which has been beset by mass infertility. Male sperm count has hit zero globally and those alive are the last generation to have been born. Focusing not on not just the political implications as government tries to find ways to keep the country going (state run pornography centres, forced repatriation of outsiders once they're too old) but also the social ones (kittens and dolls in prams instead of babies), it's a truly creepy futuristic read.Dystopian thriller is set in 2021 in an England which has been beset by mass infertility as male sperm count has hit zero globally. Focusing not on not just the political implications (state run pornography centres) but also the social ones (kittens in prams instead of babies) it's a truly creepy read.

Set in a world where most of the population has been killed by a swine flu epidemic, Station Eleven focuses on the handful of survivors and what has kept them going. What sets the novel apart is that it's not intense survivalist techniques and gory self-surgery that has proved as essential as art, theatre, and memory. A way for those still around twenty years later to connect to the world they once lived in. It's a post-apocalypse world, but it's a strangely gentle, moving story which leaves you thinking about more than just canned goods and panic.