Stefen’s Bookclub – December

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by Evgeny Zamyatin

This is a 1926 dystopian novel that serves as the inspiration for both 1984 and Brave New World. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley both frequently name checking Zamyatin as a major influence on their work. It’s a short piece about a scientifically perfect (supposedly) future Russian society and one individual within it who is given reasons to question everything he believes he knows about the world and about the nature of his society. It’s quite intense, though it is short and a great precursor to all of the dystopian fiction we now have. It’s a fun read and I think folks will recognise a lot in it and have a lot to discuss having read it.