In a world where no one can go outside for fear of something terrifying that when seen drives people to deadly violence, single mother Malorie and her two children must attempt a harrowing twenty-mile trip downriver while blindfolded. Bird Box takes us into the early days of this tragedy as well as Malorie's quest to find safety with her children, and it is quite the rollercoaster. Since its December 21st debut, the film has been a highlight in social media and water cooler chat alike. According to Netflix, it is on track to become the most watched movie the streaming service has ever produced in its history.

The popularity of the film no doubt has to do with its premise. The characters are forced to wear blindfolds when venturing outside so as not to be driven insane. It bears some resemblance to last year's hit film A Quiet Place, which required the characters to survive without using sound, so sign language replaced spoken words. In both instances the world is changed by some catastrophic event in which survival is dependent on the instincts of the characters. 

For those who don't know, Bird Box is based on the novel with the same name by author Josh Malerman. This and other similar stories are usually labeled under the term "dystopian fiction."  A dystopia is defined as an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. These types of books have always been popular, especially because they present the idea of what could be. Living in a turbulent time also causes people to turn to these nightmare scenarios as is evident by the resurging popularity of classics such as George Orwell's 1984 and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in recent years.

Bird Box isn't the only novel in recent years to take this genre into new territory. We've compiled a list of books that provide their own view into the future of possible worlds.

 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. This classic novel takes a take of a postapocalyptic world

 

 

 

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this dystopian thriller, told in bold and fierce language. In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off of the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a mysterious disease they call Posies—a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure. When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure.Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting with her whole heart and soul to protect the only world she has ever known.
 

Under the Dome by Stephen King
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away. Dale Barbara, an Iraq veteran, and a select group of citizens attempt to save the town, if they can get past Big Jim Rennie, a murderous politician, and his son, who hides a horrible secret in his dark pantry.

 

 

Blindness by Jose Saramago
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, to safety.
 

 

 

 

The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man's shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories. Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max's shadow disappears too.


 

Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun
A tale set at the height of an insomnia epidemic finds Matt Biggs, one of the few remaining people capable of healthy sleep, desperately seeking his wife, whose insomnia has driven her to madness. He ventures out into a world ransacked by mass confusion and desperation, where he meets others struggling against the tide of sleeplessness.

 

 

 

 

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
What if your life was upended in an instant? What if your spouse or your child disappeared right in front of your eyes? Was it the Rapture or something even more difficult to explain? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event? These are the questions confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure. Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to move forward, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family disintegrates due to the fanatical religious conversions of his wife and son.

 

 

Station Eleven by  Emily St. John Mandel
Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. 

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. 


 

The Rending and the Nest by Kaethe Schwehn
When 95% of Earth's population disappears for no apparent reason, Mira does what she can to create some semblance of a life: She cobbles together a haphazard community named Zion, scavenges the Piles for supplies they might need, and avoids loving anyone she can't afford to lose. She has everything under control. Almost.

Four years after the Rending, Mira's best friend, Lana, announces her pregnancy, the first since everything changed and a new source of hope for Mira. But when Lana gives birth to an inanimate object—and other women of Zion follow suit—the thin veil of normalcy Mira has thrown over her new life begins to fray. As the Zionites wrestle with the presence of these Babies, a confident outsider named Michael appears, proselytizing about the world beyond Zion. 
 

The Book of Etta by Meg Elison
Etta comes from Nowhere, a village of survivors of the great plague that wiped away the world that was. In the world that is, women are scarce and childbearing is dangerous . . . yet desperately necessary for humankind’s future. Mothers and midwives are sacred, but Etta has a different calling. As a scavenger. Loyal to the village but living on her own terms, Etta roams the desolate territory beyond: salvaging useful relics of the ruined past and braving the threat of brutal slave traders, who are seeking women and girls to sell and subjugate.
When slavers seize those she loves, Etta vows to release and avenge them. But her mission will lead her to the stronghold of the Lion—a tyrant who dominates the innocent with terror and violence. 

 

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. Now his wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley.
 
But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.
 

 

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

 

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Bird Box movie poster via IMDB.