Though the pleasures of reading dystopian novels may be as varied as the fallen worlds they depict, the books all have one thing in common: unlike our very real world, the crises resolve soon enough. The floods, wildfires, superstorms, plagues, refugees, or perhaps all of the above cease once the last page is turned, whereas in real life everything continues to carry on, business as usual, against a background of a broken political system rigged like an off-shore oil rig waiting to explode. Failing to stop oneself from consuming these fictional dystopian worlds, especially when viable alternatives exist, has proven as difficult as any other kind of bad consumer habit—at least for this reader.
