A Dystopian Novel to Read While Recovering From 28 Years Later

Welcome back to Scare Me! a weekly horror newsletter. Today, I’m reflecting on why I struggle to sit with dystopian horror—and a few stories that have broken through my defenses.

Confession: I haven’t seen 28 Years Later yet.

Jack and I missed the screenings at our town’s charming indie theater, where you can watch movies from the comfort of plush velvet couches amid the flicker of tea lights. Instead, we’ll have to trek down to one of the bigger towns, to an AMC or a Regal or some other crumbling national chain. A less aesthetic setting, but maybe the chipped tiles, dusty carpet, and barren rows of empty seats offer a more appropriate atmosphere for dystopia.

That’s really what the 28 Days films are for me: Zombie movies, yes, but dystopian first and foremost. They’re stories that are deeply interested in societal collapse and all that comes after.

It’s a subgenre of horror that I struggle to enjoy, because it so often feels relentlessly bleak. I adore Train to Busan and All of Us Are Dead, for example, but their inevitable character deaths are pure, heartbreaking cruelty, even though it’s justified by the bracing storytelling. On the flip side, I’m also wary of dystopian stories that might linger on brutality against women and children, or ones that are primarily interested in a heroic white male savior (enough said).

28 Days Later definitely burrowed into my nightmares, but on this rewatch I felt myself connecting with the story on a much deeper level than when I first saw it at 18. I interrogated the feeling. Why was it so familiar?

Eventually, I figured out what it reminded me of: Chang-Rae Lee’s 2014 novel On Such a Full Sea. Like 28 Days Later, it’s a dystopian story that revels in softness. Both stories are unflinching and violent at times, when the plot demands it—but they’re also driven by an electric kind of love.

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First, some context: If horror is a banquet with delicacies for every strange and macabre appetite, dystopian horror is the dish I would politely skip.

My brain produces its own dystopian worries as a natural byproduct of me being alive; OCD keeps a steady drumbeat of intrusive thoughts thrumming in the background, tracking (imagined) contamination and posing interesting questions like “Are my cats asleep or did they stop breathing?”

In general, horror contains these boring, repetitive anxieties, substituting them for ideas that are more outlandish and fun. A family of Texas cannibals…a spaceship that voyages into hell…a sexually transmitted curse that assigns you a highly motivated stalker…these are things I’m fairly confident I won’t encounter.

But dystopian stories suggest scenarios and images that feel horribly plausible. It’s Velcro that sticks to my ruminating mind.

So why do I love 28 Days Later so much? In a word: Selena.

Selena (played by the incomparble Naomie Harris) is a wonderful character. She’s quick-thinking, uncompromising, and self-assured. She’s determined to survive, and she’s willing to accept the devastating decisions this will demand of her. She’ll deal with that aftermath later; for now, from moment to harrowing moment, she will trust her instincts, react, and move forward.

It would be easy to label Selana a “strong female character,” a description I’ve grown to despise for how shallow and cliche it’s become. Selena is strong, both physically and mentally, but more than that she is principled. She’s assessed the aftermath of the rage virus with clear-eyed accuracy, and her ability to totally accept the way things are now is key to her survival.

A lesser movie would go out of its way to humble Selena, to force her into submitting to Jim’s belief that community is key to survival. She would be proven wrong, reduced to a prize awarded to Jim and expected to be grateful for it. I’m sure some people might read the movie this way, particularly given that Cillian Murphy’s character is clearly framed as the lead.

But 28 Days Later does something more subtle (in my reading, at least). For me, there’s a complicated joy in watching Selena allow herself to experience the softness of human connection, at first in the tiniest gestures and later in an eccentric found family whose bonds are cemented during the film’s horrifying events. She remains completely independent throughout the story—always fast-thinking, rational, driven—but she chooses not to abandon her friends, again and again. When she and Jim finally become some kind of a couple, it feels as though it’s on her terms.

I believe Selena would have survived regardless—she has the skillset and the mentality for it—but I love watching her gradually allow herself the luxury of love.

On Such a Full Sea is after something similar. Set in the near-ish future, it envisions a world in which the US has completely crumbled. Self-contained labor settlements grow hydroponic produce and raise seafood for wealthy elites holed up in walled cities, while the American landscape beyond has devolved into a patchwork of anarchic settlements defined by the constant threat of violence and brutality.

Fan, a tank diver, shocks her community by voluntarily leaving her home settlement of B-mor (formerly Baltimore). It’s unheard of to leave the safety of the settlement, but Fan is drawn into the wilderness for a compelling reason. She’s searching for her lover and the father of her unborn child, Reg, after he’s inexplicably disappeared.

Beyond B-mor, Fan discovers a landscape largely left to run wild. Tree-high weeds choke the landscape with a “punky reek.” Streets are “pocked by calf-deep potholes and waves of buckles.” She’s promptly hit by a car and taken into the driver’s commune to heal.

From there, she endures a harrowing journey, encountering backwoods cannibals and armed robbers and uneasy alliances with other survivors. When Fan eventually arrives in one of the wealthy Charter cities, it’s no less unsettling. Left to their own devices, the ultra-rich indulge odd fantasies and cast human beings as doll-like playthings, complete with extreme body modification surgeries.

As Fan patiently, relentlessly pursues the truth about what happened to Reg, B-mor is transformed by her courage and the epic immensity of her love. The B-mor chapters are told in first person plural, with an unnamed narrator relaying the collective impact Fan and Reg have on the city’s culture. “Why, in the life of a community, does a certain happening or person become the stuff of lore?” the narrator wonders.

Lee’s vision of an apocalyptic future is inventive and wholly original. A Pulitzer nominee, Lee hadn’t written such speculative stuff before, instead practicing the craft of realism in novels like Native Speaker and The Surrendered. On Such a Full Sea is often bleak and unnerving, but it comes alive in its vividly imagined details and the lived-in, familiar love that blossoms on its pages.

Neither 28 Days Later nor On Such a Full Sea provide contrived or simplistic conclusions. The stories end without complete resolution; if you’re after a tidy happily-ever-after, look elsewhere. Instead, both gesture at a possible future, suggesting without showing exactly what might come next.

But both stories suggest that there is a future—and in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic landscape, that is a fragile miracle indeed.

Up Next: An Interview With Editor Nick Whitney, Co-Founder of Soho Press’ New Horror Imprint

A few weeks ago, I had the joy of speaking with Nick Whitney, the Feminist Press editor who plucked It Came From the Closet from the slush of submissions. Nick is now at Soho Press, where he recently co-founded Hell’s Hundred, Soho’s first new imprint in more than a decade.

We talked about what goes into the creation of a new imprint, what this says about the current market for horror fiction, and Nick’s own sensibility as an editor and lifelong horror fan. I loved getting a glimpse into the inner workings of the publishing industry. and I’m looking forward to sharing the conversation next week.

Moving forward, I’ll try to break up the interviews with more newsletters like this one—both because I occasionally need a break from the precise editing interview transcripts demand, and because it’s fun to yap like this.

Finally, thank you to all the new subscribers who have joined recently! I started this newsletter in hopes of finding some new pen pals and internet friends, so please always feel free to drop me a line and say hi. I’d love to hear from you!

Scare Me! is a free weekly horror newsletter published every Thursday morning. It’s written by Michelle Delgado, featuring original illustrations by Sam Pugh. You can find the archive of past issues here. If you were sent this by a friend, subscribe to receive more spooky interviews, essays—and maybe even a ghost story or two.