The Remaining Series

Currently, I am reading The Remaining by D.J. Molles, which is a book set in a post-apocalyptic world that is destroyed by a strange, unexplainable bacterium. The bacterium eats through the host's brain, leaving them with only basic, primal and instinctive functions. While the story mainly seems as though its purely for entertainment purposes, it also serves as view into what a lawless world, Molles' opinion, would look like. Throughout the book, the main character experiences run-ins with marauding vandals, psychopaths, and straight-up bad people. He also describes the massive-scale looting, vandalism, and even death, with D.J. Molles expertly incorporating every detail apparent in a societal collapse. The author describes how, essentially, criminals would rule the world in event of a governmental collapse of such a large scale. The story is an allegory for events as portrayed in the story.
In the beginning of the story, when the main character discovers what the world has become over the course of a mere two weeks, he is simultaneously shocked and frightened at how much the world has succumbed in the absence of government. There is not a shop that has not been looted. There is not a corner of the street that isn't covered in litter. There are dead bodies rotting in the gutters, hastily thrown to the side of the road. I believe that the writer is attempting to show the importance of order and society.

1984 by George Orwell

The book that I am currently reading is 1984, by George Orwell. While I’m not that far along in the title, it has so far been an interesting novel. It’s about a totalitarian society that operates under a strict dictator, who controls every single aspect of each resident’s life, from what they can own, how their furniture is organized, where they are allowed to live, and where they work, to every other task they complete. The dictator, who calls himself “Big Brother,” essentially ‘plays god’ with these people’s lives. Even after everything the main character had been forced to believe under Big Brother’s dictatorship, he still finds himself wanting out of the system and defying, but unintentionally – he thinks, at least. While I am only at the beginning of the book, so far the main character has had countless thoughts that, while cannot be described as rebellious, are not exactly pro-Big Brother either. It seems as the main character, deep down, wants to defy and break the bonds of the dictatorship on his mind, but doesn’t want to admit it to himself because of his fear of the consequences if he was discovered by the Thought Police that patrol every niche of Big Brother’s rule.