Nick Ripatrazone writes about a few dystopian novels published in the past few years. In Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, a group of actors struggle to survive and elevate the spirits of other survivors they find. Enter the villain, a religious huckster.

This leader of a doomsday cult reveals an interesting trope in the dystopian universe: it’s not enough for the world to end. That plot element is too grand, too distant. The characters need an immediate, human foil. Catastrophe turns them inward.

It’s the inner story that is most compelling.