Stephen King once had big words of praise for an impactful dystopian fiction book that showed real-life scenarios can be as terrifying as any pure horror book out there. That book is the 2018 dystopian YA fiction by father-son duo Neal and Jarrod Shusterman. The book dives into a near future in which California has completely run out of water after conservation measures have failed, and neighbor turns on neighbor as the dire reality of a life in which water is the scarcest resource sinks in.
King is clearly no stranger to dystopia, having written a few classics in his time, including The Stand, which is getting its own anthology series, The End of the World As We Know It, and The Dark Tower series, with Roland’s world having moved on. Granted, King’s own more dystopian novels have introduced an element of horror, whether subtle or overt, but that doesn’t mean horror, fantasy, or even sci-fi elements need to be present in a dystopian book for it to be an excellent example of the subgenre. That’s the case with Dry, which takes a real-world premise and stretches it to all-too-possible ends.
Stephen King’s Praise For Dry By Neal & Jarrod Schusterman Is Spot On
The Book Is Being Shopped Around As A Potential Movie
King’s praise for Dry was straight to the point: “Dry, by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman: Terrific, well-written novel about California running out of water. Couldn’t put it down.” King isn’t the only one who has really loved the book since he gave that review in 2018: currently, Dry has 4.5 stars on Amazon and a 4.0 on Goodreads, where it’s gaining praise for its inventive plot and great characters. The synopsis for the dystopian YA book shows exactly how unique that plot is:
The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers.
Until the taps run dry.
Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.
The father and son adapted their book into a screenplay, which was acquired by Paramount in 2018 after a bidding war between half a dozen studios. Unfortunately, as was the case with many projects, Neal Shusterman revealed (via Reddit) that Paramount scrapped the adaptation in 2021, feeling as though the dystopian book-to-movie adaptation would be too much for a world already in the grip of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, it appears the Shustermans are still working on getting a new production and distribution deal for the book.
Why Dry Is Just As Horrifying As Any Horror Book (& Scarier Than Some)
California Running Out Of Water Isn’t Crazy Fiction – It’s Already Happened
The story sounds like a far-future climate change dystopia, the kind seen in Roland Emmerich movies. While the fictional story is told on a broader scale, though, California running out of water is a very real concern – it’s already happened in localized areas. California has been hit with three dry periods bad enough to be officially categorized as droughts in quick succession: 2007-2009, 2011-2017, and 2020-2022. The first of those is the first time California ever declared a statewide emergency. The second drought was the longest in California’s history. These droughts back-to-back led to some dire consequences.
Related
10 Movie Dystopias That Are Eerily Close To Reality
Dystopian films often provide a look at some sort of crazy alternate future where humanity takes some wrong turns, these movies are closer to home.
For starters, the second drought, which ended up seeing California hit a level of drought that land hadn’t previously seen in 1,500 years, killed millions of trees throughout California. That, in turn, led to devastating, historically bad wildfires: 9 of the 10 largest wildfires in California’s history have happened since 2017, and 17 of its 20 largest since 2007. The dry conditions both meant there was less water to take from reservoirs to fight those fires, but also that the ground was dry as tinder, setting up the perfect conditions for historically bad wildfires.
Even now, California and Arizona fight over who gets the rights to the Colorado River’s water – a river that has been unsustainably low in the past few years.
On top of that, the water scarcity led to several legal battles between Indigenous groups, other citizens, water management outfits, and agricultural workers. Small, more rural towns in California, such as Coalinga, Teviston, and Cambria, turned on taps to find their water had run dry. Even large cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have been on and off water management rationing. Even now, California and Arizona fight over who gets the rights to the Colorado River’s water – a river that has been unsustainably low in the past few years. Stephen King knows that the most frightening fictional dystopias come from a grain of truth. In the case of Dry, there’s enough truth to be terrifying.
Stephen King
Discover the latest news and filmography for Stephen King, known for The Dark Tower series, The Stand, IT, The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, Misery, the Bill Hodges trilogy, and more.
- Birthdate
-
September 21, 1947
- Birthplace
-
Portland, Maine, USA
- Professions
-
Author
, Screenwriter
, Producer
, Director
, Actor