6. Messiah - Gore Vidal
Messiah is arguably one of Gore Vidal's most unfairly neglected books, and an unfairly neglected dystopia at that. Messiah follows the collapse of Christianity and most of Islam as a new "fad" religion sweeps the Western world. Written in 1954, Messiah is another spookily prophetic vision of how mass media will change (and now has changed) our world. The novel follows Eugene Luther's account of the new "Messiah", John Cave. Cave is a mortician who brainwashes the masses via television into believing that death is a holy state, and therefore much preferable to life. Vidal explores America's tendency for religious extremism, as his followers start to call themselves Cavites, and the ease with which a new indoctrination could sweep the Western world through mainstream media. Whilst Cave's religious doctrine sounds insane from the outset, Vidal convincingly shows us how the 'masses' could take it on with waspish and witty satire. Messiah's religious themes are distressingly similar to infamous religious groups such as Heaven's Gate, which managed to convince members to commit mass suicide in 1997, and looks at what would happen with Christianity's stronghold dropped for something potentially far more sinister.