Adam Sternbergh, author of Dystopian novel Shovel Ready, asked whether readers are burning out on the Dystopian novel. He goes as far as suggesting that perhaps the next great novel will be a Utopian one. Emily Temple, writing at Flavorwire, explains why Utopias don’t make good novel settings:
The reason that utopian novels are far and few between is that a utopia is, on a very basic level, just not a good topic for a novel. Intrinsically, utopias have no problems, so there is no meaningful conflict for the novel to play out — and most novels require meaningful conflict of some kind.
