Guest post by The Merciless King of Moore High author Lily Sparks
Lily Sparks is the author of Teen Killers Club (Crooked Lane, 2020), a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, Thriller Award nominee, and YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant YA Readers. It received a starred Kirkus review and blurbs from several bestselling authors and launched a series including Teen Killers in Love and Teen Killers at Large. She’s developed TV projects for MTV, FX, and Amazon, written for the CW’s Reign and Paramount’s Heathers, and currently leads character design for Adult Swim’s Royal Crackers.
The Merciless King of Moore High explores questions of the greater good, self-government, and human nature as queens, kings, student council presidents, and rebels battle for control of hearts, minds, and their town. But above all, this book is about damaged people believing in one another enough to forge a new and better happy ending.
There’s no way to turn plot screws tighter than a Closed Society Plot. What is a Closed Society plot? A story centered on a community cut off geographically, circumstantially, or ideologically from the rest of the world, with characters turning on each other to find a murderer, or a soul mate, or survive a disaster. If you love cozy mystery, dark academia, or Amish romance, you already love Closed Society. And if you’ve ever moved into a college dorm, you’ve lived it.
Closed Society is distinct from Closed Circle, (i.e. Agatha Christie trapping twelve Jazz-Age charlatans on a riverboat) because there is a sizable faction of people effected by the conflict. It’s not just an individual who must prevail, it’s a cherished principle or way of life. Closed Society plots are a crucible in which we test the eternal truths of human nature.
No doubt these stories descend from the lived experience of our village-bound ancestors, hashing out their differences to make it through a drought or winter or bitey-spider season. In an age of Door Dash and zoom calls, vicariously forging strong alliances and relying on relationships to pull us through hardship can be deeply satisfying. We’re uniquely wired for the interconnected character dynamics at the heart of Closed Society stories, and these ten are some of the best:
1. Attack on Titan/ “Monsters at the Gate” Closed Society
This is basically the platonic ideal of a Closed Society story. Rabid giants come to earth and kill almost everyone. The survivors live in the shelter of towering, concentric walls for hundreds of years until they’ve all but forgotten the horrors outside. Then one day a giant breaks through the outermost wall and they have to evacuate, shelter fleeing survivors, and figure out some way to fight back. Vivid characters, thoughtfully explored themes, and disturbing monsters make this completed anime series (2013-2023) absolutely riveting. Have never been so scared by drawings in my life.
2. Battlestar Galactica / Closed Society in Space!
When hyper-religious robots attempt to annihilate the human race in the distant future, the spacecraft that were not on the surface of earth in the first attack—pleasure cruises, an old battleship, garbage transporters—form a fleet and try to outrace the robots, who are determined to extinguish them. The real threat, however, is internal: how do they organize and unite the survivors with limited resources and no where to call home? If you need a mental escape hatch, this infinitely bingeable 2004 TV series will whisk you away.
3. The Selection/ “What If We Did The Bachelor Instead of Elections” Closed Society
In Kiera Cass’s trilogy, a host of eligible young girls are brought to a royal compound to be courted by their Prince on national television. Little do they realize, their parlor games will be interrupted by revolution as a coup against the monarchy kicks off. Media analysis meets pure prom indulgence, what makes this closed society vs. closed circle is the fact the romantic choices of the main character—a clear front runner for the Prince’s affections—will impact the looming war.
4. The Handmaid’s Tale/ “What if We Live Action Role Play The Bible?” Closed Society
I can’t speak to the series, but Margaret Atwood’s book is one of the best dystopian fictions every set to page. Rarely are the gritty details of such a fantastical dystopia conveyed so realistically, making it feel all the more horrifically plausible. The Handmaid’s Tale takes an unflinching look at what an American fascism would look like if allowed to reduce women down to their reproductive facility, and brilliantly captures how one modern woman adapts to an almost medieval lifestyle in her effort to survive.
5. Wayward Pines / “Extremely Coy About Being Closed” Closed Society
Imagine waking up in Twin Peaks and they won’t let you leave and they won’t tell you why. I truly can’t say more because I don’t want to spoil it. Blake Crouch’s very popular book series was given an excellent TV adaptation in 2015 starring SHANNON SOSSAMON, empirically the coolest woman alive. Run don’t walk!
6. The Village/ “When History Majors Go Camping” Closed Society
A small, isolated village is encircled by woods in which mysterious, carnivorous monsters roam. When one villager falls ill, his sweetheart ventures out to get medical help and stumbles on a GIANT TWIST. Though there are horror elements and psychological thrills, M.Night Shyamalan’s 2004 film is, first and foremost, an aesthetic delight and might be single-handedly responsible for the Barn Dance Wedding Reception Craze of 2005-2015.
7. Wool / “Live Here or Die” Closed Society
Hugh Howey’s .99 cent self-published ebook phenomenon changed the literary landscape forever when it released in 2011, becoming a word-of-mouth phenomenon that generated 20k-30k sales per month by 2012. Adapted by Apple TV as “Silo”, it started as a short story about an underground colony of post-apocalyptic survivors living in a repressive society in a 144-floor underground basement (the Silo in question) after the earth has gone fully toxic, whose uppermost skylight has to, ever so often, be cleaned.
8. High Rise/ “Grind Mindset” Closed Society
Sometimes a book is an escape, and sometimes it’s a trap through which the only way out is through. J.G. Ballard’s High Rise is the latter, a nauseating tour de force about an apartment tower that descends into nihilistic chaos and severe social stratification after its rich inhabitants are cut off from the real world and its real problems long enough. There are many screen adaptations of this classic, but I’ve never seen anyone do justice to the book—a personal favorite of Ian Curtis!
9. Never Let Me Go/ “Cry Your Eyes Out” Closed Society
Big breath. Going to try to make it through this description without crying. At what appears to be a rural English boarding school, the unusual importance given to art class sets our spidey-sense tingling immediately. The eventual reveal and tragic consequences of its premise have devastating consequences for the tight-knit group of students we’re invested in, and no one imbues questions of near-future technology with more human soul than Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel is a stunner, and the 2010 film adaptation starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley is well worth your time.
10. Station Eleven/ Closed Society vs. Closed Society
In 2014, Emily St. John Mandel wrote about a flu pandemic devastating the world in 2020, and needless to say she should be arrested for unlawful time travel immediately. In all seriousness, this masterful literary novel features a Closed Society versus another Closed Society—a nomadic theatre troupe that tries to hold onto their humanity by performing Shakespeare (he’s so truly timeless!)—and gets caught up with a small sect ruled over by a polygamous Prophet who preys on young girls. Then the troupe starts disappearing one by one. There’s an HBO adaptation, which please enjoy but pick up the book as well, the elegiac prose here is not to be missed!
If you enjoyed any of these Closed Society stories, you should check out The Merciless King of Moore High, out April 23, 2024. When all the adults in a small Connecticut town morph into monsters, the teens barricade themselves in their high schools and develop different societies.
Party school Moore believes magic has returned to the world and they can become kings and knights by slaying dragons. Nerdy magnet school Jefferson lives in the dark, sending out their football team to raid for canned food. When they meet again after a year, they forget their shared enemy and turn on each other.
