One of the goals of Dystopian literature is to satisfy. Satisfaction is where every “utopia contains a dystopia, and every dystopia contains a utopia”. Ishleen Singh, an author and reviewer on Reedsy Discovery, used the word “satisfy” to describe the dystopian world created in Surrogate Colony. She felt a sense of justice, or reward, for reading. Perhaps there is a deeply ingrained desire in our psyche to make order out of chaos, even in a world (imaginary or not) where chaos is the one constant. Satisfaction comes from the sense that justice has been served; where all is not lost; where even on the most minute scale, there is a semblance of karmic logic.Creating a future world, similar but unlike the one we live in now, with its own internal power dynamics, rules, norms and atrocities, is a tall order. The world created in Dystopian literature must stand for some internal logic, or else nobody would care to read about it and it would fall flat, like a one-dimensional shape.Humans love complexity, but the complexity must make sense; one must be able to see the horror in the perpetuation of the story. In Surrogate Colony, Adriana is intrigued by the complexity of stories and characters that remind her of them, like when we are introduced to Isidro:“He closes the door behind him before I can respond. I stand up and look around, trying to make sense of Isidro’s gentleness. A few minutes later, he enters with a pouch and a warm flask. The pouch is full of dates. The flesh is meaty and satisfying. The flask is filled with warm cinnamon milk. “This will give you energy, but please don’t mention it to anyone.” He looks intently at me. “I will get in trouble if you do.” Something about his mannerisms reminds me of a story I wrote in primary school about a friendly troll who decided to befriend a little girl who was lost in a maze and needed to find a way out to get to her family. A kind spin on the ancient Greek Minotaur myth.”