Comments on: More Classic Dystopian Fiction

By: Eric Lund

Eric Lund — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 18:50:42 +0000

A couple of details that make The Handmaid’s Tale border on horror for me:
1. The name Offred should be read “of Fred”. She isn’t even allowed to have her own name. Fred is the name of her Commander.
2. The setting. If you are familiar enough with the area (which I am, and I know Greg is), you can work out where it is from the handful of details provided. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read the book, but it’s one of the last places you would expect to find eager theocrats in the US.

By: izen

izen — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 09:38:33 +0000

Dystopian novels are almost invariably primarily concerned with the present. They use the metaphor of a future to make a point about the actions of society now. Aspects may be caricatured, stereotyped and exaggerated from the present into the future not as a prediction, but as a means of changing the perception of that aspect in the present. A push for action in the here and now, not a hard prediction of things to come.

The best writers often identify common recurring problems in forming human civilisations and governance. So however specific and targeted the novel may have been at the time, it is often easy to find contemporary parallels. Given the tendency for history to repeat its mistakes it is unsurprising that books directed at those mistakes should have enduring application.

Books that focus on a possible future rather than use a future to critique the present tend to be far more optimistic. YMMV on how Utopian the future may appear in work that is about what could be rather than the potential problems of what is.

Examples of such real optimism about the future rather than pessimism about the present can be seen in the Ian M Banks ‘Culture’ series, or Beggars in Spain by Kress. Of course the obvious original of the optimistic Utopian outlook has to be Star Trek.

By: Eddie Janssen

Eddie Janssen — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 16:52:34 +0000

Der Untertan (The Loyal Subject) by Heinrich Mann (1914)

By: EpiPete

EpiPete — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 03:55:54 +0000

“seminal work”?

By: BBD

BBD — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 20:05:26 +0000

City of Bohane - Kevin Barry.

By: BBD

BBD — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 19:13:28 +0000

The Water Knife - Paulo Bacigalupi.

By: Julian Frost

Julian Frost — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 18:53:50 +0000

I’ve read both “Animal Farm” and “1984”. I share with C. S. Lewis the belief that the former is superior to the latter.

By: john

john — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 18:49:43 +0000

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is available and it was one of my purchases recently as a present last xmass.
There are some chilling aspects now being repeated this century, our grandfathers must be upset in their resting places.