Dystopian literature

It's an interesting post, but not so good that I want to see it four times...
:duck:
 
jimbob said:
It's an interesting post, but not so good that I want to see it four times...
:duck:
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That's because this site, but no others I tried at the same time, was hanging before loading for several minutes but my post wasn't showing up either. Neither can I now see a way to delete the extra ones.
 
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Francesca R said:
I have seen Brazil a few times. I don't know which version, but I helped run the students' film society at uni and we put it in the schedule a couple of years running (which meant receiving a delivery of massively heavy 35mm reels and carting them over to our trusty projector in the lecture hall)

I did really struggle with it though. Not that it wasn't a very well done film, but I couldn't personally make dystopia and comedy mix. It actually made me shudder in several parts, right from the opening "arrest" scene of Tuttle/Buttle whomever. So I wouldn't be looking for more of that. But thanks for highlighting it anyway, and returning the memory :)
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Yeah, it was creepy, and I don't find it funny. It's such a good depiction of paranoia. The difference in endings is

The part where Lowry is sentenced and billed for his interrogation is missing from the theatrical print. Also, at the very end when Lowry is either dead or brain-dead, the theatrical fades to clouds and sky (as if he's escaped, at least in his mind) while the real version just leaves him bleakly in the silo.
 
Rrose, I was feeling facetious, hope you didn't mind...

I also have that ptoblem sometimes
 
jimbob said:
Rrose, I was feeling facetious, hope you didn't mind...
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No. Course not. It's just frustrating when it happens and you can't delete the excess posts. Just trying to cover myself so I don't look like a complete Newbie to this interweb thing.
 
Margaret Atwood has done a couple of dystopias. The Handmaid's Tale puts power in the hands of a military theocracy in a time of drastically reduced fertility; Oryx and Crake gives us genetic engineering and giant corporations.
 
The Children of Men - I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet. I saw the movie first, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book at all (there's significant difference between the two).
 
"Titan" by Stephen Baxter. US becomes a fundie dictatorship, followed by end of human race, with four or five people orbiting Saturn watching it in full knowledge they are last humans alive. About as depressing as it gets.

"Killing Stars" by Charles Pellegrino. The only alien invasion novel I ever found REALLY scary. In part because it is the only one in which genocidal aliens actually have rational reasons, and act accordingly.
 
I was going to suggest Stewart's (?) "Earth Abides," but I guess that's more post-apocalyptic than dystopian.
 
bruto said:
Margaret Atwood has done a couple of dystopias. The Handmaid's Tale puts power in the hands of a military theocracy in a time of drastically reduced fertility; Oryx and Crake gives us genetic engineering and giant corporations.
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Well I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale, so that other one sounds like a buy. Thanks.
 
I love "The Handmaid's Tale". I've read it three times.

I've just started re-reading "Mockingbird", I enthusiatically second that one too. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and "Fahrenheit 451" as well.

One I haven't seen mentioned yet is "The Age of the Pussyfoot" by Frederik Pohl.

blobru said:
Stanislaw Lem, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
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I thought I was the only one who had read that.
 
Nobody's mentioned John Brunner yet.

While he did put out a lot of hackwork, his trio of differently flavoured dystopias are pretty strong stuff. The environmental catastrophes of The Sheep Look Up (and the bitter politics surrounding them) are looking more and more prescient by the decade, The Shockwave Rider anticipated cyberpunk by a good 10 years and Stand on Zanzibar is notable for being a clear attempt at a dystopia that actually turned out considerably nicer than the world we live in now.


Tricky said:
One of my favorites is Earth by David Brin. It is a near-future sci-fi novel that extrapolates a lot of present trends such as global warming and reduced privacy. Still sci-fi, but with a whole lot to chew on.
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Dystopia? Really? The lack of privacy is considered, by most characters in the book, a tiny price to pay for the ability to discover and stop the rich, selfish bastards who are ruining the world, and national differences seem to have been overcome in favour of an environmentally enlightened global politics geared towards hi-tech, low-impact mitigation strategies. I don't know if you have a copy with Brin's afterword in it, but he's pretty clear that he was trying to create the best of all plausible futures
 
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bruto said:
Margaret Atwood has done a couple of dystopias. The Handmaid's Tale puts power in the hands of a military theocracy in a time of drastically reduced fertility; Oryx and Crake gives us genetic engineering and giant corporations.
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I'll second you on both of these Atwood books (which I read in the last year). I didn't quite like the ending of Handmaid's Tale, but really enjoyed the story premise and character depth.

Oryx and Crake can be a bit confusing at first, but is well worth sticking it out. It is kind of a "backwards written" story. I'm sure there's a literary term for that.

Being a Canuck, Atwood makes me proud ...

Charlie (typical jingoistic Canadian) Monoxide
 
You might also want to try Philip Kerr's The Second Angel - a future society where a blood-borne disease has made clean blood the currency of the privileged.
 
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