Dystopia: themes and novels

ITT: We discuss dystopian themes in literature and life; discussion and sharing of favorite dystopian works Dystopia: A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening...Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that many readers on this board are fans of dystopian fiction. Most, though not all, works of cyberpunk - and to a lesser extent, much sci-fi - literature are inherently dystopian. Examples of simplified, broad tropes in cyberpunk: usage of the digital world/VR as an alternative to the real world; the digital noosphere as an escape using the digital world/VR/technology to combat the antagonists, which are often the institutions that have contributed heavily to the forces that have made the real world dystopian class struggle, often due to or exacerbated by the use of technology (or lack thereof); alternatively, class struggle between AI and humans or aliens and humans The thing that really draws me to reading dystopian fiction is that it often scares me for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that it's often easy to find more congruence between fictional dystopias and the state of the world today. Similarly, some of my favorite works don't have to incorporate something humanity has not yet experienced to arrive at a dystopian future: they just need to give current trends a little time. (Pic related is my favorite example of this.) Secondly, I enjoy exploring takes on the human condition as a reaction to living in a dystopian world. (Again, Atwood is very good at this, and the two most famous dystopian novels - 1984 and Brave New World - have the humanity of their characters as a major area of focus.) One of my favorite examples of this is the novel World War Z (let's just all pretend the movie never happened.) What I really enjoyed about the novel is that the zombie apocalypse is a vehicle for Brooks to explore the reaction humanity has to the apocalypse, Studs Terkel style. In these ways, dystopian fiction can be extremely prescient (ie, 1984 and BNW are increasing applicable every day.) It can serve as a warning. I personally hold the books pictured as my favorite dystopian story. Apparently, Atwood is not everyone's cup of tea, and depending on your beliefs, I can understand that. However, I really adore this series - though the first book is an order of magnitude better than the two sequels - because Atwood didn't need to invent something new or take any real creative liberties to create this dystopia. Everything that's dystopian in this series is just current trends iterated further down the pattern. Similarly, for similar reasons (and to incorporate more forms of fiction) I want to give a shoutout to the Metal Gear Solid series. Metal Gear Solid 2, for example, predicted something very similar to the current state of memetics, both in the saturation of memes (many of them junk or regressive) and the agencies that create context and act as gatekeepers (Google, Facebook, and CIA/DOD tendrils, i.e Minerva Institute, In-Q-Tel, ATAP/ Building8, various thinktanks and media institutions at the very least influenced, if not controlled, by the CIA/DOD/abc's). The paramilitary warfare of Metal Gear Solid 4 only seems to be increasing in likelihood every day. Why do you enjoy dystopian fiction, lain? What are some of your favorite works?

Which cyberpunk books would you recommend me, Lain? I did not enjoy Neuromancer in the least, while the world was very interesting, the characters weren't, i did not care what would happen to Case or Molly, they seemed like generic characters from a B movie and it was very tiresome to read about them. The only character i liked in the whole book was the Finn. After that i don't remember reading any other cyberpunk books, any recommendations are welcome.

Hey OP, I liked those books too, I agree that the stories often times hint at a possible frightening future, its interesting since atwood basically described what could hapen if political deregulation paired with genetic modification became so commonplace that one rogue scientist could end it all. With influences such as childhoods spent in the wired. Another genre of sci-fi that I enjoy would be what I would call Post-Dystopian, mainly because it deals with what happens when there is no longer a distopian society. On the level of the human condition, this can be darker stories like "the road" but on the sci-fi side, I would include short stories such as "the machine stops" "I have no mouth and I must scream" and ayn rands "anthem" which deal with the total loss or rebuilding of mankind after it got screwed up by being too techy, sortof like lessons learned on how to not screw up our reliance on the wired. And to you bloodcat, I would recomend Heinlein, If you like military stories, starship troopers (deals with the nature of service and drive, both personal and as a society), If not, look at "beyond this horizon," which deals with a society where data analysis dictates the direction for humanity. Also there was a book that I read years ago, I cannot for the life of me remember the name, the scene was people connected into the internet directly, and basically all human interaction was supplemented by it, which caused the internet to gain awareness. The way the internet was accessed was by what could best be described as AR/VR and the protagonist visualized the internet as a sea (of data) and the more intelligent you were, the better you could access the internet. Does anybody know the name of this book?

>>215 Well, the big ones are 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World, but here's a few others I enjoyed. 'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison A Very Private Life, by Michael Frayn The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg Anvil of the Heart, by Bruce T. Holmes Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Rollerball Murder, by William Harrison Along the Scenic Route, by Harlan Ellison Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison And a few comics: Grendel: God and the Devil, by Matt Wagner Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kushiro V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore Nemesis the Warlock, by Pat Mills Bad Boy, by Frank Miller >>216 Apart from Neuromancer and the other Sprawl stories by Gibson, Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams Market Forces, by Richard Morgan Little Heroes, by Norman Spinrad Fairyland, by Paul J. McAuley And comics: Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis Appleseed, and Ghost in the Shell, by Masamune Shirow Frame 137, by James O'Barr Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kushiro (again. If you'd asked for post-apocalyptic stories I'd have put it three times, lol) Ronin, by Frank Miller Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro for me is the pinnacle of the genre. Even describing the basic premise of the book is a massive spoiler so I really don't know how much more I should say. But I guess I'll just add that I've read this book both as a young teen and much later as an adult and I found myself loving it even more as an adult despite how horribly depressing it is.

>>236 I have owned this book for a few years, and never gotten around to it because I've unanimously heard it's one of the most devastating books people have ever read. It may very well remain there a little longer; if I'm gonna continue reading and living sad fiction, I should probably make sure there's some hearty Russian lit in there. >>224 This is a good and comprehensive list. Adding "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" to your Ellison suggestions - this is one of the great works of AI induced dystopia; Ellison is an amazing writer. The short story is well worth reading, and there's a great point and click DOS game, but this audiobook of Ellison reading the story is by far the most disturbing rendition of this horrifying story. (WARNING: brief interlude of noise significantly louder than speech at 1:40) Also, 2BR02B is another short story by Vonnegut set in a dystopian future. I appreciate all of these recommendations, lainons! >>236 I have had this book for several years but have always put off reading it, because I consistently heard that it's one of the most devastating stories people have read. I'd like to read, but I think I'll have to make a stop at some Russian lit before reading/living any more depression fiction.

>>224 Oh, I forgot The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. It's become a bit of a lit class staple, but it's still good, lol.

Honorabru presento for all you Lainanons, especially the ones in last week's #agm irc: this site is a comfy cultural treasure that cannot be allowed to follow Tzuki's advice to his more gullible fans. First published by a tiny press back in 2001 and promptly went nowhere, I've added a dedication and converted the raw first draft, which was finished early in 1999, into *epub and Reset my insignificant identity to zero in tribute to Lain's noble decision: please forgive the dreadful samizdat formatting. I kind of like it... Dystopian? Most certainly. Speculative Fiction short story? Definitely. Cyberpunk? Hmm, now where would I possibly go to find experts to arbitrate the schway/non-schwayness of the piece... I have two other pieces, one shorter, one longer, which kind of fit within the genre, if anyone able to stomach this one would like to read more, I'll drop them here over the next few weeks.

>>246 > I've unanimously heard it's one of the most devastating books people have ever read I've read it two years ago. It has some sad moments but I would never call it "most devastating".

>>215 >Most, though not all, works of cyberpunk - and to a lesser extent, much sci-fi - literature are inherently dystopian Excuse me while I get pedantic for a moment. The term used by Delaney, Gibson and others has been "heterotopia". 1984 would be a clear dystopia but most cyberpunk is set in a future which is a more complex tapestry of good, bad and in between.

The fact the age we live in is dystopian/cyberpunk is perhaps its only redeeming feature.

>>260 >The fact the age we live in is dystopian/cyberpunk is perhaps its only redeeming feature. All we can do is schway the foundations...

while not specifically cyberpunk or dystopic, Slaughterhouse Five raises some interesting questions related to the field. pentadimensional creatures, postwar absurd philosophy, and more

Recommending a non-cyberpunk series that definitely matches the whole "cataclysmic decline in society" criteria. Gene Wolf's "Book of the New Sun". It's a four-book sci-fi fantasy set in Earth's distant future, at a point in time where our sun is slowly dying. Humanity is entering a stage of decline after reaching the stars and travelling to other worlds, and we settle back into some sort of fuedal system led by monarchs and various official guilds. The story follows, and is narrated by, a torturer named Severian who gets wound up in various power struggles and plots. I won't really be able to say more than that without spoiling key parts of the story. I really enjoyed reading this series, and it has a way of telling a story that I really appreciate, wherein it doesn't spoonfeed the reader with the lore and background plots. If you're paying attention and reading into events you'll pick up on all the politics and advancements etc.

>>215 > all dat Atwood... I feel kinda lame because I've heard her name my whole life and seen her books on other people's bookshelves but never bothered except for a couple of essays, plus I love hearing her speak on the radio which is literally about twice a month here. Now the whole world is talking about her because of some TV series and I feel so far behind (...and you've probably guessed I'm Canadian).

>>1531 I haven't seen the show (the netflix original a handmaidens tale SJW adventure),but the series seems to have distorted the message, the dystopian themes in her madaddam series were about technology becoming the object that society uses for superficial reasons instead of meaningful ones, some of the themes include genetic engineering (oryx and crake established on this theme) where the use of gene modification similar to CRISPR causes all kinds of things like animals that grow in the shape of food, and sheep that are grown to make neon wigs and other cosmetic animals. The overall message was that mankind should use technology to help others, not to let megacorps ruin everything by turning life itself into a product, the year of the flood was cool because it focuses on cyberpunk eco-hippy preppers, they are actually well written, but have some mature themes that some readers may find a bit extreme (CP and its human aspects play a role in one of the stories)

>>1532 > I haven't seen it but will post a long winded opinion of it anyway > better throw in SJW as well, that'll be sure to win support You'd absolutely hate the author as a person; she was a red tory who's turned into a Green Party supporter in her old age. She's also been an outspoken feminist her whole life.

>>1533 Jokes on you faggit, im also a green party member and a feminist, I just hate the whole SJW cancer mentality ruining our image

>>1534 You are also an "SJW" then. You just don't know it.

>>1535 >You are also an "SJW" then. You just don't know it. I dont do it for the bragging rights as a SJW would. also according to the green part page: >We are grassroots activists, environmentalists, advocates for social justice, nonviolent resisters and regular citizens who’ve had enough of corporate-dominated politics. Government must be part of the solution, but when it’s controlled by the 1%, it’s part of the problem. And i am a feminist in the sense that women deserve equal treatment for equal tasking performed and in the eyes of the law, in other words all humans should be treated equally so long as they are doing the same thing based on the given criteria. I dont believe that women are special because they were born with vaginas, and i don't think that special interest groups should become major determiners for policy, because its an unsustainable practice, which is the reason why I do in fact get hate from many actual SJWs

>>1535 Don't compare PC with those SJW bastards, they've taken everything we fought for and perverted it into just another form of oppression. Pack of entitled Millennial snowflakes aping their predecessors and completely missing the point. Generations of previous activists were capable of winning over their enemies with dialogue, these soykaflords just attack anyone who disagrees with them.

>>1538 It was always that way, you just didn't notice when you were the teenager doing the same things.

>>1539 >it was always that way what kind of mature, inteligent men who isnt afraid to accept the cold hard truth are you who deem the last 60 years of social progressives as "SJWs"?

>>1543 The only difference is tumblr hasn't always existed as a vehicle for it.

>>1536 >i am a feminist in the sense that women deserve equal treatment for equal tasking performed and in the eyes of the law Looks like your job is done in the west for the most part, ignoring the parts where men are treated as lesser. There is a lot of work to be done in African and Middle Eastern countries however. >>215 One dystopian theme in literature is unrelenting attachment to an ideology to the detriment of everyone.

>>1545 Statistically speaking, that's simply wrong. There are still gender based wage gaps no matter what you read on 4chan.

>Metal Gear Solid 2 This may be the best of the lot. The justification they give for what they do is that it's their responsibility as rulers to prevent people from getting hurt, and their chosen method is to prevent them from accessing information they deem harmful. It's essentially the "think of the children" mentality taken to its logical conclusion, and it perfectly represents what modern society is about. Of course, in the MGS continuity, the Patriots legitimately believed in their own propaganda, whereas in the real world it's mostly only believed by useful idiots, while the rulers understand that they're doing what they're doing to gain power and nothing else. There are a soykafload of useful idiots, though. >>1532 >CP Let me guess, it's more "waaaaaah anyone who admits the truth that people under 18 have sexual thoughts and this Reefer Madness-level fearmongering crap about how they're going to be abused and traumatized if they're allowed to be sexual with someone over 18 has no real evidence is a menace to society!" Then again, what else do you expect from a feminist hag jealous of teen girls' hotness? Ephebophobia is pretty fuarrrking dystopian IMO. This idea that the government, feminazis, neo-Nazis, religious idiots and pseudointellectual, politics-pushing academic retards are somehow the ultimate authority on who's mature enough to control their own bodies is fuarrrking disgusting. "Think of the children" has done more to stymie the maturity of the youth than anything else. Of course, any book that told the truth about this issue would be pulled off the shelves, because - guess what - we live in a dystopia. >>1538 >they've taken everything we fought for and perverted it into just another form of oppression. This seems to be a running theme in Western society. >>1546 No there aren't. Statistically speaking the wage gap is completely nonexistent when you control for factors like maternity leave and women generally choosing different, lower-paying jobs than men.

>>1547 Get a load of this pedo foaming at the mouth here.

>>1547 > Let me guess You haven't actually read it but you have all that to say about it anyway. You know, something like 60% of people "like", reblog and forward news articles they haven't actually read either. Do you do that too?

>>1548 >liking sexually aware teenagers is pedo Get a load of this self-appointed morality policeman not having a single argument to refute anything I said. >>1549 >reblogging and forwarding anything >being on social media at all Social media is one of the primary engines of dystopia. It's a way of clamping down on political dissent by attempting to engineer a hivemind.

>>1550 Thank you for so eloquently stating what the majority of Lains already believe about social media. The fact remains, you just critiqued a book you haven't actually read.

>>1551 Well, it's admittedly not really a proper critique. I just guessed at what's in the book because that's the only way of handling the issue that I've ever seen any book use, because again, if it didn't, it wouldn't be allowed on the shelves. Expecting an honest, unbiased look at it is too much to ask from today's hysteria-driven social climate. To me, if you're going to address an issue at all, you should look at it comprehensively, which means exploring the views of the people who don't agree with the mainstream. No author in America or the UK is allowed to do that on this issue, and increasingly for other issues as well. If it doesn't have a comprehensive look at any social issue it tackles, it's uninteresting to me as a reader.

>>1552 > I just guessed at what's in the book > To me, if you're going to address an issue at all, you should look at it comprehensively Just listen to yourself. I'm not paraphrasing either, those are direct quotes. By the way there have been other SF writers who broached the topic of adolescent sexuality (rather graphically) and were NOT burned at the stake for it. SR Delaney for one.

>>1554 Perhaps "guess" wasn't the correct word to use. You don't "guess" that a basketball will fall to the ground if it's dropped, even if you don't actually watch it fall. You know from experience what it's going to do. >By the way there have been other SF writers who broached the topic of adolescent sexuality (rather graphically) and were NOT burned at the stake for it. Define broaching the topic. Was it between two teens or between a teen and an adult? Somehow I doubt it was the latter. If you want to define the topic very broadly then every young adult romance novel broaches it. You can depict teens together, but if you had a depiction of even something very common and legal almost everywhere, like 16 and 21, the burgerstani political correctness brigade would throw a soykaffit and have you crucified.

>>1555 You're so wrong it's unbelievable. Dhalgren, for example, features an ongoing sexual and romantic relationship between two adults in their 20s and a 15 year old. That's not his most controversial work either. Hell it wasn't even controversial for that but for utterly unrelated reasons due to the conservative element of the SF community at the time. Start actually reading literature before getting angry about its suppression. Go ahead now, read the wikipedia article and pretend you know what you're talking about.

>>1556 If I wanted to, I could send an email to Buzzfeed right now and inform them of this "revolting rape apologism and exploitation advocacy and abuse oh femjesus it's so horrible everything I don't like is literally rape Anita Sarkeesian is God" and any writer who wrote what you're describing would no longer have a job, a publisher, or an agent inside of 24 hours. >at the time This is important. People weren't always as easily offended as they are now.

>>1547 actually read the book and a direct quote from the book >This was how the two of them first saw Oryx. She was only about eight, or she looked eight. They could never find out for certain how old she’d been then. Her name wasn’t Oryx, she didn’t have a name. She was just another little girl on a porno site.

>>1557 >any writer who wrote what you're describing would no longer have a job, a publisher, or an agent inside of 24 hours. Except everyone knows the things he's written and I guess he can't lose the professorship he already retired from. Let it go, man. No one is oppressing you. Everyone in 2017 is in some race to prove that they're the most oppressed or something. At least educate yourself on the topic next time. Contrary to what you believe, intellectual discourse in the west does not take place on platforms like Buzzfeed, and it continues unhindered despite whatever it is you're paranoid about.

>>1546 The main industries where there are large wage gaps are porn and sports. The former, women are paid far more and in the latter men are paid far more. Both of these gaps are fueled by testosterone making men physically more powerful and more inclined to spend money to look at porn. However, making men extremely homosexual and effeminate would solve your feminism here.

>>1555 We could just stop letting the country that uses chemical weapons on children only to feign outrage at collapsing foreign states allegedly doing likewise dictate what we are allowed to say or think. Burgerstan is just going to devour your country with its abhorrent foreign policies anyway. The least we could do is not passively accept their "global hegemony".

>>1561 North Korea will protect us.

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits. After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people. Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.

>>1559 >people invading your bedroom and telling you you're not allowed to have sex with a perfectly willing partner who's fully informed about sex due to having been through sex ed isn't oppression k then >Everyone in 2017 is in some race to prove that they're the most oppressed or something. Some of us actually have evidence. >Contrary to what you believe, intellectual discourse in the west does not take place on platforms like Buzzfeed Nobody with any sense believes that intellectual discourse takes place on Buzzfeed. Problem is, most people, and especially most Americans, don't have any sense. A substantial portion of Americans believe Buzzfeed is the pinnacle of journalism. That's enough to qualify America as a dystopia right there. >and it continues unhindered despite whatever it is you're paranoid about. Does it, though? Professors today routinely complain that they're not allowed to pursue certain avenues of research because too many people get mad at their evidence-based conclusions. This has been going on for a while now, really. Look up what happened to Bruce Rind on the subject of age of consent if you want to see what happens when someone produces completely valid, thoroughly researched evidence for a conclusion American "moral" guardians don't like. That happened back around the turn of the century and it's only gotten worse since then. Don't look on Wikipedia though, because their article about it is full of feminist retardation.

>>1558 /r/ing the other two if you have them

>>1569 Here's the whole trilogy in one. Normally I find that annoying, but I found that when I read it, I just wanted to vacuum up the whole thing.