Dystopian SF?

[psikeyhackr]

That's my motto: education is the opiate of the masses.

Definitely an interesting point.

School is about psychologically conditioning people to tolerate boredom.

Sci-fi was my escape from education in grade school and it caused me to learn way more science than the nitwit nuns were teaching, which was NONE. One nun told my sister that science and religion don't mix.

psik

[PeterWilliam]

I can see that. While I read Veracity and made an apathetic mental note of assent to its being called sci-fi, I was rebelling against the notion on a subconscious level.

I recently got to interview the author of Veracity. Her responses just came back today and I finally got to post the interview. Bynum's personal story, and the thought she invested her story with, is compelling. While I can say it was a great interview, I can't actually claim any of the credit.

[Chuffalump]

Found this thread with the Forum search option after a conversation with my OH on whether all dystopia stories are SF even if they contain none of the S in question. My position was that all dystopian tales fall into the SF genre but it looks like they may have a category all of their own??? At least I think that's what is being mooted here?

I got myself backed into a virtual corner after I used the idea of talking animals as a SF concept in Animal Farm. Hmmmm, is Animal Farm a dystopia in miniature? Either way I knew I was on shaky ground.

[Fung Koo]

Found this thread with the Forum search option after a conversation with my OH on whether all dystopia stories are SF even if they contain none of the S in question. My position was that all dystopian tales fall into the SF genre but it looks like they may have a category all of their own??? At least I think that's what is being mooted here?

I got myself backed into a virtual corner after I used the idea of talking animals as a SF concept in Animal Farm. Hmmmm, is Animal Farm a dystopia in miniature? Either way I knew I was on shaky ground.

Personally, I think Utopia/Dystopia is its own category.

There is a long running debate about how to categorize Animal Farm. It's too accurate to Stalinism to be a satire, exactly, and it's not really a parody. It certainly is a sort of dystopian society in the end, but in the beginning it's not. It's certainly got a moral so it's certainly a fable, and it's definitely a parable of sorts, but it's not a good moral, exactly, nor an overly good lesson.

It's just dang good, is what it is.

[robot17]

forgot to mention robopocalypse from daniel wilson is also a dystopia and those others stories we only men or women star dying or become sterile from some desease and show us a sad horrible dystopia in a world of 99.9% men or just women, horrible!

i opened a subsection of this subject of world of only men or women in this forum too.

[psikeyhackr]

Personally, I think Utopia/Dystopia is its own category.

There is a long running debate about how to categorize Animal Farm. It's too accurate to Stalinism to be a satire, exactly, and it's not really a parody. It certainly is a sort of dystopian society in the end, but in the beginning it's not. It's certainly got a moral so it's certainly a fable, and it's definitely a parable of sorts, but it's not a good moral, exactly, nor an overly good lesson.

It's just dang good, is what it is.

We read it in high school. I never regarded it a science fiction and never heard anyone call it that. Most just said it was political satire.

psik

[Hitmouse]

Animal Farm is a satirical political allegory. It is also about a dystopia. It is not SF but could be fantasy at a stretch (talking animals etc.)

[PeteMC]

4. Murray Constantine's [Katharine Burdekin] "Swastika Night" (London: Chatto & Windus) classic dystopia with emphasis on, for example, genetic engineering, brainwashing, censorship, destruction of the family. Science Fiction about Genetic Engineering Reproduction is done in the laboratory, with people systematically conditioned for various strata of life. Sex and all the senses are the bases of media exploitation. Literature, art, and philosophy are suppressed, production and consumption are glorified, and the god is Ford (or Freud). Workers are kept content through the drug "soma", and a "savage" is kept on an Indian reservation as a museum exhibit. Bernard Marx, of the Psychological Bureau (one of the ruling Alphas) feels isolated, his Alpha Plus friend Helmholtz Watson is creatively restless, large-breasted Lenina Crowne disgusts Bernard and bores Helmholtz, so they bring the savage John onstage, protest against soma, and are summoned by Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. The controller is an ex-radical himself, who now loves science most. Bernard is drugged, Helmholtz exiled, and John (ambivalent over Lenina) commits suicide. Harsh, ironic, fantastic, and unforgettable. Murray Constantine's [Katharine Burdekin] "Swastika Night" [London: Victor Gollancz, 1937; Old Westbury NY: The Feminist Press, 1985] anti-nazi dystopia

That's Brave New World, surely? I think Swastika Night is some sort of alternate Nazi history if memory serves, but admittedly I haven't read it.

[DDCOrange]

Perhaps we are getting a little too carried away with categorization and trying to force these stories and novels into neat little compartments. Sometimes I'll favor a story that just doesn't "fit" for that very reason!

Surely we can describe a book (or movie, play or any other medium) that we like to a friend without resorting to a ten second soundbyte. We get enough of that nonsense from political leaders thank you and it's gotten a bit infectous.

No criticism intended, just an observation...