Good Fiction Novels Relating to our Current Times

[trailrunners]

I know this has been asked here before, but I can't find it in a search, so I'll ask again. Can anyone recommend a good fiction novel that relates to our current times? Something along the lines of "1984." I'm also interested in recommendations you might have regarding novels that deal with a post-apocolyptic world. Thanks in advance.

[tom_paine]

1. "Farenheit 451" "Animal Farm"

[knight_of_the_star]

26. Read both

They apply all TOO well to our current times ::shudder::

[lapislzi]

2. It always comes back to The Handmaid's Tale

A more chilling dystopic future I cannot imagine.

[soupkitchen]

9. I'm reading it now

Tell people it's like Victorian science fiction

[lapislzi]

10. I only hope that Atwood

is not some latter-day Cassandra who can see into the future. And that I am luckier than Offred.

[DrBB]

3. P. K. Dick's Radio Free Albemuth

...the proto-version of VALIS, and now out in its own edition.

Lunatic right-wing president Ferris Fremount takes over the US, starts declaring people "terrorists" and throwing 'em in concentration camps; the majority of citizens go on thinking nothing extraordinary has happened, nothing's changed....

Origin of the phrase you may have seen as a sigline or comment around here: The Empire never ended.

[thebigidea]

22. indeed

the EXEGESIS is also good. sic, I think.

The original manuscript on yellow paper can make your brain explode.

it happened to me.



http://www.terminalproduct.com/empireneverended.rm

[Snow]

4. Just about any by

David Brin, Sherry Tepper, Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson has started a new series that will specifically address current affairs. And look for most recent offerings from each author; check reviews on Amazon which are usually quite good.

[soupkitchen]

5. Margeret Atwood

So good she's scary.

[Zolok]

6. "Come Nineveh, Come Tyre" by Allen Drury

terrible liberal-hating novel, the last in the lugubrious "Advise and Consent" series.
But if you excise all the reference to liberals and liberalism you getr a nasty foreshadowing of the whole Bush Admin...
For the Pretentious airheaded Ted Jason read George Bush Jr.
For Fred Van Ackerman read Tom Delay
For George Watersill read John Ashcroft....

It's pretty diresome reading trust me.
:)

www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[ElsewheresDaughter]

7. and of course "A Handmaid 'sTale"?

[mkregel]

25. (shudder)

I hope to God that book will never become reality, although recent history tends to say otherwise.

[Solomon]

27. What is a "Handmaid's Tale" about? and

who wrote it.

[soupkitchen]

8. John D MacDonald. Travis McGee has some good things to say

about corruption, greed, and enviormental self-destruction.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. "It Can't Happen Here"

by Sinclair Lewis. A fictional depiction of the rise to power of American fascism in the '30s and '40s, but speaks to our times. More successful as a polemic than as a novel, but worth reading.

[Pompitous_Of_Love]

20. Excellent suggestion

And why do people always feel like they have to qualify their appreciation for Lewis's work? We haven't had a novelist-as-social-critic as sharp as him since, except for Gore Vidal.

Try "La Bete Humaine" by Emile Zola. Or any of Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

[JanMichael]

24. Good point. Lewis was a great writer of "real America" fiction.

No need to toss out the "Polemic" qualifier.

PS~ You just inspired a new thread on Jack London!

[Pompitous_Of_Love]

28. Great!

Jack has a lot to say to our times. I'm always bugging my kids about reading his books, stories and essays.

[Redleg]

12. Vonnegut's Player Piano has some similarity

certainly Huxley's Brave New World, that 1984 book by Orwell,

[Room101]

13. A must read is….........

Brave New World Revisited. Brave New World is great also, but if you want skip it and go onto Revisited. It is Fiction mixed with non-fiction and a prophetic vision that has George Orwell grinning in envy from the Grave.

By: Aldous Huxley

Here is an essay Propaganda in a Democratic Society by Huxley

[JanMichael]

14. "Iron Heel" by Jack London.

Scarier than hell. "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis and "A Handmaid's Tale" are also frightenly close to a future dystopia.

[Touchdown]

15. Dick's Minority Report.

We are now subject to arrest based on what they think we might do. Spielberg's movie was also brilliant in that he bombarded us with rampant commercialization gone amuck in the future.

Golding's Lord of the Flies is always worth a mention.

[Faygo Kid]

16. "Grapes of Wrath"

This, I believe, is the Great American Novel. And, its story of persecution is and will become the theme of a second GWB administration - God Forbid.

[GreenArrow]

17. Vigilante Man

Have you seen that vigilante man?
Have you seen that vigilante man?
Have you seen that vigilante man?
I been hearin' his name all over the land.
Well, what is a vigilante man?
Tell me, what is a vigilante man?
Has he got a gun and a club in his hand?
Is that is a vigilante man?

Rainy night down in the engine house,
Sleepin' just as still as a mouse,
Man come along an' he chased us out in the rain.
Was that a vigilante man?

Stormy days we passed the time away,
Sleepin' in some good warm place.
Man come along an' we give him a little race.
Was that a vigilante man?

Preacher Casey was just a workin' man,
And he said, "Unite all you working men."
Killed him in the river some strange man.
Was that a vigilante man?

Oh, why does a vigilante man,
Why does a vigilante man
Carry that sawed-off shot-gun in his hand?
Would he shoot his brother and sister down?

I rambled 'round from town to town,
I rambled 'round from town to town,
And they herded us around like a wild herd of cattle.
Was that the vigilante men?

Have you seen that vigilante man?
Have you seen that vigilante man?
I've heard his name all over this land.

--Woody Guthrie

[GreenArrow]

18. Revolt in 2110

Robert Heinlein. Been years since I read it, but as I recall it's pretty dystopic.

[i have issues]

19. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver...

Absolutely one of my faves. Relates to typical U.S. underhanded colonialism, with a helping of fanatical religious fervor as well...

[stanwyck]

21. wonderful book

Great choice, Kerrysissues. So much in the book that resonates now. Americans too often fail to appreciate the relevancy of other cultures. Our superiority complex causes us to make huge mistakes in foreign affairs. We don't listen well or take our time to learn. Thanks for reminding us about this book.

[thebigidea]

23. the NOVA TRILOGY from the sorely missed prophet William S. Burroughs

"Storm the reality studio - smash the control machine... word falling, photo falling... break through in gray room... towers, open fire."

Listen to the last words of Hassan Sabbah, The Old Man of the Mountain... Listen to my last words, anywhere - Listen all you boards, governments, syndicates, nations of the world - and you powers behind what filth deals consummated in what lavatory, to take what is not yours - to sell out your sons forever - To sell out the ground from unborn feet for ever - Listen to my last words any world - Listen if you value the bodies for which you would sell all souls forever

Why don't I come over with the board, and drink coca-cola and make it ?

"For God's sake, do not let that Coca-Cola thing out !"

Thing is right, Mr Whoever is responsible for that who done it...

So you on the boards could use bodies, and minds, and souls that were not yours, are not yours, and never will be yours.

You want Hassan Sabbah to explain that ? To tidy that up?

You have the wrong name and the wrong number

"Don't let them see us, don't tell them what we are doing ! "

Are these the words of the all powerful nations and syndicates of the earth ?

"Don't let them see us, don't tell them what we are doing!

Not the cancer deal, not the green deal !

Do not let that out !

As usual, Mr Luce...Short time to go. Minutes to go...

Are these the words of the all powerful boards and syndicates of the earth ?

--

also his REVISED BOY SCOUT MANUAL
and his interzone in general...

2nd the Phil Dick

toss in some Kafka,
serves 3000.