Need science fiction novels with political premises!

[shimmergal]

These should be new/current (preferably published in 2003). I'm not talking about just the SF or fantasy novels with plots revolving around political intrigue, restoring the rightful king, etc., or near future extrapolations from current political situations.

I need suggestions on novels set in worlds with unusual political systems or ideas. Heck, I'd even take some that assume a more-or-less democratic setup in far future time and/or space. (Timothy Zahn's Cobra novels are an example of this, but they such worlds are rare in SF worldbuilding.)

This is for an article. Suggestions welcome!

[lazarus]

1. A couple

A couple of Heinlein novels that are quite good at this sort of thing. Starship Troopers has a rather unique form of democracy based on an earned franchise. And The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress has a neat bit of revolution to it. I'd also look for his short story "The Logic of Empire".

Oh, and particularly his novella "If This Goes On..." about a religious dictatorship in America.

[Ediacara]

16. Stranger in a Strange Land

Focuses not really on politics, but on differing worldviews, and how a Martian will be viewed by humans who live in a theocratic "democracy."

[BeHereNow]

2. Ira Levin's "This Perfect Day"

Not new, sorry, but one of the BEST!
Hard to find though.
Also, Taylor Caldwell, "Dialogues With the Devil"
REALLY out there- but absolutely prophetic.
Also older book, and hard to find.
If you can't use them in your article, you should
put them on your "must read in the future" list...

BHN

[mclam]

3. Dune

Frank Herbert. I didn't realize this the first time read it but it was based on the British colonial occupation of the middle-east where an important element used for transportation (spice instead of oil) causes wars between the empire and a small but fanatical group of resistance fighters.
Should be top of your list if you haven't read it yet.

[AngryYoungMan]

4. Larry Niven!

Niven is my favorite sci-fi author. In real life, observing the present day world, he is, unfortunately, Republican. But this doesn't carry through in his speculative future histories.

Niven's contention is that societal ethics/morals and technological development are fundamentally connected.

His "Known Space" series (5 novels, three-odd short story collections) is a project he's been working on since the late 'sixties. It's pretty amazing in its scope: he shows societies profoundly affected by nanotechnology, alloplasty and organ donation technologies, computers, xenophobic wars with aliens, overcrowding, etc.

It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's great stuff. Niven is a preeminent leader in the field.

[AngryYoungMan]

5. Also...

It's not a novel, but I strongly recommend the "Second Renaissance" segments in "The Animatrix."

These are Japanese short films set in the fictional world of the movie "The Matrix." They are made by preeminent "Anime" filmmakers, but in English.

If you go to http://www.theanimatrix.com you can see downloadable versions of "The Second Renaissance Part I" and "Part II."

They tell the story of the machines taking over the world, in a way that provides direct commentary on our current world, Vietnam, Tianneman Square, the Middle East etc.

Very violent but very powerful and relevant stuff.

Anyway I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Khephra]

6. Am I the only one up on modern political SF? All those are old....

I guess so.

;-)

Iain M. Banks
Alastair Reynolds
Ken MacLeod
Bruce Sterling
William Gibson
Neil Stephenson


And the late PKD is always a bit political.

[flama]

11. Three cheers for Mr. Dick!

Ol' Phil might have been on drugs, but he wrote some powerful stuff.

Another Phil, if we are still into historic (not historical) SF, is the gentleman from Peoria, Phil Farmer.

I'll have to check out the new stuff, khephra. Think my latest discovery was Michael Moorcock back in the 70's. We went in different directions, though, and I haven't read him lately.

Ma

[amazona]

12. also Kim Stanley Robinson !

I like Banks' culture novels. They are truly an effort to describe a free, liberal society that still has to interact with less evolved societies. Excellent stuff.

There was some good political stuff in the middle portion of Robinson's Mars novels. All the infighting over how Mars was or was not to be terraformed. A good story.

PKD always deserves a nod for his slams against Nixon/Ferris Fremont but, sadly, is now in the "classics" category. It is hard to believe he has been gone for over 20 years now.

I don't find Gibson or Sterling political but then I didn't find Darwin's Radio (which several recommended here) particularly political either. Well, perhaps it was, looking back. I was about ready to scream if there was another damn conference or meeting in that book. Sllloooowwwww. Bear has done much better. If I want to read about meeting after meeting after meeting, I think the middle series of the Martha Quest books did it better, but of course these are not SF.

Cryptonomicon ticked off the NSA and it deserves kudos just for that, as well as being Stephenson's most powerful story to my mind.

Haven't read MacLeod or Reynolds...would you mind suggesting a couple of good titles for starters? Thanks!

[alarimer]

15. yes

Loved "The years of rice and salt". Not really SF, more alternative history-speculative fiction about what would have happened had the plague in the 14th Century killed 90% of Europe instead of 1/3. His premise was that the middle eastern and far eastern cultures would have dominated. Pretty cool book.

[Khephra]

19. I've only read bits of MacLeod

and none of Reynolds, but they're all in this group of newish politcal sf writers from the UK. MacLeod's first series had 4 different politcal futures all springing from a political disagreement in the 1970s yet reaching into the far off future. His books seem to be misunderstood by a lot of people as he uses unreliable narrators who add their shading to what's happening politically around them.

Here's some bits:

Amazon.com
A Ken MacLeod book is like a crowded college coffeehouse: noisy, bustling, a little rowdy, and packed with enough wild ideas and competing ideologies to leave you reeling. Star Fraction, MacLeod's 1995 debut, is no exception. As the first installment in the Fall Revolution sequence (followed by The Stone Canal and The Cassini Division), Star Fraction established this Scottish author's formidable talent for mixing complex politics and cyberpunk action into smart, funny stories.
MacLeod avoids heady political theorizing by always personifying his ideas in believable, often articulately passionate characters. (Or as one character puts it, "In my experience politics is guys with guns ripping me off at roadblocks.") Star Fraction's putative protagonists--a Trotskyite mercenary, a fugitive university researcher, and a fundamentalist-turned-atheist programmer--are on the run after a chance combination of marijuana, experimental memory drugs, and a self-aware firearm threatens to awaken a powerful AI on the nets, much to the dismay of the Men In Black and the orbital-laser-wielding U.S./UN. (As with all MacLeod plots, don't bother asking--it's a long story.)

With its ultrabalkanized UK and convoluted cast of neo-Stalinists, AI-Abolitionists, Christianarchists, femininists, et al., Star Fraction is MacLeod at his best--even at his first.

.....................................

In the series that started with The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod has created a future history whose genesis was an argument about anarchism between a group of left-wing students in the '70s. The destruction and renaissance of civilization, here and elsewhere in the human galaxy, turns on this argument. In the fourth book, MacLeod productively fills in some of the gaps. This is the story of Myra, Trot-turned-entrepreneur, whose nuclear deterrence-for-hire is central to the event known by some as the Fall and others as the Deliverance. It is also the story of young Clovis, part-time worker in the yard where the first space-ship in centuries is being built, part-time scholar trying to find out what Myra the Deliverer was really like.

MacLeod's readers are used to his quirky and intelligent take on the world of power politics and his charmingly cynical gift for engaging and engaged protagonists. What this book also has is a profound sense of the beauty of a simpler and stiller world; MacLeod's real gift is his capacity to see all sides of a question, even when he is sure of the answer. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

[BrewerJohn]

17. I've enjoyed Gibson's stuff

Dystopian futures marked by the triumph of global corporatism and a deteriorating environment. Still his antiheroes manage to retain some humanity. Virtual Light is the most memorable of his novels for me...after the classic Neuromancer, of course. Also think highly of the stories in the collection Burning Chrome.

[Kellanved]

7. Peter Hamilton

Maybe not the best example but very well done (if you don't mind the ending):
Night's dawn Trilogy: Far future with psonic humans living in a consensus with their ancestors and habitats and "normal" humans, controlled by shady powers.


And all those mentioned by khephra, especially Stephenson.

[leftyandproud]

8. Atlas Shrugged

heehee...just kidding

don't slap me...
I know everyone here hates Ayn Rand

;)

[jus_the_facts]

9. Darwin's Radio is a good one...and....the sequel Darwin's Children...

.....by Greg Bear....Radio was published in 1999 and won the 2000 Nebula Award and Children was just published....I really liked 'em!:)

[Runesong]

10. The Handmaid's Tale

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/atwood157-des-.html

[Sentath]

13. And her new one

Where she has said that the "what if?" in this book is "what if we just keep going the directions we are now?"

Oryx and Crake

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/atwood/

[SOteric]

14. The Sten novels by Chris Bunch and Alan Cole

Politics, Empires, militarism, wars, struggles and espionage for the sake of a fuel source. Good and evil, right and wrong.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

18. Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed

Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed . Well no one else was current. This book is exactly what you are looking for.

[Against ME]

20. Contact by Carl Sagan

is very political. The world working together for one goal, exploring the benefits and detriments of such a thing. Not to mention the relevancy of religion to someone representing a religious world.

And a very good book

[BritishHuman]

21. The Serrano Legacy novels by Elizabeth Moon

Most of the action takes place in a constitutional monarchy/corporatocracy - but on their borders are a mafia-like region, a technocracy, an insanely over-macho "New Texas" setup, and a variety of anarchies.

Over the longer story arc, it delves into the effects of super-longevity on a society built on hereditary titles - how can you inherit when your parents refuse to die? How can you advance in the military when the upper ranks are 150 years old and have many healthy years to come?

Pretty interesting, and sounds like just what you were asking for...

[Friar]

22. Stand On Zanzibar

Most good SciFi is political in nature. I guess the most obvious being 1984 and Brave New World.

[TrogL]

27. Also, The Sheep Look Up

but most Brunner is excellent - and political

[Lisa]

23. Mike Resnick -- "Santiago"

More than a decade old, but his revelation that "The Democracy" isn't, is more and more like today, alas.

Apparently there is a sequel out this year.

[FloridaJudy]

24. Political S.F.

Dang near any of Louise McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan" novels. Miles is a treasure: a crippled dwarf who somehow manages to succeed in a Warrior society that looks down on physical imperfection (and who gets laid with heart-warming regularity).

Sheri S. Tepper's *Grass*, *Raising the Stones* and *Sideshow*. Feminism meets Feudalism: Feudalism loses.

Of course, Ursula LeGuin's *Left Hand of Darkness*, *The Dispossed* and *Four Ways of Forgiveness* are classics of Liberal ideology.

It wouldn't hurt to check out Heinlein's *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* and *Starship Troupers* if you want a right-wing libertarian view-point.

[Samuraimad]

25. The Mars Trilogy

Red Mars
Green Mars
Blue Mars

Almost done with the first one....talk about philosphy and politics!!

[BritishHuman]

26. Ooh, I remembered another one! The Vorkosigan books!

By Lois McMaster Bujold. The political background is mostly Barrayar, which has come out of feudalism to the galactic stage after beating back an invasion. They still have an Emperor and a Council of Counts (from Accountant, not the original noble title) - other political systems range from Cetaganda's gene-ocracy to Beta Colony's liberal paradise to the corporate setup on Jackson's Whole.

And they're cracking good reads, too!

[Kellanved]

29. They're great

Among the best comical/romantic SF.

[Snow]

28. Okay, guys, step aside.....

All those are good, but old to ancient. Brunner is very good, but that was Long ago. Mike Resnick is good, his daughter Laura is excellent. But.......two names:
Tanya Huff
Sherry Tepper

That should do you.

[Snow]

30. Knew I'd thinkof another - David Brin....

he's also done some reviews on salon.com of the star wars movies, esp the culture that lucas has set up.....devastating!