who else loves/shudders when reading margaret atwood's visions of the future?

[shugah]

i'm reading "The Year of the Flood" at the moment. i can't believe the imagined future in this book is even more frightening than the one in "The Handmaid's Tale." maybe because it is even more believable?

i would want to have a rakunk as a family pet tho. wouldn't you?

[saltpoint]

1. Margaret Atwood is a wizard.

Her talent seems to be almost unlimited.

An amazing person.

[Duer 157099]

2. Who are the authors that are writing about great futures?

It occurs to me that I cannot really think of any, at least with any credible basis.

Why must sci fi be so bleak? Or am I mistaken?

[shugah]

4. have you read margaret atwood?

i don't think she is categorized as a sci-fi writer. her books look at where we are now and then lay out a scenario for the logical conclusion. and she does it chillingly well!

as to your inquiry about great futures - harlequin romances, maybe, or the secret...try chicken soup books.

contemporary literature generally reflects the society it serves.

[Duer 157099]

6. No, I haven't. I think I just jumped to the concept of sci fi

because I knew that anyone writing about real stuff wouldn't be so foolish. The only place such an optimistic future *could* exist is in sci fi.

Now I'm depressed.

[shugah]

8. i would suggest "The Handmaid's Tale"

atwood does write about "real stuff."

but there may or may not be a happy ending. it depends on how you look at such things.

[Dorian Gray]

10. There are some elements of sci fi

in her novels, I suppose, but she often writes of a futuristic dystopian society. I've only read three of her novels, but I love them.

[EmilyKent]

It's not, it's very optimistic.

But gloom and doom sells on the mass market, and optimism doesn't.

[Warpy]

3. I've just reread a book that haunted me when I read it as a kid

It's a short little number by Shirley Jackson, http://www.amazon.com/Always-Castle-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0143039970/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282453025&sr=1-5

It details the descent of two sisters into lives as recluses. It's not all that artistically written and my adult mind can pick holes the size of that creepy, half burned mansion in the story line, but it is still haunting because you tend to buy why these women become more and more isolated and wacky. The punch line is what started them on the path, in the first place.

It's one of those books that sticks with you, no matter how dismissive you were when you'd been reading it.

Any fast reader can get through it in a couple of hours.

I'll think about Atwood's latest. If it's anywhere near as horrifying as "The Handmaid's Tale," it should be a great read.

[shugah]

7. it is a great read

so far. i haven't finished yet.

it's not, i think, as horrifying as "The Handmaid's Tale," because it is far closer to what we can see. but that actually makes it more and less horrifying - we've already accepted so much.

even tho i've not yet finished the book, i will recommend it.

i will look for the shirley jackson book!

[Fumesucker]

5. I'm reading "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi right now..

It's at least as horrendous as Atwood's books..

"The Windup Girl" is a Nebula winner for 2009 and a Hugo nominee for 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl

The Windup Girl is set in the 22nd century: Global Warming has raised the levels of world's oceans, carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices. Biotechnology is dominant and mega corporations like AgriGen, PurCal and RedStar (called calorie companies) control food production through 'genehacked' seeds, and use bioterrorism, private armies and economic hitmen to create markets for their products. Frequent catastrophes, such as deadly and widespread plagues and illness, caused by genetically modified crops and mutant pests, ravage entire populations. The natural genetic seed stock of the world's plants has been almost completely supplanted by those that are genetically engineered to be sterile.

The current monarch of Thailand is a child queen. The capital city is below sea level and is protected from flooding by levees and pumps. The three most powerful men in Thailand are the Somdet Chaopraya (regent for the child queen), the chief of the Environment Ministry General Pracha, and the chief of the Trade Ministry Akkarat.

The ne plus ultra of dystopian SF though in my opinion is SM Stirling's "Draka" alternate history..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination

Historical background

The Draka books were written and published shortly after apartheid South Africa succumbed to intensive international pressure and was forced to adapt itself to the rest of the world's current norms of racial equality. Though Stirling never made an explicit connection in any public statement, what the series clearly depicts is a diametrically opposite scenario - implausible in the view of many critics - whereby a "Super South Africa", founded upon manifest, utter inequality, eventually succeeds in imposing its own norms on the rest of the world and extinguishing the very concepts of democracy and equality.

Draka society

Origins and demography

The world of The Domination diverges from our world at the time of the American Revolutionary War, when the Netherlands declares war on the UK, resulting in the loss of its Cape Colony to the British. After defeat in Revolutionary War, the Loyalists who historically went to Canada are instead resettled in the new Crown Colony of Drakia (named after Sir Francis Drake) in South Africa, taking their slaves with them. Thousands of Hessian German mercenaries who fought on the Loyalist side are also given asylum there. The Crown Colony of Drakia (later, the Dominion of Draka) is an aggressive militaristic slave-owning society reinforced over the course of the 19th century by Icelanders fleeing their island after 1783-84 Volcanic devastation. 25,000 Icelanders offered asylum in Drakia, arriving 1783-86. French royalists, 150,000 defeated American Confederates and other reactionary refugees. The much earlier Dutch Boer settlers are completely assimilated by these subsequent immigrants. The genealogical lineage of both the original Boer and Southern Loyalist settlers is almost overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Germanic and Celtic although later immigrants are French Protestant Huguenots fleeing persecution from Roman Catholics, and then the aforementioned French aristocrats seeking sanctuary from the French Revolution. Any religious beliefs, affiliations or doctrines brought by earlier settlers are soon abandoned by them, but are seen as useful to control serfs under them. This 'tool' becomes a favoured method of the Draka. The Draka capital city is Archona, on the site of our own world's Pretoria.

[rusty quoin]

9. For years I have been an Atwood fan. I will check this one out. n/t