science fiction

Reading Dystopian Fiction During a Real-Life Dystopia

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It feels like a dystopian time as we witness the dictatorial Trump regime’s multiple vile actions, Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran (probably with U.S. approval and U.S. weapons), Israel’s 20-month genocidal war (again with U.S. backing) on innocent Gazan civilians after the horrors of October 7, Russia’s continuing war on Ukraine, yesterday’s assassination of a liberal Minnesota politician by a right-winger, the existential threat of climate change, and more.

Trump this month of course sent over-the-top military force into Los Angeles against the wishes of California’s governor (despite Republicans often blathering about “states’ rights”) to crack down on a small, mostly peaceful resistance to his administration’s brutal roundup of people of color — whether they’re undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, or longtime American citizens. Which has broken up families, and served as another test for Trump to see how far he can install his Republican brand of fascism. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who’s the son of Mexican immigrants, was even thrown to the ground and handcuffed by agents for trying to ask a question of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, the Trump cabinet member best known for heartlessly shooting her 14-month-old dog. Then came yesterday’s grotesque (and grossly expensive) military parade in Washington, DC, that was held partly to “celebrate” the cruel Trump’s birthday. A parade, by the way, that drew many fewer spectators than Trump wanted — though his constantly lying administration is already inflating the numbers.

All quite convenient for distracting Americans from things like Trump’s support of a Republican congressional tax bill that would mostly benefit the already wealthy and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s recent post on X (formerly Twitter) saying Trump is in the Epstein files for repugnant past pedophile behavior with underage girls.

Anyway, my thoughts in our ultra-depressing era naturally turned to dystopian fiction and a desire to do a post about that genre — which can also include apocalyptic novels. But there was the nagging recollection that I had focused on dystopian literature before, and, sure enough, a search turned up a piece by me for The Huffington Post book section way back in 2012 — two years before starting this WordPress blog. So, I decided to post a revised/updated version of that 13-year-old piece today. Here goes:

War. Death. Despair. Oppression. Environmental ruin. Yup, when it comes to demoralizing literature, dystopian literature is a downer of downers. Yet some of us find that genre soberly appealing. Why?

For one thing, we read about rather than live through dystopian lit’s fictional bad stuff — though real life is plenty negative now (as this post has noted) and fictional bad stuff is often an extrapolation of a troubled actual world. Still, many 2025 readers are not as much “in the arena” as the beleaguered characters in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian The Hunger Games.

And there’s a certain “rightness” in reading about a harrowing society. Why? Because we know that politicians, military leaders, and corporate moguls are capable of doing awful things — meaning dystopian novels feel kind of honest.

In addition to The Hunger Games, excellent dystopian/semi-dystopian novels filled with carnage, inhumanity, hopelessness, and more include (among others) Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, Stephen King’s The Stand, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Albert Camus’ The Plague, Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Jack London’s The Iron Heel, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam.

The above books of course take different approaches — some very dramatic, others understated, some set in the near future, others in the distant future, etc., etc.

Sometimes, authors of dystopian literature temporarily ease the tension a bit with humor, as Atwood does with the clever genetic-engineering terms she coined for Oryx and Crake. And dystopian books can have seemingly utopian elements — with things appearing not too bad even though they ARE bad; Brave New World is a perfect example. There are even novels, such as H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, that mix dystopian and utopian elements.

We admire the best dystopian novels because they’re written well and depict people with whom we can relate. We can be fascinated by the terrible things those characters face, and by how some react bravely and some react cowardly or with resignation. We, as readers, have a hard time averting our eyes from the misery even as we’re enraged by what despots and other vicious officials are doing to citizens. And we’re compelled to turn the pages as we wonder if rebels and other members of the populace can somehow remake a wretched society into something more positive. We also wonder who will survive and who won’t.

Last but not least, some of us might admire dystopian fiction because, by giving us worst-case scenarios of the future, we have a smidgen of (in vain?) hope that our current society can be jolted enough to avoid those scenarios starting or continuing in real life. Like some of the characters in dystopian novels, we might feel a little halting, against-all-odds optimism — such as that inspired by yesterday’s 2,000 or so anti-Trump-regime “No Kings” protests attended by millions of Americans in all 50 states, the resistance of politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the resistance of institutions such as Harvard University, the holding to a belief in the rule of law by some judges (including a percentage of those appointed by Trump), and so on. But it’s a difficult fight against very powerful forces.

All that said, I don’t blame anyone for preferring escapist fiction during a time like this. I’ve upped my quota of those kinds of books myself, while making sure to still read some weightier literature.

Any favorite dystopian novels? Why do you like or not like that genre? Thoughts about the current situation in the world?

Misty the U.S. cat: “I nap in the morning near an Australian novel because it’s night in Australia.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — containing election results, news about smartphones in classrooms, and more — is here.

Why Sci-fi Should Be Given a Try

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A conversation with myself:

“I read Octavia E. Butler’s riveting Kindred and Andy Weir’s compelling The Martian this month. I should write a blog post about science fiction!”

“But you haven’t read THAT much sci-fi. You’re no expert!”

“Well, if I define sci-fi loosely enough to also include speculative fiction, time-travel novels, apocalyptic books, and so on, I think I could pull together something credible.”

“Okay, but try to avoid discussing things like ghost stories, horror novels, dystopian classics, and fantasy fiction. Those aren’t quite sci-fi (I think), and are better as topics for their own blog posts.”

“Noted. And don’t forget that people who may have more sci-fi knowledge than I can add their thoughts in the comments area.”

“True — and people with even less sci-fi knowledge than you (if that’s possible 🙂 ) can comment, too. After all, most of us have at least watched Star Wars movies and/or various Star Trek offerings.”

“But I haven’t seen The Man With Two Brains.”

“So, how are you talking with yourself?”

Sci-fi is fascinating. Most of us are curious about what the future might bring, about what the past was like (in time-travel books that go backward), about space travel, about faraway worlds, etc. And of course sci-fi set in the future is often a way to metaphorically and exaggeratedly discuss how things (such as social conditions) are in the author’s present time.

The sci-fi genre has its roots in the 19th century (if it dates back further, please correct me in the comments area). Mary Shelley was definitely a pioneer, with her iconic Frankenstein (1818) and apocalyptic The Last Man (1826) — the latter set in the 2090s.

Edgar Allan Poe flirted with time travel in his 1844 story “A Tale of Ragged Mountains,” and Jules Verne began his legendary career in the 1860s. Robert Louis Stevenson put some sci-fi elements in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Edward Bellamy went utopian sci-fi with Looking Backward (1888), and Mark Twain plunged full-on into time travel with his pessimistic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).

Then H.G. Wells closed the 19th century and opened the 20th with his incredible run of sci-fi classics The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), and The First Men in the Moon (1901). Yes, the two lunar travelers in that last book went inside the moon.

A few decades later, various 20th-century masters arrived on the publishing scene. You know their names: Isaac Asimov (who I was privileged to meet in 1986), Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, the still-living Ursula K. Le Guin, etc. And you know their prominent works — such as the Foundation novels (Asimov), The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke), Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), and The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin).

Past and present sci-fi notables also include Douglas Adams, Orson Scott Card, Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, Ann Leckie, Anne McCaffrey, Joanna Russ, and Connie Willis, among others.

Some of the above have also written in other genres, but achieved much of their fame from sci-fi work. Then there are authors who primarily focus(ed) on more “general” fiction, but delve(d) into the sci-fi realm on occasion. One current example is Margaret Atwood, whose self-described “speculative fiction” includes works such as The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. Also, Marge Piercy went partly sci-fi with Woman on the Edge of Time, as did Virginia Woolf with Orlando. Kurt Vonnegut is by no means a pure sci-fi writer, but there are certainly elements of that genre in his novels such as the time-travel-tinged Slaughterhouse-Five. The same can be said for Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand.

Some novels — such as Neil Gaiman’s American Gods — mix sci-fi and fantasy. Others — including Cormac McCarthy’s The Road — contain apocalyptic scenarios with some sci-fi aspects.

The Martian? The Wall Street Journal called it “the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years,” and the 2011 novel certainly has many classic sci-fi trappings: space travel, a disaster, smart/stranded protagonist, an epic fight for survival, plausible-sounding technology, etc.

Kindred (1979) is a fascinating/searing fictional work that looks at slavery and more through a sci-fi/time-travel lens as protagonist Dana (an African-American woman) is repeatedly pulled from 20th-century California to America’s pre-Civil War South.

What are your favorite sci-fi novels? What do you think of the genre?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.