Brave New Worlds, edited by John Joseph Adams, is a book that I picked up recently and have started reading. It's meant to be a collection of dystopian stories. I'll let you know what I think of each story as I go through them.
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The first story is The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. If there's a story in this book that you've already read, this one is almost certainly it. I read it first in high school, about thirty years ago. That's OK, I can always read this story again, it's one that has stayed with me down unto the present day. Also, the nerdboy in me likes to think about the world the story takes place in - it comes across as a sort of alternate world in which the idea of blood sacrifices in order to ensure good crops has survived into modern small-town America. Not that modern small-town America doesn't demand the occasional "blood sacrifice" of sorts even in our world - they're just not usually so blatant about it.
The second story is "Red Card", by S.L. Gilbow, a writer about whom I know little. The book says he's an Air Force man who currently teaches English at a public high school in Norfolk, Virginia. the story has nothing to do with soccer. Instead, it's set in a world much like our own, except that for some reason, the government randomly and anonymously distributes "red cards" to various citizens. Each red card comes with a pistol and some ammunition, and entitles the bearer to one murder, free of legal consequences, which they can commit whenever they want. The story doesn't go far as a story, per se, it's more of a thought exercise derived from the old gag about "If you could commit murder and get away scot free, would you do it? Could you?" and so on.
The third story is "Ten With A Flag", by Joseph Paul Haines. It's set in a world where a totalitarian government offers pregnant women the chance to take a test in which a computer predicts with 99% accuracy what kind of person their unborn child will be. The story concerns a level 6 couple (the higher your level the more useful you're considered to be to socoety) whose child-to-be tests out at a level 10 - the highest possible level and an indication that their child will be someone extremely useful to society. However, there's also a "flag" on the child's report, and an indication that there will be some kind of sacrifice involved with the child. The nature of this sacrifice is what the story is about.
The fourth story is "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", by Ursula K. Le Guin. I've heard of her of course, but I'd never read any of her stuff before. It's an interesting little piece, about a beautiful, joyous, peaceful town, whose beauty, joy and peace all are based on a terrible secret. and which raises the question, "What would you be willing to ignore in order to ensure a peaceful life?"
The Lottery was adapted into a Dark Shadows storyline (1841 Parallel Time). I didn't read the short story until after I'd seen it on Dark Shadows. (The prose version was better, frankly.) Red Card sounds very familiar, as if I might have read it during the short time I had a subscription to OMNI magagine in the '80s. When was it written? I'm wholly unfamiliar with the other two.
I've only read The Lottery recently, after the Baron mentioned it on another thread. Great little story. There's a truth in it, in that every society seems to sacrifice people external or internal to it in order to keep things 'normal' and 'prosperous'. In The Lottery, they get to look in the eye of the victims and don't 'other' them at all - they are people just like them - which is refreshing!
As it's an oldish story, I'd thought Red Card might be too, but it seems to have been published very recently - 2007. So that's a good mix of stories.
I've probably read quite a few Ursula Le Guin stories, but I loved her Earthsea books as a teenager. They were very superior fantasy stories. I read the original trilogy, but I should read the later Earthsea books as they are sitting around the house.
The fifth story is "Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account", by M. Rickert. Ms. Rickert is another author about whom I know little, except that she was apparently first published in 1999. It's set in a near-future USA, in which most women's rights have been revoked, and women who have had abortions are publicly executed. It's told from the the POV of a young girl whose mother went on the lam, rather than stay and be executed like a good citizen. It's an interesting story - I can't bring myself to believe that the majority of Americans would tolerate such a system like this - I hope I am not being naive, there.
The scenario sounds very like The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. I've never read it, but the film starring Robert Duvall is excellent.
There's a certain plausibility in it. So many societies are built on controlling women and their sexuality like this. There was a government minister in Ireland in the 50s who lost his job for trying to bring in a healthcare/medical supervision scheme for pregnant mothers and young children. The church and the society of the time thought the state had no right to interfere in 'private matters' ie things that gave them control over women. It's coming at it from a different angle but it was still about victimising women and keeping them ignorant. That was only in the 50s.
WhenI was growing up I thought the US was all Playboy magazine and Marilyn Munroe, but I was disappointed to discover that there is a strain of Puritanism and prudishness going back to the pilgrims in the culture too. (A weird dichotomy!) It'd just be a matter of tappig into that, in the right circumstances.
My personal theory of US history derives from the fact that the two original English-speaking colonies in what is now the USA were Plymouth, founded for religious reasons, and Virginia, which was largely a money-making venture. I think those two threads have run through our history ever since, sometimes in conflict, sometimes cooperating.
The sixth story is "The Funeral", by Kate Wilhelm, who is apparently quite well-known, though I'm not familiar with her work. It's set in a world where large numbers of people are classified as non-Citizens, and thus property of the state. The state decides these people's futures for them while they're still quite young. The story focuses on a girl in a state-run school as she begins to find that she cannot live the life that is being planned for her. It's an OK story - not entirely hopeless, but a little on the bleak side.
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The third story is "Ten With A Flag", by Joseph Paul Haines. It's set in a world where a totalitarian government offers pregnant women the chance to take a test in which a computer predicts with 99% accuracy what kind of person their unborn child will be. The story concerns a level 6 couple (the higher your level the more useful you're considered to be to socoety) whose child-to-be tests out at a level 10 - the highest possible level and an indication that their child will be someone extremely useful to society. However, there's also a "flag" on the child's report, and an indication that there will be some kind of sacrifice involved with the child. The nature of this sacrifice is what the story is about.
I've only read The Lottery recently, after the Baron mentioned it on another thread. Great little story. There's a truth in it, in that every society seems to sacrifice people external or internal to it in order to keep things 'normal' and 'prosperous'. In The Lottery, they get to look in the eye of the victims and don't 'other' them at all - they are people just like them - which is refreshing!
As it's an oldish story, I'd thought Red Card might be too, but it seems to have been published very recently - 2007. So that's a good mix of stories.
I've probably read quite a few Ursula Le Guin stories, but I loved her Earthsea books as a teenager. They were very superior fantasy stories. I read the original trilogy, but I should read the later Earthsea books as they are sitting around the house.
The fifth story is "Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account", by M. Rickert. Ms. Rickert is another author about whom I know little, except that she was apparently first published in 1999. It's set in a near-future USA, in which most women's rights have been revoked, and women who have had abortions are publicly executed. It's told from the the POV of a young girl whose mother went on the lam, rather than stay and be executed like a good citizen. It's an interesting story - I can't bring myself to believe that the majority of Americans would tolerate such a system like this - I hope I am not being naive, there.
The scenario sounds very like The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. I've never read it, but the film starring Robert Duvall is excellent.
There's a certain plausibility in it. So many societies are built on controlling women and their sexuality like this. There was a government minister in Ireland in the 50s who lost his job for trying to bring in a healthcare/medical supervision scheme for pregnant mothers and young children. The church and the society of the time thought the state had no right to interfere in 'private matters' ie things that gave them control over women. It's coming at it from a different angle but it was still about victimising women and keeping them ignorant. That was only in the 50s.
When I was growing up I thought the US was all Playboy magazine and Marilyn Munroe, but I was disappointed to discover that there is a strain of Puritanism and prudishness going back to the pilgrims in the culture too. (A weird dichotomy!) It'd just be a matter of tappig into that, in the right circumstances.
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