Brave New World

When writing the forward to Fray, a graphic novel set in the future continuum of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe, creator Joss Whedon took a moment to identify the inspiration behind his comic’s dystopian setting. “My visions of the future are always pretty much the standard issue,” he said. “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there are flying cars.” This is a simple, honest distillation of the logic and appeal behind dystopian fiction, but no less powerful for it.

When certain things bother us about society – the rich/poor divide, the machinations of faceless government agencies and rogue corporations, the prospect of science roaming free of ethical restraint, the shameless promulgation of reality television, the body image myth – our reaction isn’t just predicated on the way things are, but is intrinsically tied to a fear of what they are becoming. Beyond the immediate danger we perceive (say) the cult of celebrity and the threat of global warming to represent, there are future concerns, the lurking, anger-spawning notion that some awful apotheosis is yet to come; that unless we can slam the brakes down, things will inevitably become much, much worse.

The classic examples are, of course, George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but these are far from the only instances of dystopian storytelling; indeed, there is an entire subgenre of speculative fiction dedicated to dystopian scenarios. It’s well-known that Huxley took his title from a line in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one spoken by the naïve, sheltered Miranda on first meeting other (duplicitous) people. Combining as it does a perfect admixture of savage irony and honest innocence, her famous words have been referenced many times in the context of both dystopia and geekery. But regardless of whether your normal tastes run to science fiction, the speculative or the fantastic, dystopia remains a powerful narrative trope, and one that is difficult to remain unmoved by.

On a superficial level, dystopia can be about the abandonment of normal social mores: the world collapses, and especially in young adult narratives, it’s an excuse to get your wildness on. As author Scott Westerfeld wrote in reviewing The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan’s debut YA dystopian zombie novel, “Teenagers love a good apocalypse. Who doesn’t? All those annoying rules suspended. Society’s pretences made irrelevant. Malls to be looted. School out forever.” And there’s certainly something to be said for that approach. Hell, I’m a sucker for it. As per Whedon’s theory and, for that matter, The Fifth Element, there are frequently flying cars, and who’s going to argue with that? But, as in Ryan’s novel, there is also a different approach, one that focuses more on the reality of the situation and the problems which, now that the novelty has worn off, have become mundane – though potentially no less horrific – for the characters.

The fact that dystopian narratives are often rooted firmly in the worries of the day only adds to the element of relevant social commentary. Neither Huxley’s work nor Orwell’s has gone out of vogue, and frankly, given their content, I’d be worried if they did. Because asking questions – of government, of ourselves, and of technology – is at the heart of every dystopian story. The idea that we might one day cease to be interested in such parables is just another kind of dystopia, and not even an uncommon one. When we worry about the state of the world and where current trends might lead us in five, ten, fifty or a hundred years, the real horror, as per Huxley’s Brave New World, is less about the continuance of the trend than the fact that it might become so commonplace as to no longer merit questioning; that we have accepted it as a social normality either completely disassociated from any ethical discussion or, worse still, transmuted into the basis of a new, reprehensible moral paradigm.

So, if you are interested in arguments about society, government and technology, aware of dystopia as a powerful means for discussing same but unsure of where you might turn for a new narrative fix, allow me to make the following recommendations, in no particular order:

1. Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras – Scott Westerfeld

Tally Youngblood is a teenager living in a futuristic city-state. In Tally’s world, everyone receives a physical upgrade – full plastic surgery – at age 16, turning them from an ‘ugly’ into a ‘pretty’. Tally wants more than anything to have her operation and join her friends in the pretty world, but when she befriends Shay, a girl determined to keep her own face, she is forced into confrontation with the dark side of her own, seemingly perfect society. A series of four expertly written novels about the cult of beauty, image, and the perils of conformity.

2. The Hunger Games, Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen is a citizen of Panem. Every year, to commemorate the conquest of each of the twelveDistricts by the Capitol, a reality TV show, called the Hunger Games, selects two adolescent tributes from each District – one male, one female – to compete in a televised battle to the death. The winner – singular – earns money and food supplies for the people of their District; the losers are killed onscreen in the arena. Bets are placed on who will win; stylists from the Capitol design costumes the tribute teams; there are interviews with chat show hosts and bids for popularity so that sponsors might be moved to send food and supplies during the contest. Raw, dark and spectacularly written, these books are not to be missed by anyone who thinks reality TV is steadily going too far.

3.  Little Brother – Cory Doctorow

Marcus Yallow is a tech-savvy teenage boy who has the misfortune of being wrongly arrested in the wake of a terrorist attack on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. Interrogated by the American government, imprisoned, and finally released several days later, Marcus finds that his best friend, Darryl, is still locked up. Under surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security, Marcus takes a stand to fight back, trying to piece together what happened to his friends while staying off the radar. But with a virtual police state trying to keep him quiet, what can one kid do? A novel with a powerful resonance in the current political climate, Little Brother is about wrongful arrest, technological and moral freedoms, torture, government secrecy and the rights of the people.

4.   Vulture’s Gate – Kirsty Murray

Bo is, quite possibly, the last girl left alive in a world where disease has rendered women unable to breed more women. Callum is a test-tube boy raised by two fathers. When both children find themselves stranded in the desert of this post-apocalyptic world, their respective carers either dead or missing, they decide to travel to Vulture’s Gate, one of the last remaining cities, in search of Callum’s parents. But Bo is in danger: everyone wants the last girl, and they are only too happy to see her separated from Callum. How can they survive when pitted against terrorism, roaming gangs and hostile science? And what is the secret of Vulture’s Gate?  A brilliant novel of human nature, science, morality and choice.

5.   The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway

The Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it is – unthinkably, impossibly – on fire. As our nameless narrator rushes with his best friend, Gonzo Lubitsch to save the day, the story takes us back into both their earlier lives, their choices and the string of events leading ultimately to the Go Away War, the destruction which followed and, finally, the moment the Pipe caught fire. Among other things, which include ninjas, pirates and the Matahuxee Mime Combine, this is a book about abuses of power, human rights, war, technology and the corporate machine. It is also completely awesome.

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