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Well I couldn't stay away forever now could I? SilverWarder Send a noteboard - 08/09/2009 08:42:37 PM

There are a few of those I haven't seen before. I'm assuming Forever War isn't the Haldeman book that came out last year/ year before, right?


It is by Joe Haldeman but it came out back in the 70s. I have one of the original printings (which sadly has had the cover come loose but it was second hand to start). I wasn't aware that there was a sequel/re-issue although I had heard rumours of a sequel.



Huh. I don't know... I was in high school when I read this one. As you say, hard to really understand your opinions from then.


I think I was just out of HS myself when I read Anthem, but even so the tone of it bugged me. A worthwhile book, but still not quite 'there'.



*nods* So you do agree with Paul that 1984 was creepier than A Handmaid's Tale?


I'd say so. One of the issues I had with Handmaid's Tale was the total lack of real resistance to the regime. There are groups mentioned, and it is a totalitarian society to be sure, but the Handmaids aren't particularly brainwashed or indoctrinated. Just grabbed and abused. Given that, it seems like they'd be an obvious choice for assassins and saboteurs by rebels. They're right IN the houses of the most senior people in the theocracy and they are repeatedly raped by nutbars. Seems like a C-4 Burning Bed solution just waiting to be taken advantage of.

So yeah, for creepiness 1984 gets my vote. At least partly because of the 'otherworldliness' of it, which makes the suspension of disbelief easier to maintain. (Logistically it's an utter joke though).




Indeed. I have to say, though, that certain aspects of dystopian literature bother me- not necessarily all the freedoms, but a few of them, such as "excision of the imagination" or "getting rid of sexual need".


Those are places where the thing falls down. "Getting rid of sexual need?" That's hardwired. You CAN'T get rid of it without some kind of chemical castration of the entire populace - and then how would your society continue?

Sadly, imagination excision probably would be possible with the right (or more correctly horribly wrong) upbringing. However the resultant 'citizen' wouldn't be good for very much.
May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

Old Egyptian Blessing
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