Jh is right - Old Man's War is John Scalzi. I got it from a friend as a birthday present (I think it was) last year. Enjoyable book but I don't think it quite qualifies as Dystopian. Or maybe it does - depends on how you define it really. It does have a lot of analogues to the Forever War.




I don't quite follow. Allowing what to happen? Being abducted and raped? That can't be it. Allowing society to get like that in the first place? That's not that far a stretch, there are those who would go that far, without question. The society itself is pretty misogynist and got that way through the spur of their reproductive issues. All those things could happen. A Handmaid's tale is 'closer' than 1984 in that those things are believable enough.

Where it falls apart is the matter of the opposition. You would think that they could do better presented with the opportunities of the Handmaids. I'm pretty sure I could were I heading up that society's 'bad guys' (and trust me, that's where I'd be).





Particularly in such a short period of time. Never mind that 1984's assumptions don't include much at all in the way of computer systems. So who monitors all those folks from the Lower Party? Not the UP, there aren't enough of those. Not the Proles, that's for certain. Even if you had half of the LP as monitors they could only watch a person half the time - and then there are all those folks needed to watch the Proles as well.

Without an AI it just falls completely apart.




Their technology didn't seem to support creche style births, which would mean breeding by artificial insemination or some such. More logistics...



That sounds more like where the society in Anthem eventually got to, and that's one of the things that falls apart in that story. Humans just ain't built like that.