50 Book Challenge Part Five

Why hold back?

Utopian and Dystopian fiction are not about parts of human history where people's lives were spectacularly pleasant or spectacularly unpleasant. You don't call a book about Jews in WWII Dystopian fiction.

These sub-genres are about "imagined" societies and are hence under Speculative Fiction. The vast majority will specifically be under Science-Fiction (which is under Speculative Fiction) - 1984, Brave New World, Hunger Games, The Island, Never Let Me Go, etc.

Something can be both allegorical and dystopian, surely?

Or if Animal Farm is a dystopian society, it's a historical one rather than a sci-fi one.

If we're thinking about dystopian fiction by George Orwell, 1984 fits the dystopian label much better than Animal Farm does.

I've been holding back from this debate, but must interject at this point. Dystopian fiction does not necessarily mean it is set in the future. Dystopia is the opposite of utopia - an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one (OED). From that definition then, allegorical or not, Animal Farm would seem to be set in a dystopian society.

Fascicle - Animal Farm is an allegorical story about the events leading up to the Soviet Revolution IIRC so not dystopian fiction at all. Surely nobody thinks of it as a dystopian future?

Me neither, Cheerful but... you know... flashback

Cote
Yes, dystopian fiction is a sub-genre of SF. I was thinking of Speculative Fiction when I wrote that abbreviation, but since there are very few books that are arguable Spec-fi but not Sci-fi (like J G Ballard's Vermillion Sands. I can't think of another book)

I had assumed you meant Sci-Fi rather than Speculative Fiction - the latter makes sense. I can think of a few dystopian novels where possible Sci-Fi elements are too minor in relation to other elements of the book to warrant a Sci-Fi categorization (Animal Farm, for example).

Alas, not at this time in the morning.

Good to hear that neither of us are high I know 'loon' but it was the 'feathered-looking' that got me a bit worried.

Cote. Um. It's quite a complicated joke. There's an English phrase "I'm not so green as I'm cabbage-looking", which is a play on 'green' meaning naive and green meaning, well, cabbage-colour.

'Loon' is slang for crazy (from lunatic) and it's also a type of bird. So it's a pun on the phrase and the bird. Suggesting I'm not as crazy as I look for saying Best Farrar is a lovely story despite the multiple attempted murders, because Tanaqui(?) agrees with me.

I've just read three Saki stories before breakfast. He's rubbing off.

"I'm not such a loon as I'm feathered-looking"

You what? Are you high or am I?

27. Can you forgive her? Trollope (audiobook). Well, I'm still enjoying the mellifluous tones of Timothy West as I move into the Parliamentary novels. I'm finding the 19th century prose a pleasing foil to the contemporary fiction I tend to read, though feeling very 21st-centurily frustrated over the whole 'sinning against womankind' bollocks.
28. Do not way we have nothing: Madeleine Thien. Enjoyed this. Found the modern first person parts less convincing than the historic family narrative, particularly what I felt was a rather contrived way of using maths versus music as a way of interpreting the world. Very interesting about a period that I know little about too. A little unsatisfying at the end. Suffered from reading this on a Kindle as at the beginning when all the characters are being introduced I would have liked to have been able to flick back and forth more easily.

Cheerful have added to my wish list too but to be honest it is growing with a mind of its own. Short of being bedridden for a year I can't see how I will get through it!

A lovely book!

See? I'm not such a loon as I'm feathered-looking.

Ah, let the dystopian debate begin

Yes, dystopian fiction is a sub-genre of SF. I was thinking of Speculative Fiction when I wrote that abbreviation, but since there are very few books that are arguable Spec-fi but not Sci-fi (like J G Ballard's Vermillion Sands. I can't think of another book) the two terms are pretty much interchangeable. Actually, the term Speculative Fiction is increasingly used for Sci-fi because some dingbats like Margaret Atwood believe Sci-fi is about green Martians and realistic books that tell stories that might one day happen are not Sci-fi.

Cote
It is also arguably Dystopian, which is a sub-genre of SF.

Haven't read the book you are discussing but presumably you're not suggesting that dystopian literature is always a sub-genre of SF?

Satsuki - re. the electric shocks, there is an explanation within the story. It's not a wildly scientifically plausible one, but I thought it was good enough IYKWIM.

I don't think it's spoilery to say that you never hear much about it - the way the book is told you get events from the perspective of a small number of individuals, and a lot of their information is based on rumour and potentially unreliable / alarmist media reporting (so that'll be probably about 99% of media reporting of science stories ).

(There's a later event though which I thought was unrealistic even within the terms of her universe.)

I definitely wouldn't say to anyone to rush out and buy a copy, but I thought it was a good enough read given I got it from the library. Certainly not a patch on say Ursula le Guin for exploration of alternate-scenarios-for-gender-relations.

I love the sound of Brat Farrar, right up my street. Have downloaded a sample.

Currently reading Ruth Rendell's The Vault which is just about the last Inspector Wexford. I had started on Shardlake 3 but struggled and given up. I don't know why because I really enjoyed Dissolution and Dark Fire. I will go back to it in a few weeks.

I'm wilfully ignoring the NLMG debate.

22. The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences - Dr Penny Satori

I read this thanks to a thread on MN where people were talking about their unusual interests. Dr Satori was a nurse who decided to investigate NDEs in a clinical setting to find out what causes them. This book is one of the results of her PhD research. It was fascinating - it had accounts from patients she had interviewed and she used this to illustrate how people are affected by NDEs. Her concern for helping patients come to terms with what is often a profound experience shines through.
She also examines common physiological explanations for NDEs.
It was a fascinating read.

I wasn't a sci-fi reader before joining these threads. I'd always headed straight for fantasy in that section of the bookshops.

Have never read NLMG but I do find it easy to suspend disbelief in worlds which are not our own. I think this may be years of reading horror/fantasy where strange things are just expected. Doesn't stop me hating a book which leaves something unexplained though!

Change of plan , gave a bit of time to The Hare with Amber Eyes . 40 % of the way in and improving.

sadik In relation to the sci-fi plausibility conversation, I haven't been tempted by The Power for the reason that it seems too silly - how do some women gain the power to give electric shocks, if it's not too spoilery? It just seems a bit daft to me but I know it's had a lot of ahem, buzz.

I love Brat Farrar- did anyone else watch it on TV in the 80s? A lovely book! I didn't enjoy Miss Pym or The Franchise Affair nearly as much.

Just finished the Hanging Shed- thank you to whoever reviewed it earlier! I will look for the others in the series. A good detective story, put me in mind of Desmond Bagley- did anyone else use to read those?!

Sorry, that was no. 36

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Reviewed several times on previous threads - dystopian novel with religious overtones in which women develop the ability to give electric shocks, resulting in a dramatic shift in gender roles. A good page-turner, but I didn't find it particularly subtle or thought-provoking. It reminded me more than anything of one of the more run-of-the-mill books from the Women's Press sci-fi list back in the day.