Science Fiction warnings about police states

[EstimatedProphet]

This is in reference to this thread about "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury. Seems like there's a lot of warnings about what could become of us under police states in SciFi. I recommend, beside "A Sound of Thunder":
The Man in the High Castle
Radio Free Albumuth-both by Philip K. Dick
Of course, 1984 by Orwell-perhaps we should rename it 2004
Also: Animal Farm, for the mechanics of how police states come about. (Clinton=Comrade Snowball!)
Others too numerous to mention by me. Must reading for DUers! Anyone want to add to the list?

[CrownPrinceBandar]

1. "Oath of Fealty" - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

"Chung Kuo" series by David Wingrove - Fascinating vision, but a little heavy on the jingoism and misogyny.

[Bozita]

2. "Fahrenheit 451" -- on book burning

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=150402004


Without literature, how would you retell the best of stories?

RAY BRADBURY
FIFTY years ago, in The Nation magazine, I explained my love of writing science fiction. Some weeks later, a letter arrived, signed in a spidery hand, "B Berenson, I Tatti, Settignano, Italia". I thought: This can’t be Berenson, the great Renaissance art historian, can it?

The letter read: "Dear Mr Bradbury: This is the first fan letter I’ve written in 89 years. Your article on why you write your particular fiction is so fresh and different from the usual heavy machinery of literary essays that I had to write you. If you ever touch Italy, please call. Bernard Berenson."

From this letter grew a friendship in which I gave BB a copy of my new novel, Fahrenheit 451 in which, in the distant future, books are outlawed and any that are found are burned - 451F is the temperature at which paper burns. In the book, the wilderness Book People memorise all the great books, so they are hidden between their ears.

Berenson was so fascinated that at lunch one day he said: "Why not a sequel to Fahrenheit 451 in which all the great books are reprinted from memory. Wouldn’t it be that all would be mis-remembered, none would come forth in their original garb? Wouldn’t they be longer, shorter, taller, fatter, disfigured, or more beautiful? Instead of angels in the alcove, might they be gargoyles off the roof?"

more...

[lolly]

22. Bradbury a Bush supporter

The odd thing is, Ray Bradbury gave an interview about 2 years ago in LATIMES (I believe it was the 40th anniversary of his book? Or 50th?)

Anyway, he called Clinton one of our worst presidents. I think he even added obscenity to the mix.

Went on to say how great it was that Bush had been elected--he really liked the guy, he was great, etc. etc.

If you re-read "F451," one of the things that will strike you is who takes the blame for all the book burnings.

It's those damn minorities. He was blaming everything on political correctness before the campus neocons go ahold of this tactic in the 80s and 90s. Remember, too, that in the 50s the kind of language minorities were complaining about was pretty damn awful--probably books that claimed blacks were naturally inferior and so on. And of course, those minorities were encouraged by a tax-hungry government.

Odd, however, how much of the novel rings so true. Look at the use of sports and spectacle to distract the populace from important issues; can you say Janet Jackson and Super Bowl?

I still do think it's a great book, and I think all Americans should read it. But I think it should prompt discussion on watching out for fascism wherever it comes from, not just assuming it comes from whomever you disagree with politically.

[camero]

3. Brave New World- Aldous Huxley

Another good one.

[Don_G]

4. Forgot Isaac Asimov?

The Russian-born "Jew" who signed-up for WW II and proceeded to "collect" a couple of PhD's in Physics and Bio-Chemistry?

[Red Louisiana]

6. whoah

erm, Animal farm is the Trotskyist version of the goings-on of the Early Soviet Union.

I really don't see Clinton espousing the ideas of the revolution, or Bush talking about Socialism in One State B-)

[Lostmessage]

8. Bush has too low of an IQ

He could never be on the level with Clinton or Trotsky.

Bush is a Moran :grr:

Animal farm now that's another story Bush is trying to change the world and become dictator of the universe.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. No, but...

doesn't the continual balming of Clinton for every possible thing remind you of Sonwball, and how the animals became trained to blame Snowball every time something happened? Not a literal analogy, but it is a good comparison IMO

[Lostmessage]

26. Yes it does

I read the book and watched the movie. I can't say that I liked either one because they made me feel bad.

[camero]

7. Ah, Asimov

He actually laid out the process of the post-modern police state in "I, Robot". Brilliant book.

[jus_the_facts]

21. Isaac was a genius...

...in every sense o'the word! :loveya:

[camero]

25. he was

I love reading his books. :)

[jus_the_facts]

28. Me too...'Robots Of Dawn' is one of my favorites......

.....Elija Baily and Daneel...but I've not read any Isaac I didn't like....s'all great fiction and non-fiction! :)

[camero]

29. It is

Though I liked the foundation books the best. I don't dislike any of them. He was the master. I thought C.S. Lewis did some great Sci-fi also. Perelandra especially.

[Nay]

5. Aldous Huxley's "Island" and "Brave New World," also

"It Can't Happen Here" -- Sinclair Lewis

"Ecotopia" -- Ernest Callenbach (Ecotopia is the good country -- the part that broke off from the regular U.S., which has become grossly commercialistic and fascist. This book deals mainly with how things are in Ecotopia, but it also refers to the fascistic America)

[Red Louisiana]

9. maybe

I have much respect for Orwell as a writer, and as a contributor to the revolution in Spain, but his politics were wack :)

Bush isn't dumb - he did seize the thrown, this in itself, even if it means just getting smart peopel to do it for you, requires some smarts.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

10. Babylon 5: Seasons 2-4

JMS wrote most of those episodes, and the parallells are numerous.
I believe they've been discussed here as well.

[DBoon]

11. Zamaitin - We

Russian SciFi from 1920 or so, supposely inspired both Huxley and Orwell.

[DBoon]

12. Jack London - The Iron Heel (1905)

Not really SciFi, but fortold the rise of fascism in chiiling detail, 20 years before Mussolini eliminated democracy in Italy

[arcane1]

16. I'm 3/4 into that right now...

and it is chilling

highly-recommended

[Dogmudgeon]

17. Link for The Iron Heel

Don't pay a penny for the book: it's available on-line.

Several hundred sites have it in a multi-part HTML format. Here's a site where it is in one piece:

http://selfknowledge.com/irnhl10.htm

The only problem is that every other word is linked to a self-help-psych definition. If you have MSWord, copy and paste the whole page into a new document, hit <control> A to select the entire thing, then <control><shift> F9 to convert the links to text.

Format and print to your personal specifications.

--bkl

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Replay (Ken Grimwood)

An excellent book about some people who repeated replay their lives in a certain section of history. One replay is in a Nixon police state.

The basic idea was milked in Groundhog Day and the new Sandler/Barrymore flick Fifty First Dates. But nothing has ever touched the original.

--bkl

[pop goes the weasel]

14. Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood, in which the repression is part of a religious police state.

[Red Louisiana]

18. Fascism

I think Jack London beat the soviet authors by about 5 years in "predicting"(it's nothing mysterious, because fascism is the logical capitalist response to a successful socialist state, i.e USSR) Fascism.

Read The Iron Heeel ;)

[RhodaGrits]

19. Yes, they are trying to make that fiction reality. n/t

[jus_the_facts]

20. If This Goes On~Robert Heinlein.....and another PKD......

.....short story by RH about a religious police state.....also Minority Report by PKD! :crazy:

[Dogmudgeon]

23. This Perfect Day (Ira Levin)

His book after Rosemary's Baby.

--bkl

[kaitykaity]

24. "The Time Machine" by H.G.Wells.

Half the population is drugged out of its mind.

[Dogmudgeon]

27. The Turner Diaries (and a review)

We're so used to thinking of Nazis as fools and idiots that when we finally come across The Real Thing, it's a shock.

The Turner Diaries gives a detailed look into the mind and the heart of the modern Nazi. It is an absolutely chilling book, not for the sweeping sci-fi scenarios it contains, but for the details -- Earl Turner's introspective diary of his thoughts about Honor, Duty, Racial Solidarity, and Self-Sacrifice. And far from being the work of a semi-literate ignoramus, it is reasonably well-written and shows careful attention to character development.

This may be a big part of why the book is so influential among neo-Nazis, Christian Identity disciples, anti-government militias and other right-wing extremists.

Even the parts that are usually quoted for shock effect are much less terrifying than the small, human-scale stories. For instance, after the Nazis take over the American West, there is a section describing The Night of the Rope, in which thousands of "race traitors" are killed. The scene that usually gets quoted is the one where the grotesquely brutalized hanged corpse falls out in front of Turner.

The much more horrifying scenes are those of the American Stormtroopers rounding up people for execution. One young woman is detained from her college dorm for the "crime" of having a black boyfriend ("racial defilement"). As she pleads for her life, she points to one of her friends and says, "... but Helen slept with him, too!" as Helen shrinks back in fear. Turner observes, approvingly, that while Helen may have "temporarily" escaped the rope, there was no reprieve for the young woman on The List.

And there's several scenes like that.

While a lot of progressive organizations warn people away from The Turner Diaries, I would encourage you to read it anyway, preferably with friends, or as part of a discussion forum. By avoiding confrontation with Nazi and Fascist thought, we have lost the understanding of how truly anti-human it is. That lapse will be quickly corrected by a careful and critical reading The Turner Diaries.

Don't repeat history -- learn from it.

--bkl

[Taeger]

30. Carol Mosley Braun

She brought this issue up on real time. She talked about how the Bush admin was manipulating events to influence our perspective on the world. Whe used the term "Orwellian".