Battle of the Dystopias

I hope you read them all.

1984 is an amazing story with many real world parallels.
Fahrenheit 451 is a great concept but lacks in plot development IMO (I hated the ending)

I definitely recommend "Peace On Earth". although it is a dystopian novel it is also extremely funny

zappaholic wrote: I've only read the first three.   Recently finished another dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

I read that one too. German director Volker Schlöndorff made it into a movie, by the way

The thing about Fahrenheit 451 is that it suffers from what I like to call the "sci-fi syndrome".....a great story, well written, something to say, gripping....and then you get to the last chapter of the book and it makes a 90 degree turn in a completely new (and often terrible) directon. Anybody read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? Worst ending to a good book.

On the subject of dystopias, everyone should watch the music video for Quiet Riot's "The Wild and the Young."
It depicts a world where the P.M.R.C. has gone on steroids.

I've only read the first two, so no vote from me. Although out of those two, 1984 is the clear winner imo.

I'd add Do Android Dream Of Electric Sheep?, one of my favourites.

clarke2001 wrote: Tarquin Underspoon wrote: The thing about Fahrenheit 451 is that it suffers from what I like to call the "sci-fi syndrome".....a great story, well written, something to say, gripping....and then you get to the last chapter of the book and it makes a 90 degree turn in a completely new (and often terrible) directon. Anybody read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? Worst ending to a good book.   My vote here goes to 1984, because its ending is not only relevant, but really pretty cool... Hey, what's wrong with 'Ender's Game'? It's both horrifying and good..try Joe Haldeman's 'The Forever War'. Or if you feel masochistic about U-turn book endings, try 'Camp Concentration' by Thomas M. Disch As far as the poll goes, I'm not familiar with Lem's 'Peace On Earth', although I love both the author and dystopia in general (it's my favourite literature genre). Of all mentioned, I'm balancing between Orwell and Zamyatin, som my vote will go to 'We'. Huxley is also good, but I'm missing that 'sharpness'. I was never able to digest Bradbury. I just don't like his style. However, Fahrenheit is far from being bad.

"Peace on Earth" is about a fictitious future in which all nations have agreed to continue the arms race on moon. each country gets a territory on the moon which is equivalent in size to its territory on Earth. and then weapons are being produced in automated factories which evolve. no nation has a means of communication with their base on the moon, so no nation knows what weapons it has developed.
many nations sent secret spies to the moon, but they all wound up dead. Earth suddenly no longer trusts the moon, and Ijon Tychy is sent  to the moon by the Unnited Nations to check what is going on.
when he lands he is assaulted by a kind of ray which causes a callotomy in him. the two halves of his brain no longer are connected.
this leads to some serious problems for Tychy who has no full memory of what happened on the moon, or rather the half of his brain which has the memory has no means of communicating it. his left hand often gets Tychy in trouble, behaving in a way he does not expect (the novel is from the perspective of the left hemisphere, where the ability for language is located, but the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere and does things like pinching the bottom of a woman or the likes)
the whole novel is full of the usual satire of Lem, and the end is a kind of catastrophe, but equally satiric. highly recommended stuff


Edited by BaldJean - January 23 2010 at 08:20

clarke2001 wrote: BaldJean wrote: "Peace on Earth" is about a fictitious future in which all nations have agreed to continue the arms race on moon. each country gets a territory on the moon which is equivalent in size to its territory on Earth. and then weapons are being produced in automated factories which evolve. no nation has a means of communication with their base on the moon, so no nation knows what weapons it has developed. many nations sent secret spies to the moon, but they all wound up dead. Earth suddenly no longer trusts the moon, and Ijon Tychy is sent  to the moon by the Unnited Nations to check what is going on. when he lands he is assaulted by a kind of ray which causes a callotomy in him. the two halves of his brain no longer are connected. this leads to some serious problems for Tychy who has no full memory of what happened on the moon, or rather the half of his brain which has the memory has no means of communicating it. his left hand often gets Tychy in trouble, behaving in a way he does not expect (the novel is from the perspective of the left hemisphere, where the ability for language is located, but the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere and does things like pinching the bottom of a woman or the likes) the whole novel is full of the usual satire of Lem, and the end is a kind of catastrophe, but equally satiric. highly recommended stuff Thanks, Jeanine. Ijon Tychy?!? It seems he appears in Lem's works more often than Pirx I'm more than willing to check Lem's satire - I'm familiar with some satirical work with Tychy - the evolution of washing machines, stuff like that. I laughed my ass off, it's both funny and intelligent; old Stanislaw really had the brain of the highest degree!

Tychy also appears in "Wizja lokalna", which has not been translated into English yet (but into German). the title means "Visit to the Scene of the Crime" ("Lokaltermin" in German) and is a kind of sequel to one of Tychy's adventures from "The Star Diaries" (the adventure of his visit to Entia). it appears there are two different societies on Entia, and both protest against the way their planet has been depicted by Tychy. it turns out Tychy has actually not  been on Entia at all but on an artificial satellite which was a kind of Disneyland. so Tychy is sent to the real planet Entia to change his report about it.
the two societies on Entia resemble capitalism and commuinism, but in the usual exaggerated way of Lem; you would not want to live in either