Dystopia Readings! XD

[USSRGirl]

Ok...I never post here, but I do actually read. Actually, I'm very much into literature, particularly of the dictator/dystopic variety. A few of my favorites are C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (#1 fav), Orwell's Animal Farm, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. Any other fans of dictator fiction?!!! It's a hard niche to come by I know...

SHARE YOUR FAVORITE DICTATOR BOOKS AND RECCOMENDATIONS!! MAKE BIG BROTHER PROUD!! XD

[Wave]

I'm a big fan of the book of Job. If that is not a dictator book I don't know what is.

wave.

[USSRGirl]

O.o What the?

Job is a dictator book???!!

Uh...well...I guess the Bible is always open to interpretation! XD How so? You mean like with Satan as the oppressor over Job?

[Wave]

Um... What would you call an all powerfull being that causes all this tarible stuff to happen to this guy that never did any thing. It's A fact God is a dictator.

Well I supos God dose not quit fit the definition of dictator.

wave.

[USSRGirl]

Well...I'd have to disagree there. God did NOT "cause" the plagues, poverty, and bad stuff to happen to Job. Satan concieved of the idea, planned it, and executed it all himself. God allowed him to inflict Job, because he knew Job was strong enough to take it. It would strengthen his faith. You can't grow in faith without tribulations. If life was la-dee-da happy all the time, there would not be a need to trust God. But I'm getting away from my point...Satan is also called the prince of this world. Therefore, it is evident that he has certain powers over the earth until Christ comes. HOWEVER, while he can manipulate earthly things all he wants, the book of Job is a prime example of how God strengthens his children against Satan, so he really does not have power over them.

[Wave]

Ok After much Um... thought I say that the definition of Dictator dose not fight God at all. Dictators role otside the law. God does not rule out side the law. He is the law!

You know I acctuly thought that if I typed I would stick my foot in my mouth less.
Aparently tis not the case.

wave.

[Debitt]

Orwell's 1984 is one of my favorites. (and was actually quoted in my sig for a while...) :3 I plan on reading The Giver and Brave New World sometime in the very near future.

[Linksquest]

eh... I wouldn't really say that it is a favorite genre of mine,

I actually read that Hideous Strength Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451. I really liked Lewis' Space Trilogy... though Hideous Strength was my least favorite... it was SOooo long! I think I'll have to re-read it sometime to see if it makes more sense now that I'm older. Animal Farm was awesome. I really liked it. I am a die-hard fan of Ray Bradbury! He is SUCH a good writer!

I don't know if Louis Lowry's three books The Giver, Gathering Blue, or The Messenger can be considered a" Dictator book" but I think that they are all Dystopia books. I love them all!

1984 I heard on booktape... never read... I didn't really pay close attention to it... but what I heard was pretty good... and pretty scary! I think I was paranoid for a while after hearing it, lol.

I think Brave New World was also a pretty good Dystopian book.

[mitsuki lover]

I like That Hideous Strength as well.Although it does show that Lewis was a bit
classist(sp?)when it came to the working class.(Remember the line about the
workmen,"I never knew we had THAT kind of person in England.")

[Debitt]

1984 I heard on booktape... never read... I didn't really pay close attention to it... but what I heard was pretty good... and pretty scary! I think I was paranoid for a while after hearing it, lol.

What's scary about 1984 is how Orwell seems to have predicted several aspects of life today. He wrote the book in 1948, I believe, and yet the environment in which the central character works in sounds an awful lot like a cubicle.

[Linksquest]

What's scary about 1984 is how Orwell seems to have predicted several aspects of life today. He wrote the book in 1948, I believe, and yet the environment in which the central character works in sounds an awful lot like a cubicle.

haha. Many things he seems to have predicted in todays society.

...Wow, that's really interesting. The fact that it was written in 1948... did he purposfully invert the 48 to 84 or was that just coincidence?

[the_lizardqueen]

I'm reading 1984 right now, nevermind the fact that my purchase was mostly influenced by the claims that V for Vendetta is 1984 crossed with Batman ^^;

Hey, would graphic novels count?

[USSRGirl]

LQ, yeah Orwell did reverse 48 to 84 for the book.
I've heard from so many Lewis fans that That Hideous Strength is the hardest and most unenjoyable installment of the space trilogy, which is really a shame because I found it to be the most interesting and fun to read. I loved how you got to know all the different evil mastermind...their philosophies...their angles...ect. It felt like one big happy family that you just wanna revisit over and over and over! XD On a serious note, C.S. made a great message about intellectual society. I like how it all seems to end in primal savageness and idol worship at the end. And who couldn't love Fairy Hardcastle? Major girl power there.

Lizardqueen, yeppers graphic novels, comics, and manga all count. Anything BUT The Giver. UGH. That is no dictator book. It's just a freakish wasteland of druggies and such.

[USSRGirl]

BTW, I know whatcha meant, Wave. Calling God a dictator just struck me as a little harsh.

[Kawaiikneko]

I enjoyed the story of Fahrenheit 451 once I had finished, but I can't say I enjoyed his style of writing. It was a little hard to follow until I got through the whole book.

I love the Giver and Gathering Blue (I haven't read the Messenger, cause I didn't know it existed, but I NEED to read it now). I don't think they're dictator books, persay. More along the lines of a freaky "utopia"/controlled society books.

[GhostontheNet]

Ok...I never post here, but I do actually read. Actually, I'm very much into literature, particularly of the dictator/dystopic variety. A few of my favorites are C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (#1 fav), Orwell's Animal Farm, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. Any other fans of dictator fiction?!!! It's a hard niche to come by I know...

SHARE YOUR FAVORITE DICTATOR BOOKS AND RECCOMENDATIONS!! MAKE BIG BROTHER PROUD!! XD

I had read some dystopian works back in high school, which had been highly influential on me, and the music I listen to at present reflects this. I will in fact list some of my favorites alongside recommended listening while reading:

A Clockwork Orange:
Wendy Carlos, Clockwork Orange: Original Wendy Carlos Score. This has a bunch of classical music played on the synthesizer to a somewhat disturbing effect. Supposedly, the song Timesteps is made to match with the book's intro.
Wendy Carlos, Tales of Heaven and Hell. Wildly ranging often spooky music with tracks like Seraphim fitting the milkbar drug trips, while the track Clockwork Black is a lot like the entire book in miniature.
Maybe the other Wendy Carlos synthesized classical works, but I haven't heard them yet

Brave New World:
The Future Sound of London, Lifeforms, get the maxi-singles of Lifeforms and Cascade if you can. This is a mostly ambient album (but the best I have ever heard) which musically covers themes of alienation in a technological urban jungle.
Juno Reactor: Labrynth Very similar in themes to Lifeforms but is more often is a techno War Requiem than an ambient work

Animal Farm (though I don't tend to consider it to be a dystopian work)
The Sisters of Mercy, Floodland. This gothic rock album has an interesting progression from the song Dominion/Mother Russia which eagerly espouses communistic ideals for government but gives way to the final song Colours, which has an ironic death march for winning control over the government at the expense of everything they fought for in the first place.

Fahrenheit 451: The only kind of music I could think of recommending for this kind of work would be Industrial noise, which is a definate aquired taste but which has the feeling of barely being able to scrap information from the wreckage of the past. Buying albums of this hasn't really been a big priority, but perhaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music could help. I do however, know of groups like Engrave or Anaphylaxis. Social Engine's music at http://sound.the-engine.org/se/listen.php will do too.
Edit: Autovoice - A Living Death, and other Lo-Fi or old-school Industrial music might fit the bill too.

[mitsuki lover]

Actually That Hideous Strength is my personal favorite in the Space Trilogy.I like the way that Lewis refers to theology and philosophy throughout.This is probably the only book to refer to George MacDonald's Curdie And The Goblin.

I haven't read it or seen it but how about the Superman mini-series where he's brainwashed into becoming a World Dictator?

[the_lizardqueen]

I just finished 1984. Dude that was dark and yet it appealed to my cynical side. Definitely an interesting read but I'm not sure that I would ever want to read it over again.

And in other news, the V for Vendetta graphic novel is seriously trippy. I'm beginning to think that Alan Moore was a little out of line to demand a literal page-to-screen translation *is attempting to imagine Finch's Larkhill 'experience' on the big screen* I did prefer the way that all of the characters were much more ambiguous though, the division between the good and evil was far less clear in the GN.

[mitsuki lover]

When they made the Leonard Nimoy made for tv movie of Brave New World for
Sci Fi Channel they took away the cynical edge that the novel has.

[GhostontheNet]

When they made the Leonard Nimoy made for tv movie of Brave New World for
Sci Fi Channel they took away the cynical edge that the novel has.

WHAT? That's abominable. The redeeming point of Brave New World is its cynical edge to everything that's going on.

[mitsuki lover]

Yeah,I remember when they ran it they gave it more of a happy ending than what the original novel had.

[rocklobster]

The Matrix isn't a book, but it sure is a dystopia.

[mitsuki lover]

The whole idea of machines running the world is rather disturbing in and of itself.

[Technomancer]

You should see Fritz Lang's film 'Metropolis.'

In terms of novels, three more to consider are:
'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin
'Player Piano' by Kurt Vonnegut
'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. D i c k

[USSRGirl]

I've seen Metropolis!! Liked it very much. Ah...what a nice place to live.

[mitsuki lover]

USSRGirl you have the same tastes as Hitler when it comes to movies as I believe that Metropolis was his favorite film as well.

[Gypsy]

I didn't care much for the book, but 1984 was an interesting book, from what I remember. I had to read it my junior year in high school.

And the V graphic novel ... some parts I liked better than the movie, and some parts I very much preferred the movie.

Animal Farm is on my "to read" list.

[mitsuki lover]

Does The Worse Of Both Worlds Star Trek:The Next Generation comic book
mini-series count?In that one the Borg took over the world.

[Technomancer]

Does The Worse Of Both Worlds Star Trek:The Next Generation comic book
mini-series count?In that one the Borg took over the world.

I wouldn't think so, since it all it does is present an unpleasent situation. It doesn't offer any meaningful critique of the current society or human nature, which is one of the main purposes of dystopian literature.

On the more obscure end of things, has anyone read Young's 'The Rise of the Meritocracy'?

[mitsuki lover]

Kafka can be one of the most depressing writers to read.