Brave New Worlds
Page 59
Employment: Everyone is guaranteed a job that pays a living wage, so that people are trapped in nightmarish jobs that they can't leave.
Housing: No one is homeless. People without homes live in institutions, where they are subjected to conditioning and experiments.
Education: Citizens may study any available information. The government provides the information that citizens are authorized to see, and records who is reading it.
Law: All issues are decided by fair courts. Mistakes, of course, are never made. How could they be?
Government: the government wants to make sure the citizens are happy.
Oh dear. What a horrible world you've made for yourself. Hey—those people next door, in that other place? they have Utopia, and you don't. Misery loves company. It's time to change some things.
Go to section 10.
10. Zeal
Rows of smiling identical people sing a patriotic anthem in perfect tune. In Utopia/Dystopia, you are never alone.
Your society is happy, or it's not. Someone else has it better, or they don't. But you're sure about one thing: other people are different from you. And that's dangerous.
Everyone else must share in your happiness or unhappiness. Everyone else must be just like you. Like Jane. Like John.
Oh boy, it's war again!
Go to section 11.
11. War, Again
I hope you're not surprised. It always comes back to war. The details change, but the patterns remain the same.
The last war was just for fun, but this one is serious. You're blowing the left arms off babies and burning 10, 000-year-old monasteries. You perfect the technique of keeping a soldier alive despite mortal injury; the technique is quite helpful for spies on suicide missions. Your soldiers pray to God in the field, but you don't have time to answer. You're busy making military decisions. This war is serious, and hard choices must be made. John marches off again, and someday will return to Jane. Or he won't. that's war.
The question is, did you win? Will you dominate these not-like-you people and rule them with an iron hand? Or did you lose, and now face the destruction of your society?
If you won, go to section 12.
If you lost, go to section 14.
12. Tyranny
You're mad at these people, these pathetic creatures you conquered. They started that horrible war! Now you must teach them a lesson.
You make them build bigger stadiums and better fast food restaurants. Perhaps it's tyranny, but it's oppression with a smile—because you love them. That's why you want them to be like you. Just like you. And once they learn your lesson, they will be like you. You want them to enjoy their world as much as you enjoy yours. Or hate it, the way you hate your own. It's all for the good of John and Jane, who really should appreciate you more.
Unfortunately, your smiles aren't enough to convince them of your love. There's always room for assassination.
Go to section 13.
13. Assassination
Oops! Someone got crabby and killed your leader, in the shower. It's terribly messy, with brains splattered on the bathroom wall.
Who do you blame? Why, it's obvious. It's the vice-president secret police Communists students Boy Scouts Mothers Against Drunk Driving anyone who isn't you. People not you are responsible! People not you must pay!
Retaliation is swift and effective. You kill their leader. And the other leaders. And some people who aren't leaders. And they kill more of your leaders. And non-leaders. the streets flow with blood.
Is this war again, again? No, it's just collapse. Government structures tumble.
Schools are boarded up. Garbage piles up because no one removes it. People burn textbooks for warmth. John and Jane live on scraps from their neighbors. Maybe someone finds an atomic weapon, and maybe they use it. Maybe they don't need to.
Whichever way it happens, you've reached the apocalypse.
Go to section 14.
14. Apocalypse
Oh no! Your civilization is destroyed. No more fast food. No more sporting events. No more two-for-one buffalo wing specials.
It's a mushroom cloud, billowing away in the breeze. Or a plague where everyone's skin explodes with toxic pustules. Or intense radiation that boils the brains of 98% of the population.
All of the nice families with 2. 5 children (maybe happy, maybe not) are vaporized like rain in a volcano. Or the corpses pile up like ants that ate poisoned bait. The survivors walk among The Living Dead—stealing granola bars from their purses but leaving the wallets, because who needs money anymore?
Nuclear winter sets in. Or a biological disaster. Or just sheer depression.
But there are a few survivors. there always are. And they can start over.
Go to section 15.
15. Survival
Groups of ragged survivors struggle across the wasteland, or rubble, or abandoned cities. John and Jane take things one day at a time. Their challenge is to live until the night—then to live through the night, and to live another day.
Food and shelter are scarce. Many people don't make it. With time, the population balances so that it can support itself on the meager resources. This takes months, or it takes years. But when enough time passes, a small tribe sits in a cave, or at an oasis, or by a river. John (or Jane) says, "Remember how much better things used to be?" the others throw rocks at him or her, and demand not to be reminded. they want to forget the dead times that can't be revived.
But Jane (or John) watches, and waits, and remembers.
Once the others have truly forgotten—and the past has become myth—s/he has an idea. S/he says to the others, "I will lead you to happiness and freedom! Everyone follow me!" John (or Jane) unifies the tribes. Jane (or John) thinks that s/he has a new idea, better than anyone's ever had, something that will work. As always, certain choices must be made. But Jane and John are no different from you, in the end. they aren't smarter or wiser. they're just someone else.
Go to section 16.
16. Beginning, Again
Did you think the choices were terrible? they were.
Are you disappointed in where your choices have led you? Don't be. Other leaders have tried, and failed. The future is full of the same choices as the past. Nobody likes the choices, but civilization keeps moving.
Do you feel that you're at the beginning, again? You are. It's a circle. But there's always hope for change—hope that the circle becomes a spiral staircase.
Look, here, see this. A room, with a table. It's evening, or night. Look closely at the three people sitting around the table: John, Jane, their child. John smiles. He needs a shave, or perhaps he is bearded. Jane serves lasagna, or chicken casserole, as she tells her family about her day. The child is a girl, or a boy. The child sits in a highchair and gazes adoringly at John and Jane. After they eat, the parents take the child upstairs, singing a lullaby. It's been a good day.
Their world is radical, or traditional. They vote like responsible citizens, but they're more excited by the child learning to walk. The child grows up in revolution, or not, and marries a man, or a woman, or no one at all. S/he raises a family in Utopia/Dystopia or a world that is neither. When the apocalypse comes, s/he stays with the kids, who are grown up themselves and having a child. Despite the destruction, a baby is born.
You have a civilization.
For Further Reading
compiled by Ross E. Lockhart
What follows is a selected bibliography of noteworthy Dystopian and Utopian fiction. Dystopia and Utopia are often considered to be opposing sides of a coin, but perhaps the two lie closer than one might at first suspect. Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, for instance, may have ended badly for Winston Smith, but Inner Party loyalist O'Brien undoubtedly got a promotion for bringing such a dangerous radical as Smith to justice. Titles notable for their high literary value are marked with an asterisk.
To learn more about the stories in Brave New Worlds, visit the anthology's website at johnjosephadams.com/
brave-new-worlds
Notable Dystopias:
Amis, Martin
Einstein's Monsters
Anderson, M. T.
Feed
Armstrong, Jon
Grey (et. seq. )
Asimov, Isaac
Pebble in the Sky
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale *
Oryx and Crake
the Year of the Flood
Auster, Paul
In the Country of Last things
Bacigalupi, Paolo
The Windup Girl *
Ship Breaker
Ballard, J. G.
Crash
Hello America
Barry, Max
Jennifer Government
Bates, Paul L.
Imprint
Dreamer
Beaton, Alistair
A Planet for the President
Beckett, Bernard
Genesis
Böll, Heinrich
My Melancholy Face
Boston, Bruce
The Guardener's Tale
Boyd, John
The Last Starship from Earth
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451 *
Brain, Marshall
Manna
Brooke, Keith
Genetopia
Brunner, John
The Jagged Orbit
The Sheep Look Up *
The Shockwave Rider
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward
Vril: the Power of the Coming Race
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
The Wanting Seed
Burroughs, William S.
Blade Runner, a Movie (see also Nourse, Alan E. )
Butler, Octavia
Parable of the Sower *
Carbonneau, Louis
Barrier World
Cobb, William
A Spring of Souls
Cohen, Stuart Archer
The Army of the Republic
Collins, Suzanne
The Hunger Games (et. seq. )
Cowdrey, Albert E.
Crux
Crace, Jim
The Pesthouse
DeVita, James
The Silenced
DiChario, Nick
Valley of Day-Glo
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
The Man in the High Castle *
Disch, Thomas
The Genocides
334
Doctrow, Cory
Little Brother
Farmer, Philip José
Riders of the Purple Wage
Dayworld
Ferrigno, Robert
Prayers for the Assassin (et. seq. )
Fischer, Tibor
The Collector Collector
Fukui, Isamu
Truancy
Gibson, William
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Neuromancer *
Gray, Alasdair
Lanark: A Life in Four Books *
Grimes, Tom
City of God
Hairston, Andrea
Mindscape
Hall, Sarah
Daughters of the North
Harkaway, Nick
The Gone-Away World
Harris, Robert
Fatherland
Harrison, Harry
Make Room! Make Room! *
Herbert, Frank
Hellstrom's Hive
Hubbard, L. Ron
Final Blackout
Huxley, Aldous
Ape and Essence
Brave New World *
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Never Let Me Go
Johnston, Paul
The House of Dust
Keogh, Andrew
Twentytwelve
Keppel-Jones, Arthur M.
When Smuts Goes
Kerr, Philip
The Second Angel
King, Stephen (writing as Richard Bachman)
The Long Walk
The Running Man
Kuttner, Henry
The Iron Standard
Lamar, Jake
The Last Integrationist
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Lem, Stansiław
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
Lerner, Lisa
Just Like Beauty
Levin, Ira
This Perfect Day
Lewis, Sinclair
It Can't Happen Here *
London, Jack
The Iron Heel *
Lowry, Lois
The Giver
Lundwall, Sam J.
2018 A. D. or the King Kong Blues
Mark, Jan
Useful Idiots
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road *
McCarthy, Wil
Bloom
McIntosh, Will
Soft Apocalypse
McMullen, Sean
Eyes of the Calculor
Mellick III, Carlton
The Egg Man
War Slut
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas ("Sonmis Oratio")
Moore, Alan
V for Vendetta
Morgan, Richard
Market Forces
Thirteen (AKA Black Man)
Morrison, Toni
Paradise
Nabokov, Vladimir
Invitation to a Beheading
Neiderman, Andrew
The Baby Squad
Nolan, William F. and George Clayton Johnson
Logan's Run
Norden, Eric
The Ultimate Solution
Nourse, Alan E.
The Blade Runner (See also Burroughs, William S. )
O'Brien, Michael D.
Eclipse of the Sun
Oppegaard, David
The Suicide Collectors
Orwell, George
Nineteen Eighty-Four *
Philbrick, Rodman
The Last Book in the Universe
Pohl, Frederick and C. M. Kornbluth
The Space Merchants
Pollack, Rachel
Unquenchable Fire
Powers, Tim
Dinner at Deviant's Palace
Rand, Ayn
Anthem
Reed, Kit
Enclave
Robinson, Kim Stanley
The Gold Coast: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych) *
Rucker, Rudy
Postsingular
Russ, Joanna
And Chaos Died
Scalzi, John with Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, and Karl Schroeder
Metatropolis
Sharpe, Matthew
Jamestown
Shirley, John
Black Glass
Silva, Ulises
Solstice
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Singer, Lee
Blackjack
Slattery, Brian Francis
Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of The United States of America *
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Smith, L. Neil
The Probability Broach
Spinrad, Norman
The Iron Dream
Starhawk
The Fifth Sacred Thing
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Stevens-Arce, James
Soulsaver
Stewart, George R.
Earth Abides
Takami, Koushun
Battle Royale
Tevis, Walter
Mockingbird
Theroux, Marcel
Far North
Tomson, Rupert
Divided Kingdom
Turner, George
The Sea and Summer
Turtledove, Harry
The Gladiator
Vonnegu
t, Kurt, Jr.
Player Piano *
Walton, Jo
Farthing
Ha'Penny
Waugh, Evelyn
Love Among the Ruins
Wells, H. G.
The Time Machine
When the Sleeper Wakes
Westerfield, Scott
Uglies (et. seq. )
Weyn, Suzanne
The Bar Code Tattoo (et. seq. )
Williams, David J.
The Mirrored Heavens
Wilson, Robert Anton
The Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy
Wilson, Robert Charles
Mysterium
Womack, Jack