by Shaun Duke

Created on: October 26, 2007   Last Updated: August 08, 2009

...or why dystopian fiction is so common.

We all know what the model dystopian novel is, since we had to read it in school. Some of us enjoyed it immensely; some of us hated it with a passion. In either case, we were presented with 1984 by George Orwell as the first true dystopian novel. Few of us probably questioned this, as many students seem apt to accept the almighty wisdom of their teachers. The truth of the matter is that dystopian fiction had already been invented before Orwell ever wrote 1984-a fact we have to accept because Orwell drew heavy influence from We by Zamyatin-and in a lot of ways, the idea of a dystopia is endlessly entwined into our literature no matter where we turn.

But, that aside, it has been an interesting phenomenon to watch as science fiction paved the way for grander concepts in dystopia. Many who read science fiction and understand what a dystopia is will say "that sounds like half of all the science fiction books I've ever read", or at least something to that effect. Those who criticize science fiction, for whatever reason, might be apt to use the common placement of the dystopia as a means to hurt the credibility of science fiction as literature. All of us should take a step back, however, and not criticize science fiction writers, whoever they may be, for their supposed lack of new ideas, but commend them for unintentionally realizing that you can't escape the dystopia.

Taking the definition of what a dystopia is - a work of fiction describing an imaginary place where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror - we have to come to the realization that we live in a dystopia. While some of us live in what we might call a utopia, or at least as close as we as a society could come to such a thing, great masses in the world are living in a dystopia. You could say, then, that science fiction writers are not writing some unimportant, overused idea, but rather taking something that is common place in normal society and stretching it into the vastness of technological advancement. Science fiction writers tackle issues that plague us in our everyday lives, some more so than others.

The fact of the matter is, if true literature must take from real life, must draw upon social or cultural issues of the times, then science fiction is doing this better than any other literature. Books like The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, while now considered a classic, took our world, flung it into the future, and showed us

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