Why was all the futuristic political fiction created decades ago?

[spotbird]

Much of it had to do with the Cold War,or pretended to during the paranoid years in the US during the 1950's. The eerie similarities between what was foreseen then compared to what we are living today is well known, but the predictions stopped when the domestic threat ended.

Why aren't there current master works reminding the public of the dangers of a one party system and unchecked governmental power? Was it possible in the 1940's and 1950's because the pretense that it wasn't about the US? Is it that the US today an author wouldn't be able to sell such work for fear of the backlash?

[DenverDem]

1. No way to fictionalise something more horrible than current fact.

Orwell was right, just off on his timing.

[forgethell]

5. Oh, sure there is,

lot's of things. How about, for example, a world where some of our more horrible nightmares about what * will do to the United States are true? How about the incompetence of the * administration's conduct of the war on terror resulting in an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy in America? All gays rounded up and executed. All men given the choice of the knife or the sword (that's circumcision or death)? How about a resistance of Christian fundamentalists based in the Rocky Mountains? They do terrorist raids, blowing up innocent new-Muslim women and children and attack mosques and infra-structure. DU types caught between the two evil forces and plotting revolution, but getting their heads handed to them.

This is a dark novel, so they lose in the end, and mankind plunges into a new Dark Age. The novel ends with the male protagonist dying in the arms of the female protagonist who is left to raise their child in a world where, due to the total collapse of civilization , and their lack of the upper-body strength necessary in a non-technological age, women are considered no more than property and breeders.

C'mon, your imagination has failed you.:-( :(

[DenverDem]

9. I guess I see everything you mention already in process.

In my imagination it is happening now, only to be played out over the next couple of years.

The resistance movement in the Rockys will be progressives, not fundigelicals, however.

[forgethell]

10. But not there yet!!

So it is still valid SF material. And, no, it will be fundies. After all, they are already there. And are extremely unlikely, IMO, to join with the Islamics because of an agreement on killing gays, or anything else. But there can be more than 1 resistance. I did mention, I think, the DU'ers getting wiped out and civilization being destroyed??

But, hell, try for a positive tone. Say, shortly into his term, * is impeached. A new election is held. a progresive candidate is elected. france helps us withdraw with minimum humiliation from Iraq. Every child is educated, universal health care is installed. All the world's nations surrender sovereignty to the UN.

Of course, you'll have to think up the scenarios where this could happen, and they'll have to be somewhat plausible. but this is a problem with thinking up any plot. How does the hero get out of the trouble you got him in??

Good luck

[Poiuyt]

2. I'm guessing a new crop will come out soon

You have a good point about political backlash. The movie (and TV show) MASH took place in Korea, but it was really an anti-VietNam story. If an American author wanted to write about the Bush regime, he would probably have to make it a subtle blast.

[Lerkfish]

3. 1984 was written by a UK author, I believe...so...

its POV was from that part of the world.
Its interesting in light of the decline of their empire and the impending decline of our own.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. It goes back much further than that

H H Munro ("Saki") wrote a novelette before WWI about England losing the coming war and being dominated by Germans and Orientals. In those days, "Orientals" meant various swarthy Middle Easterners, but mostly Jews.

Anyway, it was grim story, meant as a political warning and wakeup call, telling the English to stop being complacent about German military power and intentions. Also anti-Semitic; that was a time when many in England were convinced that the German Empire was under the control of Jewish bankers who were using that control to take over the world.

[burn the bush]

6. because it was FICTION back then...now it's

reality so they don't write fiction about it anymore?

[Imperialism Inc.]

7. What about The Matrix.

That isn't decades old and it is most definitely more than it appears on the surface.
Humans used as nothing more than energy to run a mindless machine? Hmmm.

[Radical Activist]

8. Jennifer Government

is a modern one. It's a pretty good read too. It's based in the near future when corporations run everything and the military is privatized to the NRA.