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dystopian science fiction (Part II, 1960-2010)

Illustration: imaginary view of the city of Atlantis, perhaps the first Utopia in literature.

Well, it took a while, but finally here is the second installment of this review of dystopian science fiction, those tyrannies imaginary future, covering the period from the decade of 60 until today. Come and enjoy, or rather, come and fear the future that awaits us.



In 1967 published Logan's Run, a novel by William F. Nolan and George C. Johnson . Is set in a society emerging from a generational conflict become, due to overcrowding, open war, War Child, which comes a society ruled by artificial intelligence, the Thinker, which the law is forced slaughter of over 21 years. All citizens are implanted in the palm of an electronic circuit that computes the time remaining before surrendering to the forced ritual suicide, and betrays those who seek to escape their fate. The protagonist, Logan 3 , a member of the elite responsible for the capture and execution of these fugitives, the Rangers. During a routine mission seems more he discovers that the fugitive who just ran did not act alone but in connection with an organization. This organization, the Shrine, is a kind of urban legend among the Rangers. Logan 3, which is approaching the age of forced suicide, is the way to close his career with a brilliant snap, dismantling the rebel group and capturing the legendary Ballard, the legendary rebel leader of the Sanctuary. To infiltrate this organization posing as another one of the deserters. However, as the decline of the system it serves you will be revealed, his determination falter. This novel was adapted into a film in 1976 , with some changes (the age of forced suicide become 30, and artificial intelligence ruler is replaced by a council of elders) and a TV series in 1977. This project is still pending a remake of the 1976 film, in principle by Brian Singer.


Rollerball Movie Poster, 1975.

In 1975 Rollerball premieres, film directed by Norman Jewison . The action takes place in a future world dominated by large corporations, in which individual initiative is discouraged, in favor of conformity with the status quo. To feed this conformity, the masses are offered spectacles with which to escape, the most popular rollerball, a brutal mix of skating racing, motorcycle racing and wrestling tournament in format global tournament, which regulation is permissive to violence, and where serious accidents are frequent. Jonathan (James Caan) is the star team based in Houston. It is an idol of the masses ... in a society that welcomes the masses have idols, even simple sports stars. The energy corporation that owns the team offers a retreat with honor, and charging a higher pension at the end of the regular season, but Jonathan is not satisfied, want to contest the play-off. To force him to accept the withdrawal, the owners of the league, a group of large corporations are tightening the rules, first, to make him see that is already old for the game, but finally, with the clear idea that Jonathan suffered a fatal accident during the dispute of the game. So to reach the final, played with only one rule: anything goes, that will become a real slaughter, which Jonathan will be the piece to hunt. This movie was a forgettable remake in 2002.


In 1982 published the first installment of the comic book V for Vendetta , written by Alan Moore drawing and David Lloyd . The story is set in Britain at some future post-nuclear war, in which a party has fascist-inspired seized power, discriminate and repress anyone who does not fit the pattern of white, heterosexual, Christian and conservative. A masked anarchist who calls himself V begins a terror campaign against the regime, killing senior party leader, and planting bombs in government buildings, while flooding London with subversive propaganda. In a final confrontation with the police, was mortally wounded V, being the last act of revolt in the hands of his pupil, Evey Hammond, a girl he rescued from a group V of the secret police pretended to rape her, and then indoctrinated. The story was filmed in 2005 by Wachowski brothers, but the film departs in several aspects of the graphic novel (among others, is not a nuclear war, but an attack with biological weapons crisis that favors the rise of fascist). In fact, while the comic is considered a complaint against Thatcherism, the film is a thinly veiled metaphor for the thesis Conspiranoids September 11 as inside job.

In 1984 published one of the most influential novels in the history of science fiction, Neuromancer, William Gibson's , considered the founding work of the cyberpunk movement. Is set in a future world, again dominated by large corporations, where technology is ubiquitous, the brain-computer is possible, and organ implants and artificial limbs, type cyborg, are common. Henry Case is an old hacker, now disabled for brain-machine after being poisoned in retaliation for stealing the mafia group where he worked. Become a hustler over the suburbs of Tokyo, will be contacted by an organization that promises to repair the damage to his nervous system in exchange for his cooperation as a hacker in a daring theft of information. Case so will be wrapped in a web of espionage and corruption involving multiple bands to the highest levels of society, while to discover that they are artificial intelligences that are actually in charge of the world we live.


In Gattaca, 1997 film, directed by Andrew Niccol are biology and eugenics obsession which is responsible for building a world of nightmare. At some point in the future, medical advances have enabled the possibility of eliminating, not the same defects, but the simple propensity to suffer for genetic manipulation in vitro. Also, there is also the possibility to compute, based on the genome, the possibility of developing specific diseases. As a result, created a new discrimination, human IVF, with the corrected genome to eliminate hereditary defects, and humans conceived naturally. The first qualify for top jobs, while the latter are viewed and treated as a lower caste. The protagonist, Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) , young brilliant intellect, but belonging to this breed of disadvantaged, want to be an astronaut. But obviously, this is a job reserved for upper caste members. So to circumvent the discrimination uses a common ploy in that society: a broker will contact you a member of the upper caste, confined to a wheelchair after an accident. It accesses aa identity exchange to him for money. However, things get complicated when the direct superior of Vincent is murdered, and police found out that a "no improvement" has been accessing restricted areas.


In 1999 the Wachowsky brothers carry their ultimate cyberpunk nightmare end to make the human being part of the hardware in his most famous film, Matrix . In it, human beings live in tanks enclosed in a state of suspended animation, feeding electricity from your body heat to the machines, while their minds, connected to a supercomputer, living completely outside reality, locked in a fantasy that recreates the world of the late 90's, prior to the war between humans and machines that devastated the world. The protagonist, Thomas Anderson, aka Neo (Keanu Reeves) , lives a double life-gray clerk by day, hacker by night. A string of strange occurrences lead him to contact Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a legendary hacker, who will reveal to Neo the real world they live in, and offered the chance to release to join his fight against the tyrant cyberspace. We could fill pages with the metaphors that contains this film and its two sequels (the beginning and end of 2003, in my opinion very lower than the first film in the series), its philosophical and mythological background, as well as his great influence on aesthetics and film, especially for action films, which was felt throughout the next decade. No doubt there was a before and after Matrix in the cinema.


In 2000 Japanese film premiering Battle Royale, directed by Kinji Fukasaku and starring Takeshi Kitano . Shows a near future of chaos and violence, where violence is out of control youth and schools are the realm of the bands. A group of students from one of these conflicting schools is abducted to an island to participate in Battle Royale, a cruel battle of all against all punishment intended as examples for students in troubled schools. Each of the kidnapped students will receive a random weapon, to fight each other with the only rule that can only be one. But a group of them conspire to escape the island, attempting an assault on the control center. Finally, two students, the pair formed by Shuya and Noriko, manage to escape. The end of the movie shows us the converted fugitives, accused of murder. The film got up in time a great controversy due to its high violent content.


In 2002 Equilibrium premieres, film directed by Kurt Wimmer. Shows a future post-World War III in which the central idea that holds any society is the denial of human passions, considered responsible for the destruction of the world in the past. All the inhabitants of this society should take a daily dose of a drug called Prozium, which acts as a sedative of emotions. Anything that appeals to the feelings, especially art and literature, is strictly prohibited, and the clergy, an elite trained in a manner similar to warrior monks, is charged with enforcing the ban. The protagonist, John Preston (Christian Bale), a member of this body accidentally lost one of its daily dose of that drug, and the feelings you experience when your mind be free brake it you are prompted to continue ignoring it. This starts a chain of events that eventually led to contact with a resistance group, and participate in a plot against the government.


In the movie The Island of Michael Bay, opened in 2005 , we face an alleged post-apocalyptic future. Disaster survivors living in a shelter in recovering from ailments resulting from exposure to outdoor pollution that have been rescued, waiting to be transferred to The Island, the last unpolluted place left on the planet. Spaces are limited, and the transfer is done by lottery. However, as the film progresses, we notice that something is not right. Something in the strict regulation of the establishment makes it seem more a prison than a refuge where they concentrate the last survivors of the human race. The protagonist, Lincoln 6 (Ewan McGregor) , is one of these cases survived. Following a trapped insect, access a restricted area of \u200b\u200bthe building, and discover the truth: the outdoor pollution is a farce, and residents are actually clones of wealthy people outside, ready for slaughter when their organs are needed for transplants . From this point the plot focuses on Lincoln's flight 6, and his search for his other self in the outside world in an attempt to report what goes on behind the walls of what, in theory, is a respectable company Biomedical.

To end this article, I will discuss the latest contribution to the genre appeared so far, the literary saga The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, whose first installment, with the same title appeared in 2008 . The action takes place in a place called Panem, whose location is undetermined but the narrative suggests that it is North America in the future after a devastating civil war and in which the winning side descendants live in opulence while oppressing the descendants of the losers, reduced to slavery. Collins takes to build a world of nightmare a historical pattern is clear: the decadent Rome of the first century of our era (an interesting game for the reader of the novels is to find the secondary characters whose names are direct reference to that historical period: Seneca, Plutarch, Claudio ...) So, the life of the privileged runs between pleasures, banquets, orgies, and of course, the circus. The games referred to in the title are futuristic and violent gladiatorial combat, in which only one can survive. In the first installment of the series, the protagonist, a teenage Katniss Everdeen, is selected by a cruel lottery to participate in this cruel spectacle. His unexpected victory turn into an idol of the masses, while his refusal to kill his last opponent, a young native of the same village, becomes a symbol of rebellion against the tyrant. In second installment of the series, published in late 2009 with the title of In Flames, and as violent as the first, this aspect of the story is still developing, leaving us at the point of outbreak of revolt at the end of it.

And we are here in this review of the genus, which has become more extensive than had initially expected, and yet I have discarded several very interesting titles. A genre that is still very much alive, because we do not really talk about the future but the present, and the nightmarish worlds can inadvertently be building at this time.

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dystopian science fiction (Part I, 1920-1960)

Illustration: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters of Goya.
There are two ways by which science fiction can make us feel apprehension and even fear of the future that awaits us. One of them already discussed in this blog, this is apocalyptic stories. Today I try the second route for fear the future, stories dystopian.

A dystopia is usually defined as the opposite of a utopia, an imaginary society as unjust and oppressive in its terms, the perfect dictatorship. For his opposition to the idea of \u200b\u200butopia is also common to refer to this type of shell companies and anti-utopias. Is a genus closely related to the apocalyptic, so much so that many works have elements of both, being difficult to determine which predominates, the apocalyptic or dystopian. This relationship arises that should be standard practice in the dystopian genre, it must be an apocalyptic event such as a starting point. The event will justify the existence of the despotic regime, first as a survival tool for disaster, and later, as the only safeguard against its repetition hypothetical. We can therefore say without prior apocalypse, there can be a dystopia, as only an extreme fear can lead to a logical extreme waiver freely.

Once arguably is justified as it can be a society so evil, it's time to explore. The protagonist of these stories will always be a rebel. This is something we take for granted, as the tyrannical regime that presents the story is a clear embodiment of evil, and the most common fiction is that evil must be combated. But the standard of these stories is that the protagonist start being the rebel that will become as the story unfolds. On the contrary, the principle is a perfectly integrated into the system. You may feel suspicion towards him, can even feel it's unfair, until you feel oppressed, but never think of rebelling against him. But as we would have no story if it did, the events will ultimately force it. It is important to note that although many of these stories appear as protagonists apparent characters, or are completely unrelated to the company submitted, foreigners unable to understand or appreciate, or at an early stage are in open rebellion against it, the main function these characters is to open the eyes of the character that spoke first. In fact, the most important thing they do in their respective histories John the Savage or V is to show Evey Hammond Bernard Marx or to what extent have agreed to become slaves, and convince them that is worth fighting. At this point we can provide that for a dystopian story need: a tyrannical society emerging from a great catastrophe, an inhabitant of the same critical awareness which is likely to be awakened, an unforeseen event that will shake this awareness, and usually another character holding of the previous guide.

It is also important to note that it is very common for these stories end badly. The power face is too big players to aspire to beat him, and indeed it is the characters fighting for their own dignity. For die standing than live on your knees, I would say Che. In any case, it can save the hero, but at the price of exile from the society they faced. What's more, even if tyranny becomes defeated, the final slope customary to leave a doubt about the future. In the end, these stories are moral tales, and its function is to make us ponder whether we are not building a dystopia ourselves right now. In fact, gender has always grown from the hand of evil considered as "collateral effects" of progress technology, and although as late nineteenth century as stories of HG Wells classic, most notably The Time Machine, in which the protagonist speculates that the world is seeing is the consequence taken to end class-divided society, begin to explore the ground and warn about the misuse of technology is really at the end of World War I when the genre really took off. The first great war of the twentieth century opened the possibility of global destruction scenarios hitherto never imagined, and served his time as a leaven for the growth of ideologies advocating totalitarianism as the price of utopia. World War I, along with the rise of fascism and Marxism-Leninism cast an ominous shadow on the future of mankind that the narrative arts could not ignore. Once placed on record, it's time to meet some of the most representative works of a century of existence of the genre, noting, as always, these summaries contain plot elements, and in many cases, enormous spoilers.

As the list is long, I have chosen to divide it into two articles. in this first attempt of the period from the end of World War I at the end of the decade of the 50

And since we have spoken of Bolshevism as one of the basic factors of gender, it is logical that we start our review of the classics in Russia. In 1922 Yevgeny Zamyatin We public. The work appeared first translated into French, as the Russian original was banned by Soviet censorship, not seeing the light until the decade of the 50. Shows us a future society, the result of a war called the War of 200 years "in which life is regulated even in the most minimal aspects of schedules and regulations in pursuit of maximum productivity. Citizens (known issues) do not have names, but only identification numbers. His daily life is regulated by strict schedules, it being understood as an extension of their working day. They have no right to privacy, live in houses of transparent walls, having the right to draw the curtains only during the hours designated for sexual activity. Sexual relations are managed by the State and are subject to a cumbersome bureaucracy, with the idea of \u200b\u200bavoiding the creation of any emotional bond considered irrational. The cities are surrounded by walls that isolate the natural world, considered wild and dangerous. The protagonist, a renowned rocket engineer, fully convinced of the fairness of the system in which they live, begin to put in question by falling victim to the passion for a woman, which makes everything blow up his scheme of values. Finally will join the rebellion for her, but end up being defeated and reprogrammed. Yet the novel ends up realizing that the wall that isolates the city forest, a haven for dissidents and rebels fled, is being strengthened, which indicates that the rebellion is far from having been defeated for good.

Illustration: Metropolis movie poster with the famous female robot that is its most recognizable icon.

In post-revolutionary Russia, skip to another laboratory of totalitarianism in interwar Germany, to discuss a cinematic masterpiece, a film usually considered a metaphor for ideological struggles of those tumultuous years, which eventually give way to Nazism. In 1927 opens Metropolis, film directed by Fritz Lang on a script for his wife Thea von Harbou . The action takes place in a futuristic city in the XXI century, in which a ruling elite lives given over to all sorts of decadent luxury at the highest levels of the large towers, while working people are crowded into slums located on the lower levels of the city, living practically in slavery. These oppressed people have a spiritual leader, a woman named Maria. The mayor of the city, fearing his influence among the underprivileged, would speak against this character so annoying, but the fact that advocates nonviolence deprived of the necessary excuse to stop. It then yields to the suggestions of counsel, the classic mad scientist, to kidnap the real Mary, and replace it with a dual robotic (the robot so seductive female form that all we have ever seen in any cut of the movie) to incite the masses to the revolution, providing the perfect excuse. However, when the revolt broke out, it is uncontrollable and threatens to destroy the city. But meanwhile, the mayor's son who, secretly in love with Maria had fallen to lower levels seen with his own eyes the reality of oppression that hid his charmed life, manages to rescue the real Maria, and achieve a peaceful settlement between the revolutionaries and leaders of the city. A happy ending that tells us much about the delicate political situation in Germany at the time, and they had to balance the authors, whose failing marriage itself would end their political differences.

Illustration: Aldous Huxley.

1932 appears in one of the best-known novels and referred to the genre. Aldous Huxley member of a family with a long tradition in the field of biology and medicine, choose bacteriological warfare as a way to bring humanity to the apocalypse in his classic Brave New World. Of this destruction will be born a society where science and technology are entering the race as the only safeguard against disaster. In this society, men are no longer born, they are cultivated by cloning, and education is a sophisticated brainwashing system whose ultimate goal is to put the future adult employment prospects that has been previously assigned, either as leader or as a laborer in a mine. A rigidly structured society into castes, in which rampant consumerism is enforceable standard, with lots of trivial pursuits to avoid the temptation of critical thinking, among which are a sense of pure erotic fun and anxiolytic drug, soma, where consumption is recommended before any hint of unhappiness. Bernard Marx, a member of the intellectual caste discontent with their own status and reputation within it, you'll learn during a routine visit to a primitive indigenous reserve a charismatic character, John the Savage. Convinced he has found the key to access the high society circles, John Bernard will lead to the "civilized" world, where, as he had calculated, will produce a deep impact. However, problems soon began, as John the Savage, lacking the constraints of the "civilized" soon began to complain as a perfect world a disguised tyranny, and its civilized inhabitants as slaves too stupid to be aware of their own enslavement. This would cause the downfall of his patron, which had just awakened critical consciousness in this process, ending with the exile Bernard to a provincial position, and the destruction of John at the hands of the ruthless "civilization."

In 1936 opens The future life, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies , based on the novel by HG Wells The shape of things to come. The theme of the film are the generations of one family, the Cabal. The film begins with the outbreak of a second (we're talking about 1936, remember) world wars in the year 1940 (the prediction failed for only one year) that lasts for decades, and ends with the destruction of civilization, such as we know. The world returns to feudalism, with warlords and tribal leaders fight among themselves for dominance of the small kingdoms in Europe has been divided, and the remnants of the decadent and military technology, until they appear the emissaries of a foreign organization, from its base in the Middle East, trying to rebuild civilization with, how could it be otherwise, submission to science as the norm. Military force newcomers soon defeat the feudal lords, and employ a strict containment, means preferring the use of riot rather than lethal force. The film takes a new leap forward a couple of generations, to show this perfect society already established, but within it begins to show signs of dissent. The total submission to technology is not like a group of citizens, more inclined toward the arts, making opposition to a new space exploration project flag. Soon, violence erupts between the two sides, which leads to ruin this perfect society.

Illustration: George Orwell We will now

time warp in which we will leave the World War II, whose horrors seemed no more than confirm the worst nightmares of science fiction. In 1949 published the seminal work, the real ship insigina of gender, but nightmarish vision of the future ever imagined. A novel whose influence is so great that today, even people who never have read it certainly know what we mean by an Orwellian society . Why not, we're talking about 1984. George Orwell , leftist journalist, who fought as a volunteer in the English Civil War, deeply disillusioned by the totalitarianism that the Russian revolution had degenerated, imagine a future of absolute oppression, where privacy does not exist, since the surveillance cameras of the political police are everywhere, including the houses of citizens, where everyone are encouraged to become an informer, where censorship is absolute and newspaper archives are constantly reviewed to remove any information that could contradict the government's current policy, which maintains a state of perpetual war between continental powers, which justifies the oppressive regime led by tyrant whose title has passed into popular imagination as synonymous with the perfect dictator, the Big Brother . Winston Smith, gray bureaucrat of this machine, enter, again because of a woman (and begins to recur) in contact with the resistance against this tyranny. However, to his misfortune, to discover that this resistance does not exist, it is a trick most of the repressive machine that also needs internal enemies to be able to victimize the public.

Illustration: Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose "game brjuas" inspired by the novel anti-Fahrenheit 451

In 1953, at the height of McCarthyism and his passion censorship, Fahrenheit 451 is published . Ray Bradbury's work , shows a future world where censorship is absolute. In that society is absolutely forbidden to own books, commissioned the burning fire of the same issues. Bradbury described a world mesmerized by the entertainment insubstantial as banal sitcoms, cars that run at high speeds on the highways, and an ongoing propaganda about the impending war, which simply going for a walk instead can drive a car flamboyant, openly is considered antisocial. The protagonist, Guy Montag, one of the firemen responsible for the burning of books, at first feeling curious about the world that battle, began to take books home and read them secretly. This will make you question the system it serves. Needless to say, will eventually be discovered, having to flee the city to save his life. Once in the woods (this also is becoming a trend) will know the men-books. People who have fled also of that society, and culture have decided to save persecuted memorizing books. These rebels will host Montag techniques to ensure that they know him remember every word I have ever read, and therefore he will be a valuable contribution to human library. The story ends with the outbreak of war announced, with the men watching from the shelter book as missiles fall on the city.

In 1954 appears Space Merchants, work Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. Space Merchants may be regarded as a work ahead of her time, because in an era in which the red terror of nuclear war were the recurring themes of the genre, presents us with a future society dominated by large corporations, where politics and has no power and large firms come to have their own seats in the United States Congress. A story that seem to connect directly with cyberpunk fantasies that appear thirty years later. The protagonist, Mitchell Courtenay, a senior executive of a major advertising firm, is at the height of his career as a maneuver by a jealous rival for his last promotion he knocks its position at the top of the pyramid. Kidnapped, is delivered as a pawn to a plantation in Costa Rica, where they have falsified their identity, leaving him subject to a labor contract that is the closest thing to a sentence to hard labor in this allegedly perfect society exists. But there Courtenay contact with the resistance, a group called the consist, pseudoecologista ideology, considered the greatest enemies of society. Initially, Courtenay plans to use to escape and regain his status, but when it does, and rebel ideology has penetrated too deeply into him, becoming, in his own words, "a master who now despised the ideals of society" . This Naturally, it will take to participate in a large plot, and finally exiled to the space colony of Venus, once exposed as a conspirator. A colony that secretly, is under rebel control.

I put here for now so this first review some of the classics of the genre. In the second installment, we discuss what has been whether from the sixties up to this day, has been very, very good.