ydal

At the end of the rainbow

Per­so­nally, I’m a great fan of dysto­pian novels. I like how they con­firm my opi­nion of huma­nity being an abso­lute clus­ter­fuck working on mostly luck. My name’s mis­an­thro­pist, and the name’s the game.

Your con­tem­porary dysto­pia starts in the pre­sent. Well, it doesn’t start in the pre­sence lite­r­ally (lite­r­ally.), but rather in the mind of the aut­hor; he is the one who just ima­gi­nes the world in its cur­rent state, starts the clock, and does his own, usually evil, inter­pre­ta­tion of how things might run from here on out. Of course you have to add some spice or ideas which you per­so­nally want to rant about, since you don’t want a bland pseu­do­do­cu­men­tary, but rather an inte­res­ting story. But this is where it starts. And with the ways some books take, you can’t help your­self being afraid of what the future might herald.

Just like in Ver­nor Vinge’s novel “Rain­bows End” (sic!); I don’t want to go into the details of the book, but that is fine, since you can just read it online free of charge. A great move, and totally in term with the con­tent of the book. (Sort of, at least.)

P.S.: Ver­nor Vinge, you’re a mathe­ma­gi­cian, com­pu­ter sci­en­tist and sci­ence fic­tion wri­ter. In short: ever­y­thing I ever want to be when I grow up. I just can’t help liking you.

Leave a Reply