When Donald Trump ran for the 2016 presidency, it was common to hear late night hosts and comedians joke about how their material was writing itself. Then, as time went on, the joke became that they would much rather write their own material than deal with the horrific confederacy of dunces that is the Trump presidency.
Now, with a teenager jailed because she didn't complete online schoolwork , with our personal data being weaponized by companies to manipulate our opinions, with federal officers abducting people participating in the uprisings in unmarked vehicles, and with the Homeland Security chief terming these as 'proactive arrests,' it doesn't feel like jokes are writing themselves anymore, but (what should be science fiction) dystopias are.
In Marie Lu's Legend, a plague ravages the people as the government tests its people, but only offers them treatment if they can afford it; while in M.T. Anderson's Feed, personal market data is used by companies to rate and assess the value of consumers.
When I've taught these books, and this genre, as a whole, one thing I try to drive home is that these books are not commenting on our potential future. They are commenting on our present.
In the past, that commentary has been through allegory, through hyperbole.
These days, it seems like these books comment directly on the present. Or, in some cases, that they no longer go far enough.
What is a Science Fiction or Dystopian writer to do when the most extreme examples of the abuse of Power come from the world rather than the societies they've dreamed up?
In short, an episode of Law & Order is allowed to be 'ripped from the headlines,' but more and more often it's feeling like 1984 is, too (particularly when we think of the current administration's gaslighting with respect to the severity of Covid-19).
We were never at war with Eurasia. The United States has "one of the lowest mortality rates in the world."
Who wants to read these stories when life imitates art imitating life?
It seems this is a question being asked by agents and editors, too. In her interview in the July/August Poets and Writers Magazine, Stacy Testa states, "the pandemic is changing the way people see the world and, therefore, the kinds of stories they want to read. I wouldn't feel hugely confident submitting a super-dark work of literary fiction or a gritty dystopian novel right now" (Testa 60).
So, again, what is a SciFi dystopia writer to do? Wait and see, I guess. In the meantime, I'll just hope the world stops writing my material for me.
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