{"id":848,"date":"2016-10-19T00:35:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T07:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/?p=848"},"modified":"2016-10-19T00:35:38","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T07:35:38","slug":"the-road-to-dystopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/19\/the-road-to-dystopia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road to Dystopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

If a utopia is a society\/world where everybody gets to be happy and free, a dystopia is a society\/world where nobody (except the person or tiny group of people at the top) gets to be truly happy and free.<\/p>\n

\"TheMaybe we all spend a few years in a dystopia…<\/em><\/p>\n

A lot of times, an apocalyptic event is a great excuse for some person or group to set up their dystopia. The founders of dystopic societies aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t picky, either. Any apocalypse they have survived and that has put them into a position to enact their bad ideas will do.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the post-apocalyptic dystopic society is the result of the fact that humans can be really stupid, so they think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re setting up a utopia and, oh, never mind…It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all horrible now.<\/p>\n

A lot of the dystopias we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen lately in popular books (and the films based on them) are post-apocalyptic. Which, sure, I get. An apocalypse wipes the slate clean (and, hey, as a writer I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate the apparent freedom from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody would do that\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that comes from a society that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been wiped like that), and makes room for big and obvious changes. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to hate on that. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m even open to the argument that most societies in post-apocalyptic settings are dystopias, and that that is necessary for dramatic tension and plot to exist. I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read All The Books though, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to talk about that either.<\/p>\n

Because as much as a massive natural disaster or a man-made apocalyptic event can be enjoyable, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s those dystopias that have less epic roots that really get at me. Those times where you find yourself looking at the world around you, the real one, and seeing the hints that, oh my stars, we could be headed there<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I read any dystopian books before I was a teenager, which seems weird to me…But, I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if I would have really noticed them if I had<\/em> read them before my teen years, so, maybe I did? But as a teen…Starting to notice the things that are crap, unfair, dangerous about the world…Idealism in full bloom, in the heady and gorgeous way that mostly seems reserved for adolescents…Having had a little time to simmer on the distrust of government that Ender\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Game<\/em> woke in me…I picked up 1984<\/em> and began to paranoidly fancy dystopian fictions, whilst also worrying that they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just fictional. That we were headed that way.<\/p>\n

\"SlogansI weep…<\/em><\/p>\n

I managed to not let the dread kindled by dystopian novels drive me. I managed to keep it locked in a tiny cupboard inside me, to be pulled out when it was strongly merited. But, quietly, my subconscious was looking for the warning signs that we were headed for a dystopia about which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d already read or for one that no writer had thought to warn us about.<\/p>\n

In my early 20s, I finally read The Handmaid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tale<\/em>. No, I have no idea why it took me that long. Some failing of adults and supposed good influences in my life, no doubt. Heh.<\/p>\n

\"DrawingThe mandatory fashion isn’t the only thing terrifying in this one…<\/em><\/p>\n

That woke me back up, pulled the dread and paranoia out of the cupboard and dusted the whole lot off. That one, as we started to learn how that world came to be, seemed (still seems) far too possible and real. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I realised that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just the story of the dystopia that matters, not even if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a part where someone escapes or overthrows the dystopia (causing me to take note, lest I find myself trying to survive a dystopic scenario). No, if the author lets us see it, the road to the dystopia is just as important. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m one of those people who thinks that truth hides in fiction and we shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t treat fiction as unimportant.<\/p>\n

So, the road to dystopia…<\/p>\n

It was The Handmaid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tale<\/em> that made me wonder if we would notice a dystopia creeping up on us. Because, sure, a terrorist group (or a fanatical religious group pretending to be another kind of terrorists) shot the government. But, you know, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll recover. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sort it out. Humanity can totally come back from stuff like that. Oh, limiting of rights? Listen, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just temporary and isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a temporary sacrifice of rights worth it for freedom<\/em>? But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to dissect our current world or modern events in Western countries.<\/p>\n

I always felt like dystopian fiction overlapped well with my enjoyment of cyberpunk, because I could so easily see the worlds, regimes, societies, ambitious antagonists in cyberpunk stories being the road to dystopias. There are other reasons I like cyberpunk and other noteworthy points, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking the road to dystopia today, poppets. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to praise cyberpunk things.<\/p>\n

Ready for me to pull this together? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m exhausted as I write, so let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all hope real hard as I jump into the next paragraph.<\/p>\n

I accidentally wrote a cyberpunk novel. I accidentally wrote a novel that is, arguably, an origin story for a dystopia. A road to dystopia.<\/p>\n

I just thought I was writing sci fi. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all I was trying to do with Peace Fire<\/em><\/a> by the time I sat down to pour out the words.<\/p>\n

\"Text:Even my own cover art didn’t tip me off…<\/em><\/p>\n

When somebody sent back notes and called it cyberpunk, I blinked. Oh, okay, sure…I can see that. Okay. Yes! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cyberpunk! I like cyberpunk. Somewhere in non-linear time, teen me was suddenly really pleased and she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why.<\/p>\n

And then I had a conversation with a friend. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those people who is quite smart, who reads loads<\/em>, and who happens to do marketing so thinks about how to classify things. She kept using the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dystopia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when talking about my book. If you read the stuff that came before this paragraph, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll know that this didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make me unhappy. But, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it.<\/p>\n

And, when she pointed it out…when she helped me see that this scenario is a road to dystopia…when my brain imagined the dystopia that this book could dump everyone into…Oh.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, I was wondering when my dystopia-induced paranoia got dulled…Or maybe it was just no longer as loud. Had it been whispering warnings to me from the little cupboard in which I keep it, nudging my fingers as I told this story? Or maybe it was the lack of an apocalyptic event, now that those are so closely linked in the popular imagination…Or did I not see it as dystopian because I just assumed that you know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re writing dystopic fiction when you write it? Just like you might assume you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d know if your real world was on the road to dystopia.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this will change the sequels. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m currently working on draft 2 of book 2 and have book 3 outlined (including the ending), and I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it right. But now that I see the dystopia on the horizon, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m at the optometrist and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re asking whether things look clearer through lens 1 or lens 2. And I was pretty sure it was lens 1, but lens 2 came down and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even aware the world could be so sharp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a utopia is a society\/world where everybody gets to be happy and free, a dystopia is a society\/world where nobody (except the person or tiny group of people at the top) gets to be truly happy and free. Maybe we all spend a few years in a dystopia… A lot of times, an apocalyptic event is a great excuse for some person or group to set up their dystopia. The founders of dystopic societies aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t picky, either. Any apocalypse they have survived and that has put them into a position to enact their bad ideas will do. Sometimes, the post-apocalyptic dystopic society is the result of the fact that humans can be really stupid, so they think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re setting up a utopia and, oh, never mind…It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all horrible now. A lot of the dystopias we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen lately in popular books (and the films based on them) are post-apocalyptic. Which, sure, I get. An apocalypse wipes the slate clean (and, hey, as a writer I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate the apparent freedom from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody would do that\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that comes from a society that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been wiped like that), and makes room for big and obvious changes. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not here to hate on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,6,17,16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dystopia","category-inspirations-influences","category-peace-fire","category-peaceforgers","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Road to Dystopia - Amber Bird | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/19\/the-road-to-dystopia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Road to Dystopia - Amber Bird | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If a utopia is a society\/world where everybody gets to be happy and free, a dystopia is a society\/world where nobody (except the person or tiny group of people at the top) gets to be truly happy and free. 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Maybe we all spend a few years in a dystopia… A lot of times, an apocalyptic event is a great excuse for some person or group to set up their dystopia. The founders of dystopic societies aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t picky, either. Any apocalypse they have survived and that has put them into a position to enact their bad ideas will do. Sometimes, the post-apocalyptic dystopic society is the result of the fact that humans can be really stupid, so they think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re setting up a utopia and, oh, never mind…It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all horrible now. A lot of the dystopias we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen lately in popular books (and the films based on them) are post-apocalyptic. Which, sure, I get. An apocalypse wipes the slate clean (and, hey, as a writer I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hate the apparent freedom from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody would do that\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that comes from a society that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been wiped like that), and makes room for big and obvious changes. 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