Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 12:36:38 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Scary novels of the future


Oh, Zamiatin's sf is easily digestible: the rocket ship is hardly 
fantastic, and the triple-X ray operation is clearly a realized metaphor 
(there's a MArxist topic for you: reification and fantasy lit!).  His 
ideas are all spot on, readily apparent, and terrifying.
	You're right, tho, 1984 beats Brave New Huxley to heck.



Bryan Alexander					Department of English
email: bnalexan-AT-umich.edu			University of Michigan
phone: (313) 764-0418				Ann Arbor, MI  USA    48103
fax: (313) 763-3128				http://www.umich.edu/~bnalexan

On Sat, 2 Mar 1996, Hugh Rodwell wrote:

> Zamyatin's book was too science fictiony for me - left me pretty cold. A
> Swedish spine-chiller that didn't, though, is 'Kallocain' by Karin Boye,
> 1940. There's probably an English translation by now, though I can't give
> you the data off hand.
> 
> I don't know if H.G.Wells's 'The Time Machine' with its Molochs and
> Butterfly people really counts.
> 
> For my money, the title fight for best scary novel of the future must be
> between '1984' and Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' (which I'm surprised
> nobody's mentioned yet). My bet's on Orwell - Huxley is too perfectly
> consumerist and social-engineering to be real. Orwell has got the draughty
> jerry-built flats, the constant break-downs, the nooks and crannies, the
> relative autonomy and body-warmth of your own crowd, etc, of reality. Also,
> he has conferences/meetings completely sussed out, and I love the low-tech
> manipulation of history Winston Smith is engaged in at the Ministry of
> Truth. If it'd been written it today they'd've all been working on 286s
> using COBOL programs.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Hugh
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 


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