Ask Slashdot: What's the Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read?

50000BTU_barbecue writes "Usually sci-fi provides adventure with happy endings for everyone. But what story have you read that resonates years later because of some insight about human nature or society that's basically cynical or pessimistic? For me it's Fred Pohl's Jem, with its sharply divided resource-constrained future world driven by politics, and its conclusion that humans are just too destructive to handle contacting alien life, especially if humans have the technological upper hand. I'm wondering what other stories have stuck in people's minds. It can be a short story, a novel or an entire series of books."

Comments

A Canticle for Leibowitz

[Yunzil]

Synopsis: Humans are self-destructive, never learn from their mistakes, and are doomed to destroy themselves over and over again.

Re:Brave New World and a short story

[safetyinnumbers]

I believe it was called 2439 -- the premise being

This, maybe? I still think of it whenever I hear mention of population growth predictions.

Re:Does Ayn Rand count?

[je ne sais quoi]

I love this quote! But you really ought to attribute it to the correct source, which is John Rogers.

Re:Does Ayn Rand count?

[je ne sais quoi]

Oh... and while I'm at it, here's the actual quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

-- John Rogers.

Re:Does Ayn Rand count?

[ktappe]

There are two kinds of people who have read Ayn Rand. Those who understand that individual liberty are not dirty words, and those who like to put dirty words in other people's mouths.

Your post was confusing until I saw your screen name.

Re:Brave New World

[catchblue22]

If I may contribute an addendum, here is the quote to which I was referring, by Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (pdf). It compares Orwell's 1984 to Huxley's Brave New World:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.