"Brave New Worlds"

I’ve been getting a lot of reading done lately. This is great for me because I’m reading 7 or 8 different books right now. I’m very pleased to announce that I have finished Brave New Worlds.
This anthology is huge and daunting when it comes to number of stories, and length. However, the subject matter is very interesting and most of the stories in the volume aren’t too long, so it transitions smoothly from story to story. This was an anthology so all of the stories were written by different authors. In the style of Orwell, or Huxley we are given brief glances into crumbling dystopias. I enjoy reading this type of book as a check for myself. I’m not very political but I understand the importance behind having a stance or even being militant if the occasion calls for it. The difficult part is gauging when the time is right, or noticing just how wrong things are going.
Here is a summary of the stories:


We start off with The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. It is a strong beginning to the book. I remember when I read this story I guessed at the plot twist before it had been given away, simply because of how light things were in the beginning of the story. Something ominous is surely on the horizon when that happens. I don’t want to give anything away but I’ll just say this, I certainly wouldn’t want to win this lottery.

Red Card by S. L. Gilbow was probably my favorite story in this book, which is saying a lot because the majority of them are excellent. In this story the government anonymously sends out “red cards” to random citizens. If you receive a red card then you have a free pass to kill one person in your life with no consequences. It can be anyone you would like, maybe someone who cut you off in the street, but more probably someone a little closer to home.

Ten With A Flag by Joseph Paul Haines puts us in a society where people are ranked by their jobs and incomes, and the higher your number, the more you contribute to society. There is a system in place that ranks you shortly after you have been conceived, and depending on your rank and usefulness your parents have the option to terminate the pregnancy. However, when a young couple receives the highest rank along with a warning flag, they are confronted with a very difficult decision.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin didn’t affect me the way the first three stories did. It merely presents the question; if you could have a perfect life in a perfect town, but one person had to suffer forever so you can be happy, would you stay?
Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment, One Daughter’s Personal Account by M. Rickert is a moving story set in a harsh future where every woman who has had an abortion is publicly put to death in a football stadium for the entire community to see. The voice of this story is an adolescent girl who doesn’t know what has happened to her mother. She disappeared one day and didn’t come back. The father and daughter assume she has been executed, but still they wait to see her face on the public execution screen. They both know that having a mother that has been executed is far more acceptable then having a mother that has fled for her life.
The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm is the story of an oppressed set of young girls who are being forced into become the oppressors of the new generation, and one girl’s struggle to help those smaller and weaker than her.

O Happy Day by Geoff Ryman was eye opening and frightening. It reads like a death camp survival story, with a new twist. The future is controlled by a regime of women who are under the assumption that men are the only ones capable of violence, and because of this they need to be exterminated. The homosexual men are put at stations where they sort the dead bodies from the death trains and are closely monitored by the women. However, they soon find out that no one is immune to the threat of violence and that human beings are nothing but animals.

Pervert by Charles Coleman Finlay is set in a strange world where the only two sexualities are homosexuals and hydrosexuals. It is a society where the coupling of men and women is uncommon, and unacceptable. The main character in our story falls in love with one of the women he works with, and is soon in a lot of trouble.

From Homogenous To Honey by Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot is told via graphic novel and a masked host leads you through the streets of a world that has been uninfluenced by homosexuals in anyway. There is no art, plays, books, or cultural references to anything gay, lesbian, or transsexual. For the masked narrator this is a perfect world. However, we know from the images around him that that is not the case, and something much darker is lurking just behind the mask.

Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn puts us in a world that is tame compared to most totalitarian societies. No one is under scrutiny, and no one is executed. The only difference is the government controls when and with who you can reproduce. There are implants in place to make sure that accidents do not happen, but some women in a desperate attempt to make their own choices tear out their implants and put their entire households in jeopardy.

In Pop Squad by Paolo Bacigalupi the world is trying to bring itself back from the devastating effects of global warming, in an urban New York that is being eaten slowly by dense jungle. There has been an amazing break through! We have discovered an elixir of life that prevents you from dying and keeps you young forever. However, because no one can ever die, no one can ever have a baby again. There are police to enforce the issue, and our main character is one of them. He is dispatched to find and kill any children that he finds and jail the mothers. In the depths of his happy life with his beautiful young girlfriend he can’t help but wonder, what makes these women throw everything away for a child that will likely be eliminated in its first few years of life?

As someone who never wants children, I was deeply disturbed by Auspicious Eggs by James Morrow. In this society infants are tested for their birthing capabilities right when they are born. If you cannot reproduce then you are dispatched of, because if you can’t reproduce then you have no value to society.

Peter Skilling by Alex Irvine is the story of a man who dies in a glacier in 2008 and is brought back to life by science in a very different society. In his old society his crimes are merely infractions and small to say the least, but in this new world things are treated very differently.

The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away by Cory Doctorow is a story about how a group of people have decided to watch everyone, all day, every day. Because they watch everyone at every moment of their lives, they always find something wrong. We are all criminals in small ways whether we know it or not. I personally felt that this story fell flat of its mark. I walked away, unimpressed.

The Pearl Diver by Caitlin R. Kiernan is set in a society where your life isn’t private, and the government is telling your boss everything you do in your spare time. Our main character is terminated from her job for opening an email in the safety of own apartment.
In Dead Space For The Unexpected by Geoff Ryman people are graded on their performance and put in jobs that best suit them. It is the story of a manager who must fire one of his employees, but something goes terribly wrong! (Just kidding, it only went moderately wrong. I’m just getting bored of doing this.)

In “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison time is money, but not just money, also life. If you are late for anything anytime in your life the Ticktockman shuts you off like a machine. The Harlequin is a light hearted man who is just trying to make everyone realize how silly it is to be afraid of being late. He encourages the people of this sad land to live their lives and don’t fear the reaper. (LOL, hellz yeah.)

Is This Your Day To Join The Revolution? By Genevieve Valentine is the story about a society riddled with a new disease that is causing a lot of propaganda, but when a new message is deployed by a terrorist that the disease is all a lie to get people to conform a young couple gets thrown into the middle of a sticky situation.

Independence Day by Sarah Langan is a coming of age tale about a society that offers morphine as a way of forgetting your terrible memories and unhappiness. Sure, you’re being oppressed but you’re high, so who cares right?

The Lunatics by Kim Stanley Robinson is a story that identifies with the coal miners of the early 1900’s. In this story however, they are mining out the moon and they are criminals that have been sent to mine for the remainder of their lives. They have their brains burned so that they have no memories, and no idea why they are there.

Sacrament by Matt Williamson touches on the point that art and advertising are pretty much the same thing. In a new society where many beautiful and amazing things are made possible by modern technology many people feel that their religious beliefs are being stepped on when a new advertizing campaign is launched right above Mecca.

Just Do It by Heather Lindsley is about marketing products through biochemistry. They shoot you with a dart and you want French fries, or cake. The ultimate advertising tool is your own cravings.

Caught In the Organ Draft by Robert Silverberg argues the good and bad of using the organs from the young to keep the old politicians alive. It is not voluntary.
Geriatric Ward by Orson Scott Card tells us what would happen if our life expectancy rate were getting worse and worse. People are dying at younger and younger ages. By the time you’re in your early 20’s you’re on the verge of death.

Jordan’s Waterhammer by Joe Mastroianni is also a mining story, and is similar to The Lunatics but in a different way. In this story there are only men in the mine, they are born into the work, and their lives are worth nothing. They are killed at a moment’s notice and for the slightest infraction. Secretly they pass a religion from person to person, trying to understand concepts that they have never even thought of before, the concepts of self worth and love.

In Of A Sweet Slow Dance In The Wake Of Temporary Dogs by Adam-Troy Castro tourists come to a fantasy place, that is too good to be true. If they vacation to this beautiful place they are required to stay for ten days. The first nine days are pure heaven; they are beautiful and full of pleasure. The tenth day is a day of pure hell and pain.

Resistance by Tobias Buckwell is about a society that needs to vote so often and about so many things that they create machine that can accurately predict how they would vote to do it for them. The machine is elected to become their supreme ruler and the resistance will stop at nothing to end the dictatorship.

Civilization by Vylar Kaftan reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and ends in the same way no matter what options you choose.


Ok, that was intense, now for the actual review of the book. All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It’s affecting and sad, but I feel like some people need that. I have a hard time identifying with several of the stories in this book, and I feel like there isn’t any need for them to be there. On the other hand, there are many stories in this book that are intense and wonderful. They make you think, and make you root for the hero. However, in stories like these, it is more likely that the hero will die then succeed and that is just a hazard of dystopian books and stories.
I feel that I should try to identify a little more with the people who are tormented by the fact that they can’t have babies. Specifically in Pop Squad there is a trade off I would definitely make. You can live forever, but you can’t have babies. That appeals to me.
I think it’s really interesting to see the insides of people’s minds on this specific topic. It’s one that is constantly debated and argued about. The Utopia/Dystopia trade off is a matter of opinion. One man’s heaven is another man’s hell, and I’m sure that if someone other than me read this book they would have completely different opinions.
It is a super long book, but it’s definitely worth the read. It makes your heart ache for the struggling masses that cannot protect themselves from their own governments. It makes you wonder if really anyone can.