Friday short fiction #2: dystopias

[peteryoung]

Daniela Munoz-Santos  Eventide  2008
Three brief dystopias I've read this week:

Shirley Jackson, 'The Lottery'  (THE NEW YORKER, 26 JUNE 1948)
One of the most famous short stories in American literature and taught in schools for decades, although perhaps not so well-known in the UK (and it was even once banned in South Africa). This can still pack a hefty punch despite its dystopian aspect being 9/10ths invisible. I'd love to see the two film versions.

Joe R. Lansdale, 'Surveillance'  (SUBTERRANEAN PRESS, WINTER 2007)
Something that invokes the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin about those trading liberty for safety deserving neither. Short, a little extreme but sharply to the point.

Ursula Le Guin, 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas'  (ROBERT SILVERBERG, ed., NEW DIMENSIONS 3, 1973; 1974 HUGO AWARD)
Every time I've read this Le Guin has put me in a particularly melancholy mood. It's Taoist in structure – a big plus point – but also unashamedly preachy and cunning with the way she gets readers to ask themselves, would you too walk away from Omelas?

Favourite short story of the week: Bud Sparhawk's 'Astronomic Space, Geologic Time', in the March 2011 Analog. A story covering millions of years and light years, aimed perfectly at my sensawunda button.

Comments

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if I've seen one or both versions of the film of The Lottery, but I recall feeling disappointed. The memory - it may be a faulty one - is it began to feel a little like devil worshippers in Doctor Who and other seventies movies: that synchronised intoning of things that no one would really say. The version I remember didn't work. (I definitely saw the TVM version - I see there is also a 2007 short, which I suspect would be stronger because so biref).

[hnpcc]

The Le Guin story came up in another forum recently, and I'm trying desperately to remember which forum and the context. I think it was Slacktivist, and something to do with US politics, possibly around the time of the Park51 molehill.

Either way it was striking a chord for a lot of people.