Good times bad times

[altariel]

A brief discussion elsewhere about writing dystopia had me musing about happy-world stories and sad-world stories, what you lot preferred, and why.

Here is the ever-quotable Le Guin on the subject: "It is sad that so many stories that might offer a true vision settle for patriotic or religious platitude, technological miracle working, or wishful thinking, the writers not trying to imagine truth. The fashionably noir dystopia merely reverses the platitudes and uses acid instead of saccharine, while still evading engagement with human suffering and with genuine possibility" (2004: 219).

Are happy-world tales escapism? Do sad-world stories back out on the possibility for action and change? What do you like to read? Why?

[Poll #614661]

Le Guin, U. (2004) A War Without End. In: Le Guin, U., The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. London: Shambhala Publications.

Comments

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

If you have a perfect utopua in which nothing bad ever happens, then I don't think that you can have an effective story. I was tempted to go for the "in between" option in the poll, but decided that that would be a bit of a cop-out and chose the dystopia option. Many of the most effective SF novels have been about the overthrowing of a dystopia. One that comes immediately to mind is Dune.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I suppose in Dune the dystopia is replaced by another dystopia too.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

In the following, not as good, books in the series, yes. But Dune itself ends on an upbeat note.