Nathan’s Comments (group member since May 14, 2011)

Nathan’s comments from the Utopian and Dystopian Reading Group group.

hey Eve! The Banks thing seemed good, it's just dense and life intervened...I could get into it I think, but THE DISPOSSESSED looks cool too so I will pick that up!

So far I am not doing great as a reading group participant but I will improve!

Hope everyone is well and safe this weekend

all of the titles mentioned sound great to me, thanks you all! I got sidetracked and haven't gotten too far into the Banks book yet...

Going to start it this coming week as well. We'll discuss! Cheers Eve! best, Nathan Eve wrote: "I will be starting it this week. I haven't read any Iain M. Banks (or Iain Banks) before, or any 'Space Opera' so I'm not really sure what to expect! I think it's actually quite Utopian though, whi..."

Hi! I'm about to start Consider Phlebas as suggested, who's with me on that? Thanks!!

The lines are vague but it seems to me that a "dystopian" depiction of the future is generally not a pretty picture, usually pretty bleak. Within the lines a commentary on the contemporary socio-political situation when the book was written can be detected. As in, "this is what we'll wind up with if we keep heading down the road we're on now", so in this sense these books have a political dimension. So if the plot of a given book is dependent on this backdrop, or if an aspect of it is the focus of the book, I suppose one could call that book "dystopian." But this is just my take, as I say it's a vague distinction

These are great thoughts, thank you Eve!

It's disturbing to see a lot of these concepts presenting in "dystopian" lit coming to pass...the further along we get in our journey, stuff like Philip Dick, William Gibson, and J.G. Ballard's work seems more and more prophetic.

thanks for the group, look forward to participating!