There are a number of books in the marketplace that are quite accurate on what the authors saw coming. While they weren’t 100% right they were close enough calls to be eerily similar to what is happening in today’s world. Most of these books started off a fiction, some are turning into non-fiction. It’s like those behind the scenes are working to make the plots into real life.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 is probably the best example of a fictional account becoming reality. With today’s technology how easy is it to implement Orwell’s nightmare vision? Since the family instinct can’t be fully eliminated, the population worshiped their ‘god’ called Big Brother. Everyone was kept busy for 16 hours per day. They got so tired they couldn’t see how bad their life had become. It’s not a comfortable feeling knowing all your words and actions are being scrutinized and recorded.
Brave New World is another book that has some prophetic meaning to it. It isn’t always necessary to prescribe legal drugs as there must be enough ingredients in our food and water supplies to medicate us. I assume those really in charge want us sedated so we don’t become independent thinkers.
Fahrenheit 451 must have the politically correct salivating. What better way to control people by burning all the books they find. Most books require thought, concentration and imagination, three characteristics the politically correct must want to eliminate. So instead of reading take a soma or watch dumb TV on four walls.
Two books I’d like to see remain fiction is A Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Long Walk by Richard Bachman aka Stephen King.
To get the ball rolling on A Handmaids Tale would be quite easy. Create an environmental disaster that renders women sterile then annul every marriage. Every fertile woman was sent to a community center to be brainwashed to serve the religious regime in power. Then the woman would be sent to a home of a military commander. The handmaid would act as a surrogate mother for the infertile Commander’s wife. Notice in this book that only women were infertile, the men never were. In this book every woman was stripped of all rights and privileges, effectively becoming concubines. The religious correct, a close cousin of the politically correct, must lust for having this kind of power.
The Long Walk is an interesting read, set in an ultra conservative USA. Possibly tired of all the violence in sports and the news, people still wanted something tamer yet still entertaining. Thus the 450 mile walk was created. 100 walkers had to maintain a three mile per hour pace for the entire race. Each walker was given three warnings. Each of the first two warnings given to a walker meant a hour to walk off each warning. Each warning was issued if the walker fell under the speed limit. After the third warning the walker was shot to death by army patrols. So spectators still got their blood lust.
So there you go. Will these stories remain fiction or be turned into reality? It depends on whose hands they fall into.
Ron Murdock has lived and worked in Western Canada all his life, and will continue to do so until his last day on Planet Earth. He has a good number of interests and hobbies which include dogs, freight trains, baseball and astronomy. Ron wants to know what the truth is, and nothing but the truth, and will do what research it takes to find it. The best compliment he can get is when a person says his writing, or what he says, gets them seeking.
