Is All Dystopian Fiction Necessarily Sci-Fi?

[Guttersnipe]

I've read that "dystopian" and "utopian" are independent categories under speculative fiction, but I've also read that most, if not all, belong in the sci-fi category. Are there an dystopian novels, stories, etc. that have no trace of sci-fi? Do any take place in the present, without advanced technology? Are there any fantasy dystopian stories?

 

[Bramandin]

I've read that "dystopian" and "utopian" are independent categories under speculative fiction, but I've also read that most, if not all, belong in the sci-fi category. Are there an dystopian novels, stories, etc. that have no trace of sci-fi? Do any take place in the present, without advanced technology? Are there any fantasy dystopian stories?

relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.
"the dystopian future of a society bereft of reason"

Wouldn't the first Dragonheart movie qualify as having a dystopian setting? Seems to me that the distinction between something written in the dung ages and a medieval stasis dystopia would be how fair the society is.

Or is there another qualifier, such as a lot of people remember when things used to be a lot better? I haven't studied the fall of Rome as much as I should have for how interesting it is, but it seems like people actually ate better after things started to fall apart because they switched to pastoral farming that gave them more meat and dairy instead of focusing on intensive agriculture.

As for modern day books, I haven't run into any that explored that without making it postapocalyptic. Maybe the world isn't as much of a dumpster fire as I think because I don't go out and touch grass enough, but I have a feeling that even if people want to write those stories right now, there aren't many people who would expect pleasure from them.

The Great Depression isn't imagined, but it seems pretty bad for the people who weren't doing well. Actually, there might be other real settings that would look pretty bad from the perspective of someone who uses the internet for entertainment. Something about having to walk 1 mile for washing-water and 3 miles for drinking-water when I use technically-drinkable water to flush the toilet.

 

[Swank]

I think the issue is that something vaguely scientifically speculative had to happen to cause the slide into dystopianism. A Handmaid's Tale supposes a drastic decline in fertility, for instance.

But I would say 1984 is almost totally dystopian.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There are fantasy dystopias - The Call by Peadar O’Guilin is a good eg

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

I think it must be SF unless it is observational, or set in the real world (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's work for example). Some dystopias are set in a near future where there is no discernable technological change from the present (Children of Men?). Still SF though.

 

[Bick]

There probably are dystopian fantasies. Mistborn, for instance?

 

[Astro Pen]

Dystopias and utopias are fundamentally sociological. Sci tech can be tools used within it but are not the foundation
Sure sci fi, paricularly movies, can, and often does, use dystopia as a cheap, pret-a-porte back drop with 'built in' conflict. But there is nothing inherently sci fi about it.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Isn't the concept of what makes a Utopia subjective? Any member of the Eloi or the Morlock would, I thought, have described their world as pretty Utopian. But to the Time Traveller it looked horrible.

Orwell's Ninteen Eighty-Four is a science fictional dystopia but his Down and Out in Paris and London paints a picture of a real lower working class existence that is equally dystopian.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I would say that the settings for a lot Grimdark fantasy and even a fair amount of Sword and Sorcery fit the description of dystopian societies.
But the thing is, so many readers think of the medieval period, for instance, as a uniformly dangerous and miserable time to live, they read a story with a medieval-ish setting filled with violence, injustice, and cruelty, and instead of thinking "dystopian" the first thought that comes into their minds is "gritty and realistic," so that is how they characterize it. Nevertheless, those settings are dystopian by reason of the systematic violence, oppression, and injustice they depict.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree: it depends on how you define "dystopian". Is Mad Max a dystopia or just a rubbish future? My instinct is to say that a dystopia occurs where a single group or ideology oppresses the masses, as per 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale. But I think it's literally just a bad society, so that would include chaotic futures and apocalypses.

As for fantasy, I don't think a book with historical levels of squalor would really count. For me it would take a level of control and oppression that went beyond "a nasty king" or "the plague" and probably couldn't be carried out without 20th century technology or the equivalent, which I suppose requires magic. So I'd call Mordor a dystopia (but obviously not Middle Earth as a whole), at least for anyone who isn't on Sauron's side, but partly because of the level of control Sauron has over his minions.

 

[hitmouse]

Fiction/reportage about poverty/contemporary or historic sociological badness e.g. Down and Out in Paris & London, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denosivitch, Naples '44, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, etc are fascinating, and certainly provide source material, but I think that dystopian fiction is by almost by definition speculative or fantastical in some way.

The boundary with some more mainstream fiction is inevitably a bit blurry. For example, is The Cement Garden by Ian McKewan, a novel about a bunch of kids going feral in a sink estate, a dystopian novel?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think The Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence are probably a good example of the type of grimdark dystopias Teresa refers to. What a lot of people don't realise is they are set in a future broken Europe (iirc) rather than a historic fantasy world - but they have the feel of a medieval fantasy

 

[Guttersnipe]

Another question: Is all literature that is set in the future necessarily sci-fi?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Another question: Is all literature that is set in the future necessarily sci-fi?

See my post above….

 

[BAYLOR]

In Caverns Below by Stanton Coblentz

I agree: it depends on how you define "dystopian". Is Mad Max a dystopia or just a rubbish future? My instinct is to say that a dystopia occurs where a single group or ideology oppresses the masses, as per 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale. But I think it's literally just a bad society, so that would include chaotic futures and apocalypses.

As for fantasy, I don't think a book with historical levels of squalor would really count. For me it would take a level of control and oppression that went beyond "a nasty king" or "the plague" and probably couldn't be carried out without 20th century technology or the equivalent, which I suppose requires magic. So I'd call Mordor a dystopia (but obviously not Middle Earth as a whole), at least for anyone who isn't on Sauron's side, but partly because of the level of control Sauron has over his minions.

What about the society of Gormenghast ? Wouldn't that be Dystopian ?

 

[hitmouse]

In Caverns Below by Stanton Coblentz


What about the society of Gormenghast ? Wouldn't that be Dystopian ?

No. A fossilised social heirarchy in a dusty castle is not the same thing as a dystopia.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Still doesn't answer the question dystopian for whom? At what point does society being just a bit sh*t turn into a Dystopia? In any society you can dream up there will someone who is perfectly happy and content that the world is as good as it can be. (Unless you nuke / plague everyone back to the Stone age and even then someone will come out on top and grab all the hot women/men - because they own the only tin opener or something.

A version of Ninteen Eighty-Four from O'Brien's POV would paint a very different picture.

Utopias are easier.

 

[Swank]

Still doesn't answer the question dystopian for whom? At what point does society being just a bit sh*t turn into a Dystopia? In any society you can dream up there will someone who is perfectly happy and content that the world is as good as it can be. (Unless you nuke / plague everyone back to the Stone age and even then someone will come out on top and grab all the hot women/men - because they own the only tin opener or something.

A version of Ninteen Eighty-Four from O'Brien's POV would paint a very different picture.

Utopias are easier.

Dystopias are dystopias in the society they are written for. Orwell wasn't writing in Russian.

 

[THX1138]

From my understanding, Animal Farm is dystopian. Wouldn't fall under the speculative category?

 

[Swank]

From my understanding, Animal Farm is dystopian. Wouldn't fall under the speculative category?

If you think Orwell is speculating about the possibility of rapid advancement in animal intelligence. If not, it's a fable.