Dystopian Prey

By Nara Malone (Guest Blogger)

I arrive in the city via computer, spit out by a server rack. It looks deserted. Dystopias always do. But I'm not alone here. I don't need my scanner to tell me there are others. You know that feeling you get, fine hairs lifting on the back of your neck, a hyper-awareness--as if your skin has thousands of invisible antennae? I have that feeling and know I'm watched. I keep an eye on shadowy corners as I move forward, reading the rules and regulations of the city, looking over the role play board for a position that suits. Then I see a small poster, almost missed among the bolder ads: Wanna play hard and dirty? I smile and click it to take a tag that labels me prey.

I could be anything here: a soldier or a corporate operative controlling this world, a club dancer using sex to gain some power, or hook up with a rebel gang. I choose the bottom card in a stacked deck.

Why would I choose the role of powerless female in a society where almost everyone has the power to grab and use me for pleasure or take out their powerlessness on me?

You know those nature shows where you see a prey animal, like a rabbit, and a coyote is chasing it? The rabbit dives in a hole and the coyote barks furiously, starts digging. Meantime the rabbit pops up from another hole. It watches the coyote still digging and yapping, enjoying the joke it played and then quietly hops away. That's me. I’m the rabbit.



The collective brain power that goes into building a role play sim is amazing. Looking at a snapshot of a world strictly as a piece of 2D art is impressive, but these sims are more than that. They’re incredible 3D art you can walk through and interact with, art you can live and die in. There are weapons-- chainsaw watches anyone? Some worlds are scripted with health meters that sap your physical strength over time. You have to find food to gain strength. You have to find medicine and a place to rest and heal when you're injured.



You learn how to survive here in the dystopian sims, much the same as you learn to land a plane with flight simulators. Here you get to imagine the world at its worst and come up with ways to deal with it. Problem solving, assertiveness, cunning, are all skills you can draw on in your real life. Researchers say what we do successfully in virtual reality can have a positive impact on our real life. What better way to build a strong psyche that to take on a role where everyone has more power and you can still beat them?

I suspect that's the lure of dystopian novels and movies. Earth’s environment is reeling under the impact of overpopulation and corporate greed--in between wars, political games, plagues, and natural disasters--we all wonder what will become of us. We need stories about people who crawl out from under the bottom of a stacked deck and not only survive but triumph. It may be hard. It may be dirty. But we need to believe it's doable.

My newest novel, Snatch Me, is the story of a young who escapes her real life problems by playing the role of prey in a post-apocalyptic virtual world. You can see shots of the dystopian world I used for the setting and learn more about the story in this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r1afr2UzXM&feature=youtu.be

Or grab a copy and read about her adventures:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9476-snatch-me.aspx

Dystopia of my Nightmares

by Kristina Wright

I am deep in my own mind, lost in a swirl of words written by me. Yes, written. Typed, on this computer, when I have power. Written by hand in notebooks when I do not. Written in my head to be transcribed as soon as I can-- because they must be written down in order to be real.

I dare not tell the others, for they will consider me insane and will report my rebellion. My madness. For surely it must be madness to spend my precious hours constructing words and sentences and paragraphs in a language no one understands anymore. No one would even recognize the computer I use, it is so antiquated as to appear an ancient artifact. But it hums when I turn it on and gives me the ability to do what they will never allow-- write my stories.

The youngest here do not even know what a computer is, other than a dream vaguely recalled during a memory of mother's childhood. Everything that anyone needs to know (which is far less than one might think) is implanted at birth. I have your memories, you have mine. The children have all of ours. The ones worth knowing, the ones deemed useful and for the collective good. How to sustain life, how to create shelter, how to prepare food, how to manufacture clothing, tools, transportation, medicine. How to interact in the most peaceful of ways. How to reproduce, when necessary. (Also far less than one might think-- if one was allowed to think.) How to respect authority, the only authority that matters.

Implants give us everything we need for life. Everything else has been cast aside or banned. For the collective good, you understand. But of course you understand-- you know what I know. You know that there is no need to do these things: question, ponder, wonder, research, study, learn, educate, inform, explain, share, feel, love, desire. Those words are archaic. We know everything we need to know, are allowed to know, are supposed to know. Anything we do not know does not exist.

Books do not exist. Periodicals are extinct. No one reads anymore. No one knows how, the written languages have been forgotten. They stopped teaching cursive first, then no one needed to know how to print. Then dictation software made typing obsolete, then implants made reading redundant. All the great stories already exist, or so we have been told, and there is no reason to create new ones. The classics are implanted, the approved tales are in our collective psyche. All others have disappeared. They do not exist. No one reads anymore. No one reads.

And yet I still write. I cannot stop. If I stop, I will die just as surely as I will die if they catch me. If this is not madness, I don't know what is. And yet I still write these words. Why? For you, dear reader, wherever you are. For the few who escaped, the ones who ran, who fought, who resisted. For the ones who have been declared too fragile, too old, too undeserving, too criminal. For the curious who learned the old ways, for the academics who were not cast out or reinvented. For the other writers, because there must be others. I cannot be the only one. Please don't let me be the only one. I write my words for you. For myself. For the future, whatever future there may be once they have destroyed everything.

I write to keep the faith. My faith.

After the Cure

In 1961, the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate conducted hearings on “The Constitutional Rights of the Mentally Ill.” Francis J. Braceland testified: “It is a feature of some illnesses that people do not have insight into the fact that they are sick. In short, sometimes it is necessary to protect them for awhile from themselves” (from Constitutional Rights of the Mentally Ill, quoted by Thomas Szasz in The Manufacture of Madness, 1970.)

How far medical science has progressed in less than two centuries. Now, in 2065, “we the people” have outgrown the awkward process of electing a government, supposedly so characteristic of an adolescent state of development. The disease of free will has almost been eradicated.

In my youth, I had a favourite T-shirt that said: “I’d rather wallow in my pathology.” I would venture outdoors with this slogan spread proudly across my breasts. Of course, they took it from me when I was committed.

I hope this message reaches you. I don’t have much time left. I learned that I am scheduled to be euthanized in thirty days. I was diagnosed with Feminine Senescence (being an old woman) years ago, and now it’s been determined that my condition is terminal. There is no point, according to the Director of the Clinic, in forcing me to suffer until I die of natural causes.

What they don’t say is that the government can’t find a use for me, since I can’t have babies who would raise the declining birthrate. No new fruit of my womb will be socialized according to the principles of Mental Health or report all signs of illness in their mother to the proper authorities. I won’t be missed by anyone who counts.

So many of those I loved have gone. Most didn’t go willingly. Some were diagnosed with Feminine Juvescence (being young, immature females), some with hyper-pigmentation of the skin. Most of those I miss were found guilty of sexual perversions, including a desire for sex without a corresponding desire for pregnancy. Those diagnosed with Masturbatory Insanity were euthanized first. Last year, the World Health Organization announced that thanks to an effective educational campaign, masturbation has been wiped out.

I fervently hope I get to see my loved ones again, somewhere beyond the physical world. I don’t really know if there is an afterlife. My willingness to consider the possibility has been written up as a sign of Senescent Heuristic Impairment.

If, against the odds, this reaches someone who has not yet been brought in for diagnosis and treatment, here is my advice and my blessing: believe your own senses, and cherish your feelings. Don’t let them tell you what to think, and what your experience really means. Cling to hope, even when all the evidence is discouraging, and your closest companions tell you (for your own good, of course) how neurotic you are.

As they said in the Dark Ages of universal madness: Where there’s life, there’s hope.

Peter and Molly

She was laying on her belly with her face turned away from him. He lay next to her listening to her breathing.

She was snuffling into the pillow

“Are you awake?” he said. “Are you all right, Sarah?”

“You hate me.” She whispered.

“No, I don’t." He fumbled for something to say. "You’re my good wife. My fresh new bride.”

“I’m a bad wife. I’m not what you wanted.”

He sat up straight, feeling angry at having to prepare himself first thing in the morning to tell her more lies. “You don’t know that.” Watching her broad back, her shaking shoulders, more than anything he felt baffled and small. He didn’t want this, any of this. His hand touched her shoulder and she squirmed away from him.

“Last night.” She whispered into the pillow. “You were treating me like an animal. You wanted me to do dirty things.”

She rolled over, sat up, facing him, smoothing out her heavy night gown. He still had no idea what she looked like underneath. She’d been crying for a while, even while he’d slept. Her fish belly white face was puffy and red eyed.

“Maybe I was too amorous, too filled with love for you.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Sarah - it’s what husbands do with their wives.”

“As soon as we were alone, you began acting all – all nasty! You had your thing out! Your thing! Your weenie thing! Sticking your hands all over under my clothes, where they don’t belong. Showing your big red weenie to me. That was disgusting!”

“Sarah.” He waved his hands in despair. “The Bible says the marriage bed is undefiled. What do you think that means? You’re still a virgin. Don’t you know what a virgin is?”

“It means husband and wives sleep together celebrating their pure love for Jesus.”

“But what about babies?”

“Of course we’ll have babies.”

“But how do you think you’re going to have a baby if you won’t let me do it?”

“Do what?”

“Put…” he could hardly describe it for shame. “”Put my… you know. In you.”

“What? What are you saying, Adam?”

“Listen, Sarah. Tonight, Elder Mid Wife Goody Harris is coming here. She wants to see if we consummated our marriage. That’s what it means. It’s not a marriage unless I put my thing in you. That’s what she’s going to check you for. It’s not a legal marriage unless you let me put my thing in you. They’ll send you away. Don’t you know that?”

He looked at her face and realized with shock, she really didn’t. “Sarah, beautiful darling, where do you think babies come from?”

“From their home in heaven with Jesus.”

“Yes, but how do they get inside your belly? Did anybody explain it to you?”

“My mother told me, she said the Holy Spirit will come to me, just like it did to the Mother of Our Lord. And then the Holy Spirit will get me with child.”

Adam looked in her eyes and she stared back defiantly. “Nobody’s ever told you how to make a baby.”

“You hate me! You think I’m stupid.” She wailed and hid her face in a handful of the blankets.

“I don’t,” he said. “I just didn’t know you didn’t know.” He took the blanket away from her face. “I’m going to have to explain something to you. Listen.”

She looked at him suspiciously and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Don’t you touch me with your weenie.”

“Listen. The man has the seed. The woman has the womb, like the field.” He made a hollow fist with his left hand. He inserted his right thumb into his hollow fist and thrust it in and out. “You see how it works? The man plants the seed. That’s how it’s done.”

She turned red and looked away. “Lord Jesus, protect me from sin. Lord Jesus protect me from sin.”

“So how do you think the seed gets inside the woman’s belly?”

“The Lord puts it there.”

“No!” he caught himself just in time. Patience. Patience was the thing. “A man loves a woman. He feels so close to her and loves her so much he wants to be even closer. As close as he can possibly be. Like me, I want to feel close to you and to love you. When the man feels very close to the woman and he’s bursting to be even more close to her - he does this.” He got off the bed and stood in front of her. Watching her face carefully, he removed his pajama top and dropped it on the floor. He untied the drawstring of his pajama pants. He drew his pants down exposing himself to her. She turned away at the sight. He held out his hand to her and she looked at his flaccid penis, her lip trembling.

Look at her face, he thought, look what we’ve all done to her. It’s so hard for her. She wants to do right, to please me or to please Jesus or please somebody. She wants that so bad. She turned her head a little and was cautiously looking down at him.

Feeling the cool air, and her eyes staring at his penis, he felt it begin to stir. He looked down. It really is an ugly thing, he thought, the first time you see it. A big bag of skin. That strange long thing hanging down, sometimes sticking up by itself, all on the outside as if God had put it there at the very end of His act of creation as a joke. “Have you ever seen a naked man before?”

She shook her head. But her eyes were wide now, staring hostilely at his cock. "Put your weenie away."

“It’s a penis. Say penis.”

“peh . . peh . . . ”

“Penis.”

“Peh. . . no.”

“My penis is how I plant the seed in your field. You have a different thing, and my penis fits inside it.” He made the fist and the thumb for her. "Why do you think it fits inside?" Thrust, thrust, thrust.

"Stop doing that!”

“Doesn’t it make sense? Touch it. Just touch it.” He stepped close, almost putting it in her face. For the longest time, she sat huddled in misery. Finally, hesitantly, swallowing, she reached out and ran her finger tips along it. He felt a rushing tingle and began to stiffen.

She jumped back as if she’d been burned. “What’s it doing? Do you make it do that?”

He took her hand and gently wrapped her fingers around his cock. “No, you made it do that. It likes you. It belongs to you.” He said, suddenly feeling very strange at the thought. “This is your pet penis. Give him a name.”

“I don’t know. Peter?”

“Peter the penis.”

She smiled a little for the first time. “What do you want to call me? What I have?”

“Molly! You have a vagina. Your vagina is Molly. Peter and Molly.” He swallowed hard. “Sarah. Please. I want to see you.”

She didn’t move. The smile vanished. She let go of Peter. He wanted to speak, to protest, shout, order, demand. He waited, standing in the middle of the room, nude with poor Peter standing at half mast like a curious animal. Her eyes moved to look at him and he waited.

To his amazement, she got off the bed. With her back turned away from him, she slipped the night gown off over her head and dropped it on the floor. Her body was bare from the waist up. Soft and pliant, full in the thighs and ass. She drew down her panties, and kicked them away. She stood looking at the bed, her arms hanging straight at her sides. Her fists clenched. Cautiously, he came up behind her, and caressed her back softly with his fingertips. He massaged her shoulders and she allowed him. Gently he slipped his hands down, down under her arms which she lifted for him and he reached around. He took her soft baby bird breasts in his warm palms and lifted them, feeling the nipples rise. She was shivering. “You’re tempting me.”

“Tempting you to what?” he said, softly.

She raised her arms a little more, elbows hovering, and leaned back against him. He held her gently from behind, his hard shaft pressing the small of her back, now running his hands over her, lifting and dropping her breasts, pinching her nipples. Slowly, he inched his right hand down her belly, then below and twined his fingertips in her wiry nether hair.

“Lay down on the bed.” He croaked. "Do it now."

At first, nothing. And then, trembling, she moved away from him and turned around. Facing him. Naked. Her eyes looked frankly into his, one foot shyly crossed over the other and she gave him time. Time to run his eyes over her, appraise her, judge her, approve of her, love her, imagine the future with her. Her fecund belly, her bell shaped breasts, wide wall eyed nipples that looked shyly down, her thick topped thighs. Her eyes, waiting.

Turning her back to him, she lifted a knee, mounted the bed, then the other leg, rolled, and lay down in front of him on her back, her eyes never leaving his face. He got on the bed, placed himself, kneeled between her knees and touched her sex beneath.

“This is what we’re going to do.” He said.

“Don’t hurt me.” She whispered.

“Peter belongs in there.” He said. “Can you feel it? That feeling like Molly wants something inside her?”

She nodded.

“Let me do something for you first. Trust me.”

He inched back on the bed, dipped his head down and touched his lips to her sex hair, kissing her inner thigh. Her body tensed and began to move away from him, until he put his hands on her hips and held her in place. He peeked at Molly. There above her wet cleft, a swelling ridge. A smooth little pink nub. A miracle.

They didn’t cut her. I have four wives, and I’ve never seen a clitoris before now. She still has a clitoris. Thank you Jesus, thank you.

He felt her electric tension, a baffled mix of gathering lust and fear. His other wives would never let him go as far as she had already. What he was doing, even now, would have had them screaming in rage and threatening to turn him over to the Chastity Police. They had been damaged in every way. She had not. They had had their clitorises cut away, almost at birth. The memory had been burned into their very nerves. Unlike this one here, they understood sex and despised it with holy hate. They resented him for his hound dog desires, the marital duty of having to tolerate his climbing on top of them, grunting over them in the dark and finally splashing their wombs with his foul spunk in order to have children. This sheltered girl was still intact in every way. She had possibilities. She knew nothing of sex. Maybe she could learn to want it, maybe – impossible! – but maybe even seek him out for it, to come to his bed willingly, nude, wet inside and eager for him. This girl alone of his wives could learn to love him without fear. The other wives would expose her if they knew her secret. Maybe even have her cut, out of sheer malicious spite.

He put his tongue to the tiny nub, tasted it and played with it. She tensed and lifted her knees, he pressed them down to hold her tight over the edge of whatever was happening inside her.

“Adam. . . I didn't wash . . . “

He licked her nub and she jumped, but stayed as she was, as he ran the flat of his tongue along the swelling shaft above her cleft, himself feeling terrified of what he was doing, and the terror fascinated him, kept him moving compulsively to the next illicit moment and the next, unable to let go of the seaweed taste, the slick feel, the sheer danger. He played her with his tongue, feeling the tiny noodle tip of her clit and kissing it with the curled tip of his wet tongue. She rolled her hips undulating against his face. Her breathing became ragged and then urgent. “Stop! No! Adam - stop!” She went limp. He continued.

With a sudden strangling sound she thrashed her hips once, banging hard into his nose. She sprang half off the bed, shoving him off her lap wheezing,laughing wildly. The bed squealed as she collapsed back, curled up on her side into a ball, put her hands between her legs and held herself there. Her lips were tightly puckered in surprise.

"Are you all right?"

She stared blankly and nodded her chin. "... Yuh ... huh-huh...”

"But are you all right? I didn't hurt you?"

Her thighs squeezed hard against her hands and her belly shivered. She groaned and bit the pillowcase hard, gasping. After a moment she said “Did you know that would happen?"

"Are you happy?"

She shook her head. "My body feels silly."

"Is it good?"

"I don’t know."

"I think it’s the way I feel when I give my seed to a wife."

She looked troubled, still holding her hands between her legs. She was looking up at the ceiling fan and thinking. "Isn’t there a Holy Spirit? My mother said there's a Holy Spirit and the man just watches. She wouldn’t just say that. Or lie to me."

This poor girl, he thought. This poor, excellent girl.

She looked at him, slack faced and confused.

He gently removed her hands from between her legs. He patted her thighs apart. She folded her arms across her chest and he could see her pale pasty skin was flushed a glowing pink from neck to belly and her face was almost red. She squeezed her arms so that her nipples seemed to pop out and the sight made him feel carnal and huge.

"I feel so much." she said. "I feel everything."

He eased himself down between her legs, belly to belly, his cock nested in her wet thatch of wiry hair. "It's that time.” he said. He kissed her lips. With his hand he stroked her soft hair and she looked lost. “All right? Its time for Molly to meet Peter now.” He nudged the tip of his cock against her.

She came to herself and looked down. “What are you doing?”

“Shh. Hold still.” Reaching down with his hand, he rubbed his cock against her wet cleft, feeling for the spot.

“Oh no. . . oh no.. . . stop. Adam. Don’t hurt Molly. Be careful.”

Her last words – be careful – were her assent to him, her surrender. He proceeded to press into the spot, felt her interior resistance. His body wanted to thrust in ruthlessly, he held himself back.

He gentled his way in, whispering love words in her ear, chanting, stroking her neck and her breasts in a methodical way that he seemed instinctively to know how to do without knowing how he knew. She became deeply relaxed, limp, breathing quietly. Her eyes closed.

He caressed her and continued, rocking gently, setting up an easy rhythm. She opened her eyes. “This feels all wrong. Are you sure this is what we do . . . .”

“Molly.” Swinging his hips forward, he pushed through with a hard thrust.

She ground her teeth hard.

“Almost over.” He whispered. “Relax. Relax your legs. Almost done.” She was panicking. “It’s okay. Just let me do this.” Her eyes were welling with tears. She was trying to wriggle out from under him as he felt his orgasm gathering. Her struggles excited him and he battered her groin harder, faster, dropping his weight down on her. “Molly!”

She got her hands under him and heaved him off. He tumbled down off the bed to the floor. His stiff cock, glistening and blood speckled, waved in the air alien, and unsatisfied. “Why did you do that?” He shouted.

“It hurts!” She was crying again. “You lied to me!"

He hadn’t come. Seeing her this way, enough was enough. “Your mother lied! Everybody lied to you all your dammed life! I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was making love to you. Love!”

“You can’t put it there! It doesn’t go there.”

“I’m sorry!” he waved his arms. “I’ve had it with you. I need to leave for work.” He went into the bathroom and washed himself at the sink.

When he came out to look for his suit, she was sitting at the edge of the bed, naked, with the blanket over her knees, looking down. He came up to her hesitantly. There were no more plans. "Well, Sarah." He stood over her, putting on a jolly voice for her. "You’re a woman now. You’re a real wife."

“Do you know," she said, looking at the floor, "I have to give all my life to you. But you only give a fourth of your life to me. That’s all I've got.” She looked up at him sadly. "I wanted a honeymoon."

"Maybe someday." He didn’t know what else to say. He found his clothes and quickly dressed. As he tied his shoes she was still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor.

She looked up at him as he went to the door. "Husband?"

He turned. The sight of her made him hate himself.

"I feel dirty." She said, “Love should be about higher things. Not like animals."

"Sarah."

"What you did? That was a sin. That was a big sin. What I did, that was a big sin too. I know because I can feel the Devil inside me now. Tempting my flesh, making me want it more. You’re not supposed to want things like that, dirty things. I'm going to fast and pray for forgiveness, and I'm going to confess to Sister Goody Harris when she comes here tonight."

A wave of mortal panic washed over him. "No!"

She looked at him with hostility. "Why not?"

"Why? Why? Because they'll kill us, that's why."

Her face fell apart. She grabbed the blanket and threw it over her nakedness and began rocking back and forth. "Oh no. . . I knew it. . Oh my Lord Jesus. . ."

"Its sodomy, Sarah, that’s what we did. Got that? If you tell Goody I was licking and kissing Miss Molly, they can stone us to death for that."

She stuffed the blanket in her mouth and cried. "What did you do to me? I didn’t want you to do anything to me. Adam, what did you do? What will we do now?"

"Do? We won’t do anything, all right? You shut your mouth, that’s what you do. We consummated the marriage. That's all Goody wants to know."

"No more." she said softly. "You made me sin. I didn’t want it; it's your fault. Adam? After we have our baby, we have to stop. No more Molly. No more Peter. Don’t touch me anymore after that. No."

He stood in the doorway hating her. Hating everything about his life.

"Do you love me now?" She said.

"Molly." he sighed. "I don’t even know who you are."

He closed the door behind him as he left.

"Sarah." She wiped her nose with her fist. Rising up from the bed, tightening her jaw, standing, defiantly nude, attuned to the ringing silence of the room.

"My name is Sarah."




C. Sanchez-Garcia

My Passion For Pain

I absolutely love dystopian stories. Always have. Always will. It started with The Handmaid's Tale, and progressed from there through Fahrenheit 451 and the tales of Philip K Dick, through Dreamers In Time and 1984 to the recent glut of YA dystopias.

And I'll admit, I've been eating them up like nothing else. Hunger Games, Divergence, Delirium, Matched, Wither, The Forest of Hands and Teeth...I can't get enough of them. Which is understandable. They're filling a void in me for a certain type of book that adult fiction just hasn't been doing, and I love them.

What's less understandable is why I love dystopian fiction in the first place. What draws me to these terrible future worlds - both in books, and in film? What is it I love so much about them? I'm not entirely sure, though I think I can narrow it down to three main reasons:

1. In these books, the worst has already happened, in one way. I don't have to hold my breath, waiting for a terrible apocalypse to come. I don't have to wonder if awful is just around the corner. It's already arrived, and if I can face it, I'll be okay.

2. The stakes are immediatly raised. Everything and anything can be a crime, or an issue of some type, or a thing you've been denied - as Lisabet's outline neatly showed (fantastic idea and story, BTW, Lisabet!). And when this is already the foundation of the story, the drama is heightened. The tension is greater. And the rewards are far sweeter.

3. The boundaries are higher. I've spoken before about how much I love boundaries of some type around sex, and how hard that it is to achieve in modern settings. But in dystopian settings, the boundaries can be so high they practically touch Mars. You can have worlds where sex doesn't exist, worlds where sex with the wrong person gets you killed, worlds where sex makes you ill. Which is why I one day hope to write some of my own dystopian tales, complete with forbidden bonking.

As for any other, deeper reasons as to why I love dystopias...I don't know. I think that's as deep as I go.



P.S. If you're interested, my first novel from new imprint Mischief is out on Thursday. It's called Power Play, and it's about a woman who loves being dominated by her kinky boss...until she becomes the boss herself, and discovers the kinds of things her equally kinky assisstant is into...

You can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Play-ebook/dp/B006PW46NY/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332285507&sr=1-2

And here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Play-ebook/dp/B006PW46NY/ref=sr_1_34?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332285433&sr=1-34

And here:

http://www.mischiefbooks.com/books/power-play/

What a World

By Kathleen Bradean

I sense we're tackling this subject as the movie version of the Hunger Games is being released soon.

I bought the first book of the Hunger Games and read the first chapter. Then I set it aside. I probably will go back to it since everyone else in the house loved it.

Lately, dystopian futures have been big. I can see why. The future looks grim. We're wiping out honey bees with pesticides meant to increase crop production when bees are the primary fertilizer of those crops. We've vastly overpopulated the earth. There's a raft of trash floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean bigger than Rhode Island. The United States is in the grip of an ideological war that could make us a third world country in a generation through the destruction of our education system. And between our prison population and people forced to food stamps to avoid starvation, what's there to look forward to?

Dystopias present a world of extreme deprivation (in the Western World view of things, because Darfur is real and it's terrible beyond imagination but no one ever writes anything that bleak because no one wants to have to look at that reality, despite the fact that it is well within the abilities of the world community to change everything there. But that's a different rant.) But dystopias aren't unrelentingly bad or no one could stand to read them. Is the Hunger Games that much different from Stephen King's The Running Man? Or Logan's Run? Or The Handmaid's Tale? I don't know because I haven't seen the story through to the finish, but I suspect that the main character eventually incites the masses to turn on the ruling class through personal sacrifice. The triumph of the individual over the system is a common theme in US stories. I wonder if in societies that value community over the individual if it's always the cooperation of the many that results in positive change. And that's what dystopias are about, strangely enough. They're about hope.

Possible Futures

By Lisabet Sarai

The year is 2045. The sexually-transmitted Plague that killed a third of the U.S. population and left half the survivors sterile has been under control for more than seven years, but the country is still suffering. American technology, already on the decline before the disaster, has fallen further behind the competition from India, Brazil, and other powerhouse economies. People huddle in the deteriorating cities on both coasts; the center of the country belongs to bandits and the survivalist communities who saw the crash coming. The birthrate continues to drop, despite government propaganda and the availability of fertility boosting drugs. Scarred by memories of horrible death and devastating riots, and still afraid of residual contagion, people prefer the simulated sexual experience provided by EyePorn to the real thing.

The Guardians of American Greatness blame the crisis on homosexuals. The Plague first appeared in the gay community, and gay men were the first to die. When existing institutions collapsed, the Guardians stepped in to provide order. They rounded up every man whose profile revealed the homogene, imprisoning the captives in remote quarantine camps patrolled by robot wardens and surrounded by moats of toxic waste. At a time when the mobs were screaming for gay blood, the Guardians called the quarantine solution humane. Now people barely remember the existence of the incarcerated gays, though homosexual activity is still a capital crime.

Twenty four year old Dylan Moore has spent nearly a third of his life in desolate Malheur Camp, in the barren reaches of eastern Oregon. He's determined to escape or die in the attempt. A genius with electronics, Dylan manages to subvert the prison security systems and catch the attention of one of the two human guards in the facility, Rafe Cowell. Rafe is an ex-gang member, forced to work at Malheur as an alternative to a jail sentence. Although he's H-negative, Rafe finds Dylan disturbingly attractive and ultimately agrees to help him flee.

When Dylan's clever plans fall apart, the two men both end up as fugitives. They make their way to the partially ruined city of Sanfran, hoping to emigrate to Brazil or Thailand or some other gay-friendly country. However, they become entangled with the underground Queer Resistance as well as the ambitious city mayor, darling of the Guardians, who has his own private agenda.

This is the world of Quarantine, my M/M erotic romance novel due out in July. It's not so different from our own, and that's very deliberate. It's only a small step from the virulent anti-gay rhetoric one encounters in the U.S. media to a future that includes places like Malheur Camp. That may seem far-fetched, a gross violation of the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, but we've seen those guarantees savaged before in a crisis or emergency. Remember the American citizens of Japanese descent confined to internment camps during World War II? My scenario is not nearly as unthinkable as one would like to believe.

There are other aspects of my dystopia that are far too plausible for comfort. In Rafe's and Dylan's world, many citizens are not literate. Pictures and symbols have begun to replace text on public signs. Huge video screens loom over the city buildings, displaying non-stop images of peace and plenty. The Guardians deliberately cultivate nostalgia for the nineteen fifties, supposedly America's golden age of prosperity and power. Pictures of beloved "Uncle Ike" hang in every public place.

Surveillance devices are everywhere. A microchip buried under the skin of every individual encodes his or her identity and genetic profile. Robotic soldiers prowl the sidewalks, transmitting data back to Guardian headquarters. The only obstacle to complete control of the population is the unreliability of American-made technology.

It took me more than a year to finish Quarantine. I lost confidence about half way through and stopped writing, convinced that my vision of the future was simply too ordinary and obvious to be compelling. There are no starships in this book, no nanotechnology, no cyber-implants that can enhance your intelligence. The most sophisticated invention I describe is the EyePorn pod, a virtual sex device that interfaces with the limbic system and injects genetically tailored hormones into the user's bloodstream. Not too original - I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this available within five years.

I want to thank Garce for helping me get through that bad spell. His "muddling" was invaluable. It also helped to remind myself that I was writing erotic romance first - that the scifi aspect was perhaps less important than the relationship between the protagonists. In any case, Quarantine definitely falls into the "soft" category of science fiction. I'm mostly concerned with societal attitudes - and how they can be manipulated - in particular, attitudes about sexuality. A friend recently compared Quarantine to The Handmaid's Tale, and I think that's apt. Like Margaret Atwood's heroine, Dylan and Rafe are victims of a hypocritical system that demonizes their natural urges.

Here's an unedited excerpt from the book. Dylan and Rafe have made it to SanFran, and have been told to seek out the head of QR in the Castro exclusion zone - the former center of gay culture, now supposedly contaminated with Plague prions.

****

As they approached the corner of Market and Dolores, a wall of gray steel slats, nearly two stories high, rose in front of them. Red-lettered signs plastered the hoarding: "Contaminated Area. Extreme danger. Do not enter." plus scowling skull and crossbones icons for those citizens who couldn't read. The official notices were augmented by coarser, more casual notices: "Die fags!" and "Kill the queers". Dylan was used to such sentiments, but Rafe's body stiffened as they approached the barrier.

The fence ran left along the west side of Dolores as far as they could see. Meanwhile, it stretched for blocks along Market. It appeared at first to be impenetrable, but at Castro there was a closed gate, wide enough for a bulldozer. Dylan was surprised to find that the entry was bolted but not locked and there no guards. He scanned the power poles and neighbouring buildings. He didn't see any cameras, though that meant little.

Market Street was momentarily empty of both people and vehicles. "This is our chance," he told his companion in a loud whisper. "Now!" He slipped the bolt and cracked open the door.

"Wait—maybe we shouldn't—the Plague..." Rafe hung back as Dylan stepped partway inside.

"Come on!" Dylan hooked Rafe's upper arm and yanked him into the shadows on the other side of the door. Rafe stumbled on a heap of debris. Dylan steadied him. Nervous sweat beaded the black man's brow.

Sympathy tightened Dylan's chest. Poor Rafe. Despite his gang background, he wasn't used to being hunted. Plus he still believed the Guardians' propaganda. Dylan pulled off his mask, stuffing it into his back pocket, then moved to do the same with Rafe's.

"No!" The ex-guard backed away. "I'll keep it on."

"Don't be silly," Dylan laughed, snatching the mask away and planting a kiss on Rafe's mouth. He felt his lover relax a bit. "I'm sure we're being watched in here. We need to show who we are, so they know they can trust us." He pushed the hood back, exposing Rafe's scowling face.

"But the Plague..."

"Artemis said it was safe, that the disease has died out. Don't you believe her?"

"Um—I'm not sure..."

"Well, I do. She's one smart lady. I think the Plague is the least of our worries." He held out his hand to his hesitant partner. "It'll be okay, Rafe. As long as we're together, we're okay."

Rafe grunted in reply, but he allowed Dylan to lead him deeper into the exclusion zone.

The devastation was more extensive than anything they'd seen so far. The streets were pocked with grenade craters and lined with heaps of charred rubble that had once been buildings. In some places it was difficult to walk. They trudged uphill, dodging piles of debris, scanning for any signs of life. It was eerily silent. The babble from the vidscreens didn't seem to penetrate here.

Dylan checked the map, then turned left onto a narrower street. Half-demolished wooden structures leaned at crazy angles around them. "This should be Church," he told Rafe as they took a right. "And that should be Wilde Baths."

He pointed to a three story, stucco building across the road. The roof had caved in on the left, but the right side of the edifice appeared to be intact. Splintered boards shuttered the windows. Weeds sprouted on the sills. Despite its dodgy appearance, however, Wilde Baths had a very solid-looking front door.

Dylan knocked, three long, two short, one long, the way Artemis had instructed. Sixty seconds went by. No one answered. The buzz of a helicopter sounded overhead. His heart slammed against his ribs. Could Artemis have betrayed them?

As though sensing his unease, Rafe put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Dylan took a deep breath and knocked again.

Hinges creaked and the door opened an inch or two. "Yeah?" The unseen man sounded annoyed, even angry.

"We're friends of Oscar," Dylan answered with the pass phrase. "Artemis sent us. We need to talk to Hammer."

The gap widened another few inches. A slender man with a trim goatee glared at them. "Hammer's not here now."

"Can we come in? Wait for him?" Rafe interjected. The engine noise grew louder. "It's not safe for us out here."

The man's eyes flicked over them, weighing the risks. Finally he nodded. "Okay." Stepping back, he let them enter, then bolted the door behind them. "Here." He handed each of them a folded, dingy-looking towel and a key, then pointed down a dimly lit corridor. "Locker room's at the end of the hall. Baths are in the basement, massage on the second floor. I'll come find you when he gets back." Dylan didn't expect the grin that twitched at the man's thin mouth. "Have fun."

"Wait a minute..." Rafe tried to return the towel.

Dylan grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall. "Thanks," he called back. "We really appreciate it."

Rafe struggled to extricate his hand from Dylan's grip. "Stop," he hissed. "No way I'm getting naked in front of a bunch of queers."

"Oh really? Do you want to go back outside, then? Well, go ahead." Dylan was suddenly furious. How could he love such a damned homophobe? "Maybe that copter wasn't looking for us after all. Anyway, you're not queer. You don't have to worry. You can explain it all. How you were tricked into helping some Plague-infected perv escape quarantine. It wasn't your fault, was it? Sneaky little fag must have drugged you or something. You're straight as Uncle Ike, right?"

*****

Quarantine is scheduled for release some time in July. Don't worry - I'll let you know when as soon as I hear!