Top 5 Horribly Depressing SF Books That I Just Couldn’t Take As Movies
on October 19th, 2010Pure science fiction can be a lot more horrible than “horror,” or even “SF/horror.” The scope of its imagination can doom the entire planet or create an unspeakable institution that operates on too subtle a scale to really fit in with “the horror section,” yet inspires awful thoughts that stay with you for days.
I respect this sort of thing, when it’s done well. But when a book is really, truly horrifying, reading it is about the extent that I’m prepared to allow it into my consciousness. Since the #1 book on this list was made into a film quite recently, I figured it’d be a good time to list the five SF books whose films you couldn’t pay me to see.
5. Fahrenheit 451. I have yet to read a more damning account of a civilization committing suicide from within. It’s the least depressing on this list because the ending is somewhat hopeful, but Bradbury’s ideas actually frighten me more with every passing year.
4. 1984. Despite its practically defining rendition of SF dystopia, the book throws out just enough breadcrumbs of hope to make one believe that the human spirit might prevail. Spoiler warning: “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face– forever.” That’s kinder than what we get.
3. One Second After. It’s not a movie yet. Maybe it never will be. Because maybe an electromagnetic pulse will wipe out America’s power grid and, essentially, America’s civilization too. I’ve seen some of the novel’s underlying assumptions challenged, which comes as an immense relief, but I still find it wrenchingly plausible, with a could-happen-tomorrow feeling that is extremely difficult to shut out.
2. The Road. Oh, God. The last days of mankind, at least as far as we know, are rendered in brutally well-thought-out detail. I guess the ending isn’t a complete heart-fisting, but the path we take to get there… the endless grayness, the carnage, and especially the flashbacks to the wife… Man.
1. Never Let Me Go. They’re… they’re being grown for parts. They’re kids. Just kids. They won’t get to stop being kids. There’s a… schedule, and… and… Jesus…
Fuck everything.
So what is the one that was made into a movie recently?
#1, Never Let Me Go.
Wikiing the two books that I haven’t read (#s 1 and 3) pretty much depressed the hell out of me, so… I’d call that a success both for you and for the authors, really!
Great lists, I’ve loved every one you’ve posted.
Well…, I’m depressed now. I think I’ll eat some broken glass, or something…, okay, after I read the books I haven’t read, yet.
Just remember, if you DO watch them, the version of 1984 you want is the one that was actually RELEASED in 1984, as they got it just about perfect. It’s almost as soul-crushing as the book.
I can’t help but include Children of Men in there. Although I have to say the Movie is also well worth the watch. I’ve never quite seen the a civilization’s downfall portrayed quite so brutally honestly.
Haven’t read that one, only heard about it, but yeah, it certainly sounds worthy of consideration.
Harry Harrison’s “Make Room, Make Room” was as bleak and chilling a future as I’d read in a long time. The movie adaptation, “Soylent Green”, was almost cheery by comparison.
Another one I thought was utterly horrible and depressing was Elizabeth Hand’s “Aestival Tide”.
Having just seen the movie version of “Never Let Me Go,” I must confess I didn’t find it all that crushing… just a bit vaguely sad. Am I really that heartless? Or did the story lose something in the translation to film? I really want to read the book now to see how it’s handled in prose.
Also, oddly enough, reading “The Road” when I was really, really depressed made me feel somewhat *better*… perhaps because, hey, at least I don’t have a pesky kid I’ll have to shepherd through the apocalypse.
Well if we add short stories to the list, there’s always Kornbluths paean to eugenics and bad science…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
I might look for Never Let Me Go now. It might be the misanthropist in me, but kids being grown for body parts sounds very relevant to my interests.
…I really need to dig up my copy of 1984 again. o_o
Well if we add short stories to the list…
*”I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”
*Some Vonnegut, like “2BR02B” or “Harrison Bergeron”
*Some Dick, for sure. But which one? “Upon the Dull Earth“? “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts”? “Faith of our Fathers”? “Frozen Journey/I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon”?
I have to hope that “The Marching Morons” was meant as a Modest-Proposal-style satire of “omg, the dumb people, they’re breeding” hysteria. Or is tricking idiots into killing themselves intended to be presented as a good idea?
I’ve always found it ironic that F451 claimed that they’d burn all but the comic books. “They” decided to burn the comic books first, only a few years after that was writ.
Dur. I must have really been out of it when I read the intro.
#2, which is the only one of the bunch that I have read, is exactly as depressing as you suspect, and maybe more so.
Another you didn’t mention, but which I found completely gloom-making upon reading, was Miller’s A Canticle for Liebowitz.
Not sure if it was ever made into a movie, but the one that left me terrified is The Handmaid’s Tale. And every year that shows more and more of the religious right gaining power in some insidious ways, I get more paranoid about the possibilities…
‘Never let me go’ will never happen. Not because people aren’t that brutal – they are – but because of the economics of it.
We can clone organs and grow them pretty quickly, and the technology improves every day. It just doesn’t make sense to invest so much into a whole body, when the organs themselves can be made faster and cheaper.
Actually most on this list are bad science, bad economics or bad psychology, or all three. But they’re fun.
1984 was scary as shit, though. I read it when I was 10, on my mom’s recommendation… Yeah. Thanks mom. Thanks a bunch.