Science fiction can get really screwed up sometimes. Of course, there's always a place in the genre for optimistic visions of the future, but stories about the future often do a lot to explore our current anxieties regarding where we're heading, and even in stories which are not primarily about examining a screwed up society, they often show us an image of where we're afraid we're going. In addition, because sci-fi stories often take place on a larger scale than real history, the atrocities sometimes committed in those stories outclass anything that could happen in real life.

We're here today to explore the darker side of this genre, and take a look at a bunch of stories that consider 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:stories full of war and murder whose plots, and, usuallไy, settings, 🌠are dark and brutal.

Dune is one of the greatest and most popular science fiction works of all time. It's a brutal story, about inevitable doom and horrible atrocities. The setting it takes place in starts out objectionable, and gets worse and worse the more you read, or think, about it. Just enjoy this book's happy ending, because there's not going to be a ton more of those 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:throughout the rest of the series.

This classic sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick is the basis for the Blade Runner franchise, and, in being so, is the inspiration for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:much of the cyberpunk genre. As those familiar with the genre will be able to guess, this means it's incredibly screwed up.

What makes this novel so disturbing is its moral ambiguity. The crimes committed against the androids of this novel are disturbing, but so is the genuine danger they present. Where other dark stories allow you to take the relatively comfortable position of judging everyone as evil, this one doesn't give you any way to rest easy.

From Michael Chriton, the author of Jurrasic Park and general master of thrillers, comes a story about a plague of extraterrestrial origin an☂d the scientists fighting to keep it from consuming the earth. For no particular reason, we will point out that it was 𝓡published in 1969.

In all seriousness, this novel is full of tension and interesting sci-fi moments. This book takes place in the real world, rather than a hypothetical darker one, but it's still pretty bleak throughout most of it, with tons of death and disease.

Margaret Atwood is one of the best writers currently alive. She's best known for the all-time great novel The Handmaid's Tale, a story which nearly made this list. The reason we ultimately held back on including it is that, though it is a very dark novel, and technically a work of science fiction, it doesn't get its darkness from its sci-fi elements. The horrifying things in that book are the realistic parts.

This novel does more with its sci-fi elements. While social injustice is still a core element of what's wrong in this society, the specific form that it takes is grounded in technology, which makes the book feel more genre and suited to this list.

There are a lot of thrillers on this list. It's only natural that stories about creating tension would be the ones dealing with dark subject matter. Still, there's more that's screwed up about this novel than the murder. While the horrific deaths of these characters that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:spur this story's mystery are not a part of the plan, these clones' lives were never all that precious, which is why they have such a difficult time struggling to survive.

Another top-tier sci-fi thriller, and the newest book on our list, this novel by S. A Barnes, who's done a good job of late making a name for herself in sci-fi horror, concerns the investigation of an abandoned spaceship. In many ways, this story is the sci-fi equivalent of a haunted house novel. That's not to say it concerns literal ghosts (though maybe it does, you'll have to read the book) but rather that it carries the same spirit, dealing with past horrors and their remnants.

Reminiscent of H. P. Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space, this strange nightmare of a novel is the beginning of a trilogy about the poor fools who must explore a stretch of land that has gone wrong in a very strange way. Area X is a fascinating and deeply horrifying place.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Horror usually comes from the unknown, and there are certainly elements of that here, but what's so impressive about this series is how the answers to its mysteries really are worse and more horrific than ignorance could ever be. Terrible truths lurk in these novels.

Possibly the best two novels ever written, the two parts of the Earthseed Duology are amazingly rich with jus✅t about everything you could want from a novel. Their dystopian setting is amazingly fleshed out. They are full of tension. They are emotionally engrossing. They are utterly fascinating.

Parable of the Sower has three or four elements that each could've carried a novel on its own, and while other novels would get bogged down by having that much going on, everything about these stories is executed perfectly. The religion the main character founds is fascinating. So is her disability. So is the world she finds herself in.

The second novel, Parable of the Talents, is somehow even better. It takes everything that was great about the first novel and improves it by heightening the moral ambiguity. Where the first novel makes you fall in love with the protagonist and her philosophy, the sequel will have you questioning whether s😼he was ever even a good person.

FAQ

What science fiction has predicted the future?

No single work of science fiction has ever perfectly predicted the future, and no good work of science fiction has ever set out to do so. Sci-fi novels that people regard as prophetic are reminiscent of the future in a variety of ways, but they never get things just right, or even come all that close. When sci-fi visions of the future wind up feeling accurate in retrospect, it's usually because they were inspired by elements of the then-present and past that happened to recur later in history.

Does science fiction have to be futuristic?

No. Science Fiction, by definition, deals with speculative elements that are not a part of the current world we all live in, but which do not contradict the world as we understand it so completely that it's fully impossible that they could one day be real. The passage of time, and advancement of technology, is the most common way for new things to become possible, so it's convenient and believable to set stories about technology we don't currently have in the future, but there are other ways of introducing those elements, and many sci-fi stories take place in our present or past, or in other worlds altogether.

Who is considered the first science fiction author?

Mary Shelly, the author of Frankenstein, was probably the first sci-fi author, though the fact that there is not, and never will be, a clear-cut line between science f⛎iction and adjacent genres💙 means it will never be possible to say for sure.