Turn the Page -July 2021 Book Review/Sci Fi and the Future

Escape the heat, look to the future, enjoy and compare these science fiction books that visualize what the future may hold. The women tell the tales.

In Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the U.S. is taken over by an ultra-conservative group, the Sons of Jacob, determined to reverse a society of physical and social degradation. Their Republic of Gilead is a society with strict lines of class and gender delineation.

.Women are classified into different groups. Wives dress in blue and are married to top officials, Handmaids dress in red and are fertile females whose sole purpose is to bear children for Wives, and there are other classifications, too.

 Men are Commanders, the ruling class who wears black, or Eyes, the secret police, or Angels, the soldiers.

The story is told by Offred, a handmaid, who compares the Gilead society with her life before the takeover. Readers see the results of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction and how religious language and concepts are used as political tools.

The follow-up to this book is “The Testaments” which takes the reader through the future of Gilead and beyond. A must read follow-up.

.A complete flip on Atwood's dystopian society, “Woman on the Edge” by Marge Piercy is about a poor Hispanic woman. She time travels, providing contrast between 1976 and the possible far off future - a future of an ideal setting of generic pronouns ("per", from person,  instead of her or him) and shared family responsibilities.

 The utopian vision is the highlight of the book and provides much to think about when compared to 2012. The story also focuses on society's response, reaction and resources for persons labeled as mentally ill.

.Another dysfunctional future comes from Hillary Jordan in “When She Woke.” In this U.S. the line between church and state is beyond blurred and, in the wake deep economic depression, government saves the cost of prisons by changing the skin color of criminals to match their crimes.

Much like Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” the public punishes the offender perhaps more than imprisonment.

.Again, as in “The Handmaids Tale,” government uses religious beliefs and language to control society. Readers follow Hannah’s story when she wakes up a Red, guilty of the crime of murder via an abortion.

.After a life devoted to church and family, she learns to survive judgment and restrictions including the dangers of the Fist of Christ and loss of her family and friends. While trying to find safe passage in an alien world, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery.