As a balance to this thread I’d like to know what worlds created in books, movies, TV shows, music, etc., would you NOT want to live in.
Here’s a few of mine:
The 32nd century as depicted in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion/Endymion series. The entire galaxy ruled by the Pope with forced compliance to one religion does not appeal to me. Not only that, but aliens using my brain w/o my permission just isn’t nice.
The squeaky clean world of 50s & 60s sitcoms. You’d think that not being able to go to the prom being your biggest problem would be a good thing. Just watch Pleasantville.
Gotham City. Or any big city in any comic book universe. Regular crime is bad enough without some super-powered wackjob terrorizing the city.
Styx’ Kilroy Was Here. Rock music banned, singing robots. It’s MADNESS, I tells ya!
The world described in those books - sorry, my extreme forgetfulness is showing. The books are called “The Wind Singer” and “Slaves of the Mastery” and while they’re good books, the world they describe sounds like hell to live in. Can anyone remember the author?
I wouldn’t want to live in the world that Seinfeld is set in. Seriously, their lives–while funny to outsiders–are extremely shallow. I think someone once said facetiously that Seinfeld must be some brilliant theologian’s imagining of hell.
It’s called New York, which yes, is hell according to some theologians. (Here and San Francisco, anyway.) What’s warped about that world is the joylessness and endless pickiness of the characters, not the world itself. The only unusual thing I can think of about the Seinfeld world is in real life, someone would’ve beaten Jerry, George and/or Elaine to death because they’d be so damn annoying.
I wouldn’t want to live in Huxley’s Brave New World.
I’d actually want to live in Herbert’s Dune universe but I want to be a Harkonnen because it seems they had the most fun.
Yeah, Oceania, Eurasia, et al from 1984 are clear winners of the coveted Least Enjoyable Place to Live in Any Reality.
George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe, while fascinating to read about, would be scary as hell to live in. If your country isn’t being torn apart by five kings going to war with each other at the same time, then you’ve been raped and pillaged by Dothraki or burnt to death as a sacrifice to the Fire God. No thanks.
Gotcha all beat. Earth under the Draka in any of S. M. Stirling’s books about same, particularly “Under the Yoke” which gives a pretty vivid picture of life for the Draka’s slaves. And even the Draka themselves are vulnerable to their own security apparatus. It’s a picture of a terroristic state that makes 1984 look idyllic.
BTW, no PICKING OUT ROLES in the books, that defeats the whole purpose of the thread, IMHO. Life is good at the top in most any society. The whole point is, what’s life like for an average guy?
Best society to be an average guy in? Maybe another thread, but I’ve got some candidates there, too.
Definitely not in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451…although it might be worth it if you would be able to participate in the revolution that seems to be at hand at the end of the book. (Sorry if that last sentiment boarders on ‘role picking)’.
And as weirdly attracted as I am to whoever plays Alex in Stanly Kubrick’s version, (and further dispite what the location displayed to your left implicates) I wouldn’t want to live in Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange.
The world of Terry Gilliam’s Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is truly awful. If you’re not killed or maimed in a fiery explosion you’re likely to be crushed by an oppressive regime. In the meantime you’ll be lucky if you can get a decent piece of toast. On the other hand, there’s plenty to look at.
The world in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is the first one I thought of, and I have to agree about Hyperion/Endymion too.
I’m going to add Gunsmoke, the planet in the anime Trigun. Unless you actually get to hang out with Vash the Stampede it looks like mostly a miserable life in a hot desert.
The weird thing is, the great Asimov himself thought that kind of world was fine. He hated to fly, and was happiest in his own little cave of a writing room, with his typewriter.
Menzoberranzen, in R. A. Salvatore’s Dark Elf Trilogy (Homeland being the first and best in the series, IMO).
A world full of slavery, torture, and war between noble houses… and all of this is accepted as the norm. Your life (if you are a non-noble female or almost any male) is as tenuous as the whims of any noble priestess or woman, really. At any time, one of your rival’s houses may try to make a move on your house, which means you may have to fight them, be kidnapped, tortured for info, etc. Also, about all of the powerful people in the city are plotting and experimenting, so you may just end up being the unwilling subject in an archmage’s Spider Soldier experiment. Finally, most of the powerful people also have a strong predilection for torture, so if someone is having a bad day, they may just mutilate your body for kicks. It could even be your own mother who does this.
The Dr. Who universe/multiverse/timeline(s). Besides living in an existence of cheap sets and abundant rock quarries and no clear sense of history and continuity, you have to deal with being enslaved by any of several oppressive empires, being fodder for whatever menace appears when the Doctor pays you a visit (intentional or otherwise) especially if you are below the rank of Sergeant-Major in UNIT, or seeing most everybody around you killed by said menace if you do survive only to be abandoned by the Doctor when the damage is done.
You also get the impression that everybody was either killed by the Daleks or had to fight brutal wars with them for years on end unless you happened to live on Curly-Qium, Planet of the Infinite Spiral Staircases.
About the only plus would be that you might luck out once in a while and get some sweet former Companion loving if one of them decides to leave the Doctor while they visit with you.
I wouldn’t want to live in any TV soap opera world where my wife has sex with all my family members, an underworld mob boss wants me dead, and my secertary hides the fact that she’s having her brothers baby by falsifing the blood test to make it look like its mine right before finding out that she’s the clone of my aborted sister.
