Ask Slashdot: What's the Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read? 1365
50000BTU_barbecue writes "Usually sci-fi provides adventure with happy endings for everyone. But what story have you read that resonates years later because of some insight about human nature or society that's basically cynical or pessimistic? For me it's Fred Pohl's Jem, with its sharply divided resource-constrained future world driven by politics, and its conclusion that humans are just too destructive to handle contacting alien life, especially if humans have the technological upper hand. I'm wondering what other stories have stuck in people's minds. It can be a short story, a novel or an entire series of books."
Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Canticle for Leibowitz (Score:5, Interesting)
God. What a drag.
Hey! Ballard's stuff is bleak! I think someone mentioned James Blish, too. That guy's day job was working for the Tobacco Institute. No wonder...
Then, there is the endless low-level of depression that permeates most Philip K Dick - like a miasma. But he makes you want more, somehow.
Re:Canticle for Leibowitz (Score:5, Interesting)
So right about the Philip K Dick...
Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Man in the High Castle, Three Stigmata were just horrifying - but wonderful.
I think while it's fun to read his stuff, no one would actually want to live in his worlds...
Re:Canticle for Leibowitz (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't find Liebowitz all that depressing. At least we're told that there are colonies in space where man still survives.
How about On The Beach by Nevil Shute. Written at the height of the cold war, it starts at a point in time where everything in the world is dead or soon to be because of a nuclear war, except Australia, South Africa, and Southern South America. But that is only because the wind patterns haven't brought the fallout there yet. The story takes place in Australia and everyone is just waiting for the seasons to change when the weather patterns will bring the radiation south and kill everyone there too. It follows several people and through them looks at how people live knowing it is just a matter of time till everyone is dead. The author maintains that where they can, people just try to live normal lives because that is all their they can do without going into overload. Some do lose it becoming alcoholics and extreme risk takers, etc. Some are in complete denial. Some like an American sub commander, internally can't accept his family is dead and buys things for them for when he goes home. Rationally he knows they have to be dead, but can't help but deny it inside.
The commander is in charge of a nuclear submarine that was docked in Australia at the time all the hostilities literally went ballistic. They go to Puget Sound because they hear intermitant transmissions from a short wave transmitter using morse code. While up there they determine radiatin levels aren't dropping. After someone goes ashore in air tanks they find the transmission was a broken window and a curtain brushing the sending unit. Power is on because the automatic systems haven't crashed yet.
They go back to Melbourne and the government there starts handing out suicide pills so people don't have to endure radiation poisoning before finally dying. The book ends with all the characters including a young family with a baby born just before the war, killing themselves as the radiation in the area reaches leathal levels.
I read the book once. It was incredibly well written. One of the best I ever read. I can't read it again. It is way too depressing. WAY too depressing. I tried once and before I even read a page I had a sort of reaction to it. I had to put it down. There was no way I could read it again. I've read Liebowitz a few times and will probably read it again some time. Not anywhere near the coefficient of depresivity that On The Beach puts out. FWIW I read it in the 70s as a teen, when you could still see B-52s routinely flying north from SAC bases in the U.S. on training runs and patrols. Back when 747s were still fairly rare you could still tell the B-52s apart by how damned high they were flying and the contrails. You could tell they had a massive number of engines by the contrails. Different time.
Brave New World (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brave New World (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Brave New World. Especially since Brave New World seems to reflect our current cultural situation in much of the west.
I have heard Huxley's Brave New World compared and contrasted with Orwell's 1984. In 1984, the powers that be manipulate the public's opinions to believe that, in essence black is white and 2 + 2 = 5. In Huxley's Brave New World, the public simply doesn't care about the reality of the world. Most people are simply interested in what is in front of them, their desires, their fears, without any real concern about society as a whole. That sounds a lot like the current corporate state.
Re:Brave New World (Score:5, Informative)
If I may contribute an addendum, here is the quote to which I was referring, by Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (pdf) [seu.edu.cn]. It compares Orwell's 1984 to Huxley's Brave New World:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.
Re:Brave New World (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brave New World (Score:5, Interesting)
"So, on the one hand, we have a government trying to emulate 1984. (China). On the other, we have a thriving Brave New World."
But our Brave New World leaders, clever as Mustafa Mond, adapt to new times and added a bit of 1984 salt to the equation: we've been always at war with Eastasia (so we never gave weapons to Al-Qaeda, and Donald Rumsfeld never shaked his hand with Saddam Hussein); it's obvious what a fine Emmanuel Goldstein Osama Bin Laden did (I was quite surprised when they killed him, but they are fast at finding substitutes); with regards of Newspeak and the Ministry of Truth, it's not only that, say, Julian Assange makes for an almost perfect Winston Smith -sex included, but that "political correctness" is pushed to absurd levels; countries like UK are not so far from the cameras everywhere distopia; and CIA doesn't even hide the fact that they play Brotherhood's O'Brian role as needed. Finally, just compare USA's current sociopolitical situation with the central 1984 motto and cry: "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH".
But all this formal/tactical similitudes are just superficial because deeply is the Brave New World pilosophy. As such, is not that say, photographs of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein are forbidden and destroyed, or that the massive destruction weapons issue is not known to be fake, it is that it really doesn't matter; it is not that the Big Brother prosecutes critical thinking, it is that people, all by themselves, choose religious crooks for presidents; it is not that the national lotto is faked but that people really believe that working hard and adapting to the "true way", they'll reach to the 0.01% status.
In the end, I find Brave New World much more depressing than 1984 because for 1984 world to work, the stablishment is forced to always be on top of everything, always watching and the coertion is too visible and the obvious target to figth against. Brave New World, on the other hand, is self-stabilizing: people voluntarily choose it and the government doesn't need to search and destroy the outsiders, society itself does it.
Re:Spoiler. (Score:5, Funny)
Also, it turns out there should be a lot of orgies - it tends to turn out that way in Heinleins books, particularly the books he wrote as a older guy - in those books it turns out the world would be a better place if hot young women would have more orgies with old guys.
Re:Spoiler. (Score:5, Funny)
it turns out the world would be a better place if hot young women would have more orgies with old guys.
I don't agree that would make the world a better place, but ask me again in a few years and I might have changed my mind...
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I agree: Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" is utterly depressing. I was thinking about it when I read the summary and then was surprised that someone else thought about it as well.
The story depicts mankind's end. No, it's not a new beginning. Our individuality makes us what we are. Humanity ends right there, in some sort of stupid dance. No other Clarke story I know is as dark and depressing. Mankind comes to this pathetic end, not even with some sort of bang, it just gets absorbed, overcome, assimilated.
Stories ending in all out nuclear war or complete annihilation of Earth or mankind are not as depressing as this.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
"Arthur C. Clakes Childhood's End, that wasn't depressing, certainly not up there with the most obvious example 1984"
1984 is depressing just till you read Huxley' s Brave New World. And the fact that nobody has even mentioned it after well over 100 comments shows exactly why it's so depressing.
Re:Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read (Score:5, Insightful)
1984
or Brazil (Score:5, Insightful)
1984 is a story about an ultra-competent government that manages to run everything just the way it wants to and convince people to act and think how it wants. Brazil was a story about an amazingly incompetent government that so much fails at it's job as to take society down with it. Guess which one I find more relevant to the current state of affairs?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't matter what is more depressing. The question was about fiction, your book is out of scope. The judge is still out about 1984, but Brazil clearly can't participate on this contest.
Re:or Brazil (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really much science in those fictional stories.
When I think of SciFi, I think of stories where science plays the dominate role, like space travel, advance techonology, and of course, shit with science in it.
By your definition most SF wouldn't be SF then. In fact very little SF would be SF because most of the "science" in Science Fiction is inaccurate and thus not actually science. 1984 and Brave New World do in fact both include plenty of science, in the background. Pervasive surveillance, socio-political engineering, pharmaceutical engineering, artificial birth - it's all there. I would assume you never actually read either book.
Re:or Brazil (Score:5, Interesting)
Pervasive surveillance, socio-political engineering, pharmaceutical engineering, artificial birth - it's all there. I would assume you never actually read either book.
I wouldn't assume that. I'd assume the reader is young enough that they don't realise that those things didn't exist when the book was written.
Sci-Fi that's good enough that when the science catches it up, it looks just like fiction. Now that's a skillful writer!
Re:Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. We are living Brave New World much more than 1984.
Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Funny)
Though the most depressing part is the people who think she had good ideas.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two kinds of people who have read Ayn Rand. Those who misguidedly think that they're entirely self-sufficient, and those who understand that human individuality can only exist and prosper in a healthy society.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:4, Insightful)
I value people who care only about their family and friends more than the compassionate types loving everybody. The former are honest, the latter usually are easy to pin down as stinking hypocrites.
People are not wired to care about the whole world. Your brain can track up to 150 people at once. If you claim you can't sleep because children in Africa are dying, you are lying. If you say are worried about the living conditions of the guy who assembled your iphone, you are lying.
The only way to make sure nobody is left behind is to follow the rule 'Everyone looks after oneself = everyone is looked after'
we have a decent proxy to determine self-sufficiency score - money. If you are paid a good coin that means you are a valuable member of society. If your score is above 0, you are a net gain for society. Yeah yeah, the rich are mostly worthless but have a high score - nobody said the proxy was perfect (besides the rich were bad guys in the book)
The whole point is that the healthy society you speak of doesn't necessarily mean inducing guilt trips in individuals to look after everybody and their dog. On the contrary, they should be free to excel without being bogged down by mediocrity all around them.
I bet this is one of the reasons why the upward mobility is at all time low - people who are bright enough to bring value to the table are paying through the nose instead of expanding, because everybody is entitled to something and it ain't free. They also can't temporarily cut corners in their own wellbeing to bet everything they have on their ideas, because most likely the govt will say it's illegal in 10 different ways and will find 100 ways to punish them.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Insightful)
I value people who care only about their family and friends more than the compassionate types loving everybody. The former are honest, the latter usually are easy to pin down as stinking hypocrites.
There's nothing wrong with valuing your family and friends more than other people. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't put zero value to other people, however.
People are not wired to care about the whole world.
Actually, yes, they are. Well, not about the whole world, but their community (which is certainly bigger than family). Humans are social primates, with all that entails. If you read up on human ethology, you'll find out that a lot of "basic decency" things, and altruism in general, are actually evolved intrinsic behavior, rather than conditioning.
Again, this doesn't contradict caring about yourself/family/friends. In fact, it rather complements it - if the society as a whole takes care about you as a member, it makes sense to ensure its continual existence. That's precisely why these things evolved in the first place - they benefit not only the group as a whole, but (on average) individual members of that group as well.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, yes, I have actually read "Atlas Shrugged".
Yes, I do realize that Rand itself saw some manifestations of what is normally referred to as altruism as rational self-interest at work (the book has that, in fact, even in some quite explicit forms, like the rescue of Galt).
The real problem with Rand is that her understanding of what "rational" is, is very much dogmatic, and often more emotional than rational in practice. In other words, what she proposes as rational self-interest masquerading as altruism, does not in fact match the real world. The model of behavior that she proposes and glorifies in the book is not in fact rational - it's way over to the other side from the balance of self-obsession vs altruism which results in the best (statistically speaking) outcome.
In particular, she severely overestimated the importance and self-sufficiency of individual against the society. Her whole model is based on the premise of vast superiority of occasional "heroes" - personal, individual superiority - against the mass of the species as a whole. "Heroes" who single-handedly guided and caused progress by act of their sheer will and ingenuity, pretty much regardless of the environment, and in fact often directly against it. That is essentially what the book is all about. The problem, again, is that there's no evidence really backing that premise. Rand followed it because it matched her beliefs, but a rational philosophy cannot be based on a belief. An internally self-consistent one can, and Objectivism is certainly self-consistent in that sense, but consistency does not imply usefulness if the initial set of axioms contradicts reality.
The other oft repeated mistake is that such "selfish altruism" is solely a product of rational thought in the first place. In practice it actually arises much earlier than the ability to rationalize, and is seen among many animals. Among some of them it defines some of the crucial traits that distinguish them as species, and humans are in fact one of those species (we are far more "altruistic" than other great apes, and historically our lineage seems to have been more cooperative, judging by anthropological evidence to date). We shroud that in elaborate social rites (itself a result of evolutionary selection of our societies!) that re-enforce and multiply the effect, but that feel of guilt for doing the "wrong thing" at the back of your head is just as much genetics as it is conditioning.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:4, Informative)
This is an argument for a more localized government (which directly translates to leadership being less removed from normal people), not necessary against a strong government.
That said, a government is effectively inevitable. By definition, a government is an organization that holds the monopoly on legitimate violence over a given territory. If you remove that, what follows is a struggle for power between various interest groups; the ones that win, become the new government. So, flawed or not, the best thing you can do is shape the government to have the most beneficial effect overall.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is where to draw the line between my individual liberty and yours. My fist should experience all the freedom it wants, right up to the edge of your noses freedom to not be bloody. Sadly when people begin assuming that their freedom is a Gawd given right, and continue to take a little more, grab a little more, nudge a little more, we end up with a lot of people who honestly believe that they are entitled. suddenly your continued breathing is interfering with their freedom to use that space you're taking up. This is how wars large and small begin. If you think I'm exaggerating, I would only have to point at the near cratering of the global economy in 2008, and the next one which will be even larger if we don't start limiting the freedom of those who now control our economies. So with individual liberty, must also come personal responsibility, and social accountability. You/They are not the only sentient being(s) on the planet, taking freedom isn't an excuse for not playing well with others.
Re:Liberty is supposed to come with accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with all this Randism is that it doesn't account for failure. If the bank where I put my savings fail, my savings are gone, even though I didn't made an error in judgement when I put my money there long ago. If I don't have the resources to diversify my savings enough to put them into different banks, and if not only a single bank but a whole system of banks fails, I lose. Regulation is not primarily about infringment on individual freedom and trade, it is about limiting the effect an error, a fraud, or a failure have on innocent bystanders. Regulations are not primarily about control, they are about the containment of catastrophical events. And moreso: Disincentives are also just another type of regulation. Laws forbidding fraud, murder or theft are regulation. And courts upholding contracts and a police enforcing the court decisions are the judictive and the executive branch of those laws and regulations.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, if that in any way actually described social responsibility, you'd really have a zinger there. Unfortunately, social responsibility doesn't remotely mean loving everyone equally - or even loving anyone, particularly. It involves acting responsibly within your wider community, and providing for common infrastructure and safety nets. It's about very practical considerations that deal with external realities. Defining it solely in terms of internal emotional construction is stupid. But, then, as a Rander, you're basically a solipsist anyway - who cares how the external world actually functions, when it can all be about ME ME ME.
But somehow all her sex scenes are basically rapes. Hmmm.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Informative)
There are two kinds of people who have read Ayn Rand. Those who understand that individual liberty are not dirty words, and those who like to put dirty words in other people's mouths.
Your post was confusing until I saw your screen name.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two kinds of people who have read Ayn Rand... Those who understand her ideas and see them as value to society... and those who are too stupid to understand.
There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does Ayn Rand count? (Score:5, Informative)
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
-- John Rogers.
Yep, (Score:5, Insightful)
Come off it. Ayn was just a scared little woman frightened by dictators. I could spend hours recounting the holes in her philosophy, but others [google.com] have done it much better than I ever could.
Steampunk in general (Score:4, Insightful)
I've found the literary branch of steampunk to be generally depressing, with very few bright spots. It's interesting because most expressions of the culture are very Jules Verne / Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp influenced, particularly on the costuming side where steampunk really started. But the literary side is almost entirely Dickens with zeppelins.
Re: (Score:3)
How about "modern SF" in general? I spent some time reading the Hugo nominees and most of the stories were depressing. I couldn't decide if I should vote, or just say "Why bother? It's all pointless anyway" like Marvin the Depressed Robot.
One older SF writer (sorry forget who) actually wrote an essay encouraging authors to write something CHEERY for a change with a positive outcome. The magazine which published the esaay is runing a contest around that theme.
inane subject here (Score:5, Insightful)
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Absolutely nothing good happens to anyone ever.
Flowers for Algernon (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Flowers for Algernon (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you make a distinction between depressing and sad? Make Room! Make Room! made me depressed about the future, but Flowers for Algernon made me cry; and yet I think they were two different things.
Gotcha beat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bradbury (Score:5, Interesting)
Jem? (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know if I'd call it depressing. I found it outrageous, myself. Truly outrageous.
Heinlein! (Score:3)
Re:Heinlein! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Now what is really depressing is the complete lack of progress in getting off the planet we've made since the story was written (ok, that's hyperbole) - since Challenger.
Stephen Donaldson - Thomas Covenant (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end, a pretty good series, but more than anything else I"ve read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant has the darkest, most depressing prose I've ever read.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Stephen Donaldson - Thomas Covenant (Score:4, Informative)
Donaldson's "Gap" series was pretty depressing too - lots of anti-heros, a leading lady who spends half of the series being raped, etc. Yes, the series did get to a point in the end, but it's like wading through ten miles of sewers just to find an exit.
Where to start? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's the famous Star Trek story "City on the Edge of Forever". The original script by Harlan Ellison is even darker, with people in the engineering section of the ship dealing drugs (which is how the doctor ends-up going nutty -- a bad trip).
I just read a story last year in one of Gardner Dozois' Best of the Year anthologies. It involved humans boarding a generation ship that would travel to a new galaxy (50,000 years). The first 1000 years were not too bad but over time the humans became dumber-and-dumber, as they had no more challenging task then to scrub the floors/walls/ceiling and keep the ship clean. After 25,000 years they were walking on all fours & no longer bothering to wear clothes (or speak).
At that point the generation ship was intercepted by a faster-than-light ship that "rescued" the simian-like human beings. I imagine they ended-up in a zoo. (If you have a chance I would recommend buying all of Dozois' annual anthologies. If you like Outer Limits' method of telling a different story each week, you'll like these books.)
depressing becuase it's so accurate (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm going to go curl up in a ball now.
Make Room! Make Room! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a couple. (Score:4, Interesting)
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert. (Or as I like to call it: "Destination: Avoid".)
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke.
On the Beach (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
This definitely has my vote.
You can't get much more depressing than a book about people who are basically waiting to die of radiation poisoning, with no hope whatsoever
Depends (Score:5, Funny)
"Usually sci-fi provides adventure with happy endings for everyone."
Depends on which side your on.
Ender's Game (Score:5, Interesting)
The Road (Score:5, Insightful)
The Road
When sysadmins ruled the earth (Score:4)
I like when sysadmins roamed the earth.
Basically a computer virus infects the internet.
The sysadmins go to the data centers to fix it.
There are terrorist attacks and a real virus is released that kills just about everyone except the sysadmins as data centers filter the air.
You can read the contents on the link below.
There is a comic book adaptation as well as a radio play as the story is cc licensed.
http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html [craphound.com]
George RR Martin (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, him. The magnificent awesome Martin. The guy who writes books where everyone you care about dies, nothing good every happens to anyone, no good deed goes unpunished (the few good deeds that happen), its everyone for themselves or their families - most times, and most importantly, its not even winter yet but its coming! Want a downer? Read A Song of Fire and Ice.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Score:5, Interesting)
Thomas Covenant (Score:3)
I never got very far into the book, because the main character (I hesitate to say protagonist) had such a dark soul. So maybe it has a happier ending, but I couldn't get to it.
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Score:5, Informative)
Synopsis: Humans are self-destructive, never learn from their mistakes, and are doomed to destroy themselves over and over again.
Canticle for Leibowitz (Score:4, Informative)
A Canticle for Liebowitz (Score:3)
Most Depressing Sci-Fi? (Score:5, Funny)
Harrison (Score:5, Insightful)
Blindsight, by Peter Watts (Score:5, Interesting)
Blindsight, besides being the best thing I've ever read, has a rather stark outlook on the nature of consciousness and what that means for us as human beings. I don't consider it depressing, though some might, and Watts calls his portrayal of human nature "almost childishly optimistic."
From Watts' homepage: "Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts." —James Nicoll
Ian M. Banks (Score:3)
Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons and Matter. Good though.
Is "The Road" sci-fi? (Score:3)
Then that wins. McCarthy rules.
Also "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" is depressing.
"The Forge of God" by Greg Bear.
"O Happy Day" Geoff Ryman
"Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" Chip Delany
Firefly (Score:5, Interesting)
Stand on Zanzibar (Score:3)
"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner was pretty relentlessly depressing and not just in a worldwide sort of way.
No one in the story was happy or had any reason to be happy or had any hope of being happy. Ever. Till the end of time. Even an end to war turned out to be depressing.
Made "The Road" seem like a carefree romp across the countryside.
I have no mouth and I must scream (Score:4, Informative)
Nightmarish.
Robert Holdstock (Score:3)
Number one. On the Beach. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. On the Beach all life killed by a nuclear war with the last people on earth just waiting for the radiation cloud to come and kill them or commiting suicide. No escape just a dead earth.
2. 1984. No hope you can not win, nobody can win, there is no hope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Cultural_impact [wikipedia.org]
3. The The Forge of God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God [wikipedia.org] Only a few humans are saved, the earth is turned to rubble.
You guys are easily depressed. (Score:4, Interesting)
Of the titles mentioned here (that I've read), none depressed me that much. For example, Jem. Yeah, the people in it are stupid and destructive, but so what? That's what real life is like. You muddle through, you seize what happiness you can, you do what you can to make things, better.If that's not enough for you, you're in the wrong universe.
The SF books that depress me are from authors like Harlan Ellison who wallow in their own darkness and babble profound nonsense. And there I think it's the author that depresses me, not the story.
Somebody claimed that 1984 depressed them because they saw it happening all around them. Really? Nobody's summoned me to viewscreen for mandatory calisthenics lately, and I haven't heard from the Junior Antisex League all week. Yeah, a lot of our political wingnuts (on both the right and and left) sound like they belong to INGSOC, but that's always been true. And contrary to what Orwell feared, they're further from running the show than they've ever been.
I think a lot of this stuff depressed the hell out of me when I was a teenager because TV had trained me to believe that all stories had endings that if not happy, were at least morally satisfying. But as grownups, we need to get over ourselves. Especially Stephen Baxter, you really needs to go cold turkey on the end-of-the-world novels.
Earth Abides (Score:5, Insightful)
Low-key, and yet just deeply terrified me. Seemed pretty concrete and realistic. It's all downhill. Every hope is dashed.
Brave New World and a short story (Score:5, Insightful)
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley followed by a short story I read which I can't locate right now.
I believe it was called 2439 -- the premise being that in the year 2439 (I might be wrong about the year), the Earth is covered in its entirety with a 700 story building in order to provide for the almost 1 trillion humans that live in it (with only algae left to supply them). The story was about the last man to actually have animals, and the authorities plight to convince him to euthanize them in order to make room for the trillionth human, so that 'perfection' can be achieved. The claim of the authorities was that there was enough color microfiche of all the animals that ever lived so that the actual ones need no longer be around to consume resources.
My paraphrase may seem very silly, but the actual story had enough of an impact on me when I was 15 to change my outlook on our relationship with the environment for good. It'd be great if anyone could point me to the actual story/author.
Re:Brave New World and a short story (Score:5, Informative)
I believe it was called 2439 -- the premise being
This [wikipedia.org], maybe? I still think of it whenever I hear mention of population growth predictions.
My list (Score:3)
My books are packed up from a move, so this is from memory.
On The Beach
The Road (does that count as SF?)
While many will list 1984, I found his other work actually more depressing: Keep the Apidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air
Make Room, Make Room (kind of uncharacteristic for Harry Harrison)
Handmaid's Tale
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents (I wish Octavia Butler had a) survived to write the third book b) was far more better known)
Ted Sturgeon has written many elegant depressing (some in fact heartbreaking) stories, including Saucer of Loneliness. There's an excellent series of his works (example here: http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Sculpture-Complete-Theodore-Sturgeon/dp/1556438346/ [amazon.com]) well worth reading.
I'm not sure depressing is the word, but Harlan Ellison has written amazing stuff. IMO _Being John Malkovitch_ was a ripoff of one of his stories.
Finally, my google skills suck, but there's a relatively well known SF/mystery story written in the past 10 years where the premise is that Islam is now the dominant force in America. I found that pretty depressing. Anyone know what I'm remembering?
A 1984 for the modern day. (Score:4, Informative)
It seemed to keep hinting towards clever and cute plot twists and resolutions (which you'd expect since it's pitched as a Young Adults book) but things kept resolving more realistically.
Oh and a some of Bob Shaw's work (particularly short stories) were pretty dark in tone.
Stephen Baxter's "Manifold" trilogy (Score:3)
All three Manifold books are depressing, but top-notch hard Sci-Fi. If you are into hard Sci-Fi you definitely should check out Baxter.
The three Manifold books are depressing in different ways. I don't want to spoil them, but I'll just say that they are depressing in a "Childhood's end"-kind of way; that is, you can also be exalted in a Zen-like realization.
All three books super-highly recommended. My favorite is "Manifold: Space".
Sea of Glass (Score:3)
by Barry B. Longyear
It's a tie (Score:3)
"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" [wikipedia.org] is pretty darn bleak: a crazed and omnipotent computer has killed off all of humanity except for six people; by the end of the story there is only one left alive, and he has been turned into an amorphous blob that will live forever in torment (with no mouth and yet needing to scream).
Speaker for the Dead [google.com] is also pretty depressing. After reading it, I was done with Orson Scott Card and I still haven't gone back. Some humans get killed on a newly settled planet, and Ender goes to investigate. Since there is no faster than light travel for matter (only for information), by the time he gets there years have gone by and pretty much everyone's life was ruined by the tragedy. Then Ender's investigation rips open the old wounds. Then he figures out what went wrong and it was all a horrible tragic misunderstanding. I was upset about all this, because Ender was fabulously wealthy and had unlimited access to the "ansibles" (FTL communicators) so at the beginning I thought he was going to play Nero Wolfe, hire someone on the planet to be his investigator, and solve the mystery immediately after it happened and before everyone's lives were ruined. Nope.
Dancers in the Afterglow [google.com] had such a downer of an ending that it left me thinking "WTF?!?" for days. A plucky female gets captured by bad guys, who torture her, cut off her arms and legs, and put fast-reproducing bacteria in the wounds so they can never be healed properly. At the end of the story she has been rescued, has been given care, seems to be coping and is almost happy again... and then a meteor falls from the sky and kills her instantly. WTF?!? (I don't think Jack L. Chalker hated women... he never wrote anything else like that; and e.g. Mavra Chang found a pretty happy ending in the Well Worlds series.)
There was a short story, "Quietus" [blogspot.com], where there was some sort of apocalypse and there is only one young man left alive. Against all the odds, there is also one young woman left alive, and he meets her. Through a tragic misunderstanding, an alien who came to help kills the man, and the woman is left grieving over the dead body. The alien then has to live with the knowledge that he had rendered an intelligent species extinct.
steveha
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Score:4, Insightful)
The future world she envisioned felt so much like an obvious extrapolation from the world of today. It affected me for awhile afterwards; just kept thinking about it...
I read Jem (Score:3)
Truly outrageous.
a few (Score:3)
1. Flowers for Algernon
2. On the Beach
3. The Mist
4. Elric Saga (mostly the ending)
5. The Road (haven't read it, but I hear it's supremely depressing)
6. Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro) (haven't read it, but even the synopsis is enough to depress you)
7. All Summer in a Day (Bradbury)
Bio of Space Tyrant: Refugee by Piers Anthony (Score:3)
I must have been around 12-14 when I read it, but left a pretty deep impression. And I thought the idea of a gravity lens was neat. One of my most favorite authors.
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Tyrant-Vol-Refugee-ebook/dp/B004P8K530/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344388563&sr=8-2&keywords=bio+of+a+space+tyrant [amazon.com]
Hmmm. On a similar note, some movies/anime that come to mind are Akira, Aliens, Bladerunner, Naussica Valley of the Wind, etc. Also, Grave of the Fireflies is just the plan saddest and most moving anime/film period.
The Road (Score:5, Interesting)
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War [wikipedia.org]
The middle section, in which the soldier returns home to find the planet he gave up his soul for is now a wretched cesspit of crime and misery that can't even remember his war, was omitted from the original publishing, because "Shit, man, we can't print that."
It's depressing because it's a just a retelling of the author's experience fighting the Vietnam War.
Probably (Score:4, Informative)
Stephen Baxter - Titan (Score:4, Interesting)
The story follows a manned mission to Titan. Apart from the very long term outcome, it's a thoroughly depressing read - Hacked from Wikipedia:
En-route, one crew member dies after a solar storm. The use of a CELSS greenhouse for life support provides a continuous food supply, and the astronauts rely on vegetables, grain and fruit from the greenhouse as they travel on. But things take a dark turn as funding and support for resupply and Earth-return retrieval are cut by Maclachlan's administration (proposed and carried out by the very same men that tried to shoot the shuttle down), leaving the team with no hope for survival beyond what they may find on Titan. Once they reach Saturn and prepare to land on Titan's surface, another crew member is lost during the landing procedure with another effectively crippled. Titan is discovered to be a bleak, freezing dwarf-planet containing liquid ethane oceans, a sticky mud surface, and a climate which includes a thick atmosphere of purple organic compounds falling like snow from the clouds; and the only traces of life they find are fossilized remains of microbic bacteria similar to those recovered from Martian meteorites. The remaining astronauts relay their findings back to a largely uninterested Earth.
Meanwhile, the Chinese, in order to retaliate for biological attacks by the US, cause a huge explosion next to an asteroid (2002OA), with the aim of deflecting it into Earth orbit and threatening the world with targeted precision strikes in the future. Unfortunately, their calculations are wrong as they didn't take into account the size of the asteroid which could cause a Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The asteroid strikes Earth, critically damaging the planetary ecosystem. The Titan team members are presumably the last humans left alive.
As the surviving astronauts slowly die of disease and in-fighting, they decide to try to ensure life will continue to survive: they take a flask of bacteria and drop it into a crater filled with liquid water, in the hope that some form of life will develop.
The novel's final sequence depicts the final two crew members reincarnated on Titan several billion years in the future. The sun has entered its red giant phase, warming the Saturnian system and aiding the evolution of life, in the form of strange, intelligent beetle-like creatures, on Titan. The astronauts watch as the creatures build a fleet of starships to seed and colonize new solar systems before the expanding sun boils off the surface of the moon.
Dark/depressing books by Greg Bear (Score:4, Informative)
Also very dark in tone is the thought-provoking short story Hardfought, also by Greg Bear, well worth a read.
Dogfight by Gibson and Swanwick (Score:4, Interesting)
The short story "Dogfight" from the Burning Chrome collection has a young street criminal discover that he has a talent that could bring him a legitimate source of income and friends.
Since it's my answer to the title question, you can guess that it doesn't end well. The whole story's online here [voidspace.org.uk] and a couple of other places.
Re: (Score:3)
The movie was plenty depressing, just in that "O God Ashton Kutcher is trying to act" kind of way.
Most Depressing? (Score:5, Funny)
"Running MS DOS 3.3" by Van Wolverton.
I had to re-read Peter Norton's massive, "Programmer's guide to the IBM PC & PS/2" two times after that, just to feel better.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Mission Earth (Score:5, Funny)
I'll second this. Anything by L. Ron Hubbard. Mine ended up in the recycling bin since I couldn't bring myself to give them to a used book store to put anyone else through that agony.
Re:The Isaac Asimov short story where... (Score:4, Informative)
The story is called "The Last Question" and it is in my personal opinion the greatest science fiction short story ever written. I do not believe it is suited to be called "Most Depressing" because it has a really up-lifting ending. I would recomend you read the last part: The whole short story is available free here:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html/ [multivax.com]
Though perhaps some may see the re-birth to still be a downer, it is still much more cheerful than other stories mentioned in this Ask Slashdot.