Dystopia

For those of you who are readers and don’t frequent Goodreads I highly recommend it.  One of the cool things is that you can set a goal for how many books you plan to read for the year and then it helps you keep track, makes recommendations based on your reading history and likes, etc.

Last year I set a goal of 100 books for the year and decided to read everything Stephen King had ever written.  (Check!)  This year I set a goal of 75 and decided to try and find MY personal favorite Vampire Series.  The ones I’ve read so far, The Strain, and  Vampire Earth, have been either Post or Causal Apocalyptic, which is very far away from what I’m used to in Vampire fare.  Not better or worse, just very different.

Similar to most Dystopian series such as The Hunger Games series, there are the poor downtrodden survivors, the Resistance Movement, and The Collaborators.  With Vampires.

I realize, particularly in the current political climate, that Dystopia is all the rage and I actually liked The Hunger Games series much more than I thought I would.  I liked that there wasn’t a Wesley Crusher Ending where they all lived happily ever after.  (If you need an explanation for the Wesley reference let me know.)  I just hope that this isn’t a trend that will take over all literature. It’s an important tool to inform and make people think, but it’s not the only one, quite often, not even the best one.  We need just as many Gene Roddenberry-esque We’re Better Than That themes, where we show that mankind can rise above his baser reptile brain.

There’s a podcast I listen to called The Cleansed that is also Post Apocalyptic, no Vampires though, set in Maine.  One of the groups that broke away is called The Dwellers, who basically went back to the land, started living in a way similar to the First People in America.  Not perfectly, but they were constantly trying to improve themselves and live by principles and in harmony.  Why can’t we see more of THAT kind of After “Civilization” Collapses sort of thing?

So for the sake of my year long Search for My Personal Favorite Vampire Series, keep Dystopia in it’s place.