From the Free Dictionary - Dystopia: an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be.

Dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. It's a pretty great word if you're a science fiction fan, like myself. I hadn't heard of it before. Or, at least I didn't remember it. My nephew started playing a new game on his PS3, BioShock. It's a real experience into dystopian societies.  Pretty grim in fact. I was looking up more information about the storyline and characters when I came across the word dystopia in a write up about the game. So I had to look up the word. It was self explanatory really but still, I gave into temptation to find out more.

Exploring Dystopia - a forum for science fiction and horror fans. There is an old site too, pretty abandoned and comes with pop up ads and a thick banner on top.  But the site itself is pretty cool if you overlook the ad junk. Too bad they didn't keep it up and move it to a different free host.

Suite101: Utopian/ Dystopian Fiction.

Dystopia -  A cyberpunk game.

I like thinking about the possibilities without having to know or consider all the cold, hard facts. I like thinking about time travel, robots, aliens and my favourite… how civilization staggers upright after an end of the world catastrophe. It’s all creative ideas. True, it should grounded in facts somewhere along the way. But that doesn’t mean it has to be taken 100% seriously either. It should make your mind work, make you wonder.

If you could time travel where would you go, past or future? One of the things that bugs me most about eventually dying is not being here. Think of all the things I will be missing. It’s so unfair. That’s why I would go into the future. I want to see what gets invented. Like reading ahead to see how a really good book ends. Only, we assume, there really is no end to this story.

I want to believe in aliens too. It just seems silly to think that of all the stars and all those planets we are the only one capable of supporting life. Quite likely we are arrogant enough to assume all that life is very much like our own, breathing air, washing in water and walking around on land. What if life really was something that would fry our brain cells just trying to understand it.

Other stuff, like the paranormal interests me too. I’d like to think dragons are out there. I don’t believe it but I prefer to keep the possibility open. Why close that door completely if I don’t have to? Ghosts spook me, I do believe I have seen something, had some contacts in that direction. I don’t want to further those kind of contacts. I believe there is a lot we still have to learn about our own human brains and it’s very likely psychic powers are up there floating around in your very own grey matter. We just don’t know how to work it, no one has the instruction manual. Would you actually read it, if you had one?

I wouldn’t. It would kind of spoil it, to know everything and have all the answers too soon. Someday people (or whatever we become) will know the things we only wish we knew. But, we won’t be here. I wonder if there was a woman living a thousand years ago who was sitting doing her laundry one day and thinking, wishing she could take a peek into life a thousand years ahead. I wish she could be here for coffee and chat. It would be quite the conversation.

We tend to think of things we want right now, or in the near future. Yesterday I was watering the garden (watering in the compost really) and I began thinking about what I want 10,000 years from now.

Besides the fact that I would like to be immortal and actually see the world in 10,000 years, I would like to see seeds from the plants I'm tending now. Imagine seeing the new seedlings growing from their great-great-great-grandparents, which you watered 10,000 years ago. I like to think that I made a difference, however slight. Maybe I will never have fame and fortune, but there will be trees here which I helped grow.

At least, there should be. If not for that band of rogue aliens which come to Earth in 8462 and torch the whole place, for no reason. Just some freak road rage incident.

Submitted this story idea to a website/ ezine. It might be fun to write a continuing serial/ soap opera.

Prunella's Misadventures in Time and Space Science Fiction - genre

Synopsis:

Prunella is a young woman who just falls into misadventure. Not even wearing a lucky rabbit's foot helped Prunella. She did try it. As a child she was raised in an isolated, majestic family mansion. Her scientist parents had disappeared, leaving her an orphan, with a tyrannical old Aunt as her guardian. Prunella learned to manage on her own and entertain herself. She would get lost in the same book for hours and even days at a time.

Just when it seems her luck has finally changed (she inherits the dregs of the family fortunes and the derelict mansion for herself) the world changes around her. "The Bomb" is dropped and nothing will ever be the same again. As civilization dies Prunella (who has just won the lottery and been hit by a car just outside the bank) finds herself in a bomb shelter with a possible killer as one of the guests.

She finds her way out of that to... well... the next misadventure. As her narrator and confidant I've heard them all. I don't chat about myself much, I'm just along for my typing skills. Haunted houses, aliens from space, mad scientists, dragons, time machines, genies in bottles, amazing treks through time and space all seem to come along for Prunella. Through it all, she is upbeat, wildly creative and intelligent (some would say eccentric). In short, she is Prunella. All of it could only happen to Prunella, if anyone else tried to tell me a story like this I wouldn't believe a word they said.

First Episode:

Prunella's adventures started before she was ever born. Her parents were a pair of mysterious (some have said mad) scientists who eventually disappeared on a scientific exploration of the Amazon jungles. They were supposed to be searching for a long lost plant which could possibly be a cure for cancer. They may have been mad but they were also great humanitarians. The last thing anyone ever heard from them was a request for more supplies of duct tape and chocolate bunnies.

Prunella grew up with a persnickety old Aunt in a huge, shabby mansion. The mansion was isolated, set on the edge of a sharp cliff overlooking the sea. People were afraid to go there. No one ever visited Prunella. She learned to manage on her own and entertain herself. She made sure she went to bed in good time for school days, she reminded herself to brush her teeth, comb her hair and wash behind her ears. School was her outlet and her passion. She loved homework. It gave her something to do, a goal to attain. She would get lost in the same book for hours and even days at a time. She was reading the newspapers by the time she was four. School was also a place to see and be seen, at least enough that she didn't always wonder if she was invisible.

At one point the family had been massively rich but fortunes dwindled: spent on scientific gear, travel costs. The fortunes were pretty small by the time Prunella legally inherited the house and her freedom from the tyranny of her old Aunt. Of course, it was just Prunella's luck that on the very day her luck changed the whole of civilization fell apart. That was the day I met her. I won't waste your time telling you about myself, I'm no one in particular. But, Prunella... she's something special, quite different.

She actually won the lottery, millions of dollars in cash. The dream of so many and there she was, owner of the winning ticket! She could fix up the family mansion, have them finally install modern heating which would spare her from shivering through another winter. But, as I have said, that was a day of great change for the world at large. The bomb was dropped you see. Children from the 70's grew up with the theology of the wicked Russians who would begin World War III at some point, dropping "the bomb" and thus wiping out civilization as we know it. Well, they were right about wiping out civilization, as we knew it then. However, it wasn't the Russians, they were just as surprised as everyone else.

Anyway, Prunella was just leaving the bank, her massive lottery winnings deposited, her smile stretching at least one whole city block and her mind just spinning with wonderful ideas, dreams and plans. She wasn't watching where she was going, not very well at least. The traffic light had changed, the cars were geared up to go and Prunella stepped into the street at the wrong moment. She wasn't hurt much, just shaken. But the driver was upset. Even more upset when people began sharing the news and the horror of the coming disaster from the sky. Instead of taking Prunella to a hospital to get checked over for injuries the driver of the car more or less pushed her into the passenger seat and took off. He had his own bomb shelter, quite an elaborate thing from everything Prunella described.

There were over twenty people in the shelter when the doors were pulled closed. Sealing them from the terror and destruction run amok in the world outside. At first they were able to gather around a radio and hear reports from announcers around the globe. But, as the disaster spread the voices were silenced, until there was only radio static and then nothing at all. Pure silence but for the sound of breathing in the dimly lit shelter. Prunella felt the heat of all those bodies pushed up close against each other, absorbing the shock. She felt uncomfortable being so crowded, so she went off on her own to explore the other rooms in the shelter. It was quite well stocked. Each room had it's purpose. Three were for storage of food and water. There were facilities for the basic functions: bathroom, laundry and kitchen area. There was one room with bunk beds lining the walls. Lastly, a common room which had the radio, games and all those people still standing exactly where she had left them. It seemed to Prunella that they could all stand forever, as if they had been frozen into place like a stone statue in an art gallery.

For herself it wasn't quite so traumatic. She'd grown up isolated, depending on herself. So Prunella excused herself politely and went to have the first shower. Her muscles were beginning to tense up after the whole being hit by a car thing. A hot shower would be just the thing.