Optimistic Dystopia?
I have had such a hard time finding my niche, my sub/sub/sub genre in speculative fiction. My work is set in a sci-fi, near future environment, but it’s not hard sci-fi. It’s cast in a dystopian atmosphere…but is it, really?
The work I’m currently writing is set in an ugly town far from civilization. It's a desert landscape that offers no comforts. The people suffer there:
“Residents complained of compacted lungs, lacerated corneas, and sinuses choked with grit, of throats flayed raw and skin rubbed bloody by the ceaseless onslaught of wind and sand.
”
However, no matter how desolate it is, no matter how destitute they may be, these characters have community and hope.
They have moral fiber and grit.
And, despite all the Dust can do, they remain optimistic.
A resident of Yander, a tin town out in the Dust.
I wish I could be such a person, were I to be subjected to such harsh environs. I think that’s why I like to write about them. It’s as if my revelations of their optimism may be the only recognition they’re ever going to get. (Yes, I know, they’re fictional….but it feels like they’re real!)
