Hello all! I'm compiling info for my capstone project and this is the area I want to research. Can anyone suggest books that deal with this? I'm already using Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jurassic Park and some of H.G. Wells's work. Any help is appreciated!
The Humanoids by Jack Williamson and its sequels.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (The movie in the book is so addictive that no one can stop watching it).
Maybe A Clockwork Orange with the torture therapy?
H. G. Wells is a good bet but try 'The Machine Stops' by one of his contemporaries E M Forster. Nothing comes close to his vision of a computerised society which goes awry and, considering it was written in 1909, is amazingly prescient.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot' collection of stories (which has virtually nothing to do with the movie of the same name).
H
Absolutely seconded - The Machine Stops is an incredible short story.Originally Posted by Emil Miller
"I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche
Check out J.G. Ballard, he has written some excellent literature on technology gone wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard#Works
"Concrete Island" might be a good place to start, the protagonist finds himself stranded in a section of fenced-off wasteland in the middle of a motorway intersection, and is forced to survive on only what is in his crashed car and what he is able to find.
Thanks everyone! This is a big help!
In the line of Dr Jekyll, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", which is also "drug technology gone wrong..." On that, maybe Trainspotting? Or Junkie by William Burroughs? The nuclear menace is also a rich source - On the Beach, Shute, Cat's Cradle Vonnegut. Dickens wrote a short ghost story, named "The Signal-Man", in which one of the principal incidents is a rail crash, based on an actual rail crash he suffered. Rail crashes also play a big part in La Bête Humaine by Émile Zola (a superb novel that should be better known!) The plot of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" relies greatly on merchant ships going down into the briney deep. Plenty of plane crashes... Lost Horizon by James Hilton. What about war literature in which technology plays a big part... that is just about any... from Henry V (longbows) to Catch 22. This is looking like a big project! Might it not be best to concentrate on one form of technology, or one genre?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
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"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
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