"The Giver" by Lois Lowry

I have come to a realization: Trees look creepy in monochrome stark white. Well, many things look creepy in monochrome stark white, but trees more than most. They look like blood vessels. Or lightning. Or like you've shattered something and glued it back together.

Also, can't we have a utopia that's actually utopian for once? They're pretty much all rotting on the inside. The only utopias I can think of that actually fit the bill are Valinor (from The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien) and Fredtown (from Children of Exile, by Margaret Peterson Haddix). The others are all either secretly dystopian or falling apart.

And while we're at it... can we have a dystopia that's not being a dire warning about the loss of individuality and blind obedience to your superiors? I want to see a dystopia that's dystopian because everyone's being too individualistic and it turned into anarchy. Or a byzantine backstabbing-filled politics nightmare.

 

(Edit: Just remembered Mad Max. So there's one, at least.) 

(Edit 2: Also BioShock, at least the first two games.)

All right, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the book! As you may have gathered from what I just said, it's dystopian. It's not the entire world that's dystopian here, just this one City-State Of Indeterminate Size. We know it's not the entire world because |they find other people at the end|. And also because from what we do see of the City-State Of Indeterminate Size, it's big enough to have an airport (they have airplanes, and you have to have somewhere to launch airplanes from), but I'm pretty sure they don't have any skyscrapers.

The dystopia here comes from the fact that |they've eliminated strife by eliminating want|. Which doesn't sound so bad, until you realize their method of |eliminating want| is just basically to |get rid of anything that could make someone want something|. Like |strong emotions|. Or |unpleasant bits of history|. Or |the ability to see color|. Or, in extreme cases, |being alive|.

(Also, they |lethal-injection people for breaking the rules bad enough. Or just for having birth defects. Because hey, if you imprison people, they'd want to get out, and want causes strife! Better to just de-exist them, right?|)

Like Communism, this society is one of those things that might seem like a good idea, but actually isn't. As the main character discovers, when he becomes |the new Receiver of Memory| and gets |ALL the history memories|. Well, enough of them, anyway. (The |Receiver of Memory| is the one person in the City-State Of Indeterminate Size who |remembers anything other than what you're supposed to know| when you live in the City-State Of Indeterminate Size. He helps the council make decisions.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for being dystopian. It would make an okay videogame.

4 stars.

(Endnote: There's a plot point fairly early on that involves an apple somehow looking wrong for a second. It's actually |the protagonist developing the ability to see the color red|, but with my modern fiction experience I honestly thought it was them living in a simulation and the simulation starting to glitch.)