Source
r/printSF•
nachof

Books where the actual US are the bad guys?

What books are there where the US is presented as the bad guys?

I'm not looking for dystopian stuff like the theocracy in The Handmaid's Tale, or the one in the first chapters of the Bobiverse. I'm also not looking for metaphors like Star Wars or A Planet For Rent, or even very close and obvious parallels like The Dispossessed. I'm looking for works where the current US, as it exists today, is seen as bad.

Examples:

  • The Merchant Princes, and in particular the Empire Games trilogy. Yes, technically not the same US, but the brutal US policies are not an invention of the book, they're just shown.
  • The Execution Channel, another that is technically an alternate history, but where essentially the only difference is so that the book isn't seen as anti-Bush in particular (the author clearly meant the whole US political establishment is bad, not just this one shitty dude).

Thanks!

Posted Apr 8, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

1251
BigJobsBigJobs•

The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner. Not only is the U.S. the enemy of the world, it is also its own worst enemy. I would consider it a must read (despite some flaws with Brunner's language use,)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Sheep\_Look\_Up

13
ChodeheedAndLamebria•

This sounds like a fantastic read. I will add this to my list.

2
Xeelee1123•

Warp Speed by Travis Taylor has the US committing genocide and killing millions of Chinese. Travis Taylor considers this a great thing in this turgid, fascist novel, but in real life, the US would have been a pariah nation after that.

In The Probability Broach by L Neal Smith, the US is seen as very bad, compared to a libertarian utopia that exists in a parallel universe.

6
identical-to-myself•

In “The Probability Broach”, the Bad US is also an alternate world, where things are an exaggeratedly worse than they are in our timeline.

I loved that book.

3
Educational_Copy_140•

One of the sequels mentions a world where the Kennedy family has had generational rule of the US, to include an Amendment that allowed JFK Jr to run for office as he was too young at the time to legally do so

1
nachofOP•

Warp Speed by Travis Taylor has the US committing genocide and killing millions of Chinese. Travis Taylor considers this a great thing in this turgid, fascist novel, but in real life, the US would have been a pariah nation after that.

Wow… yeah, thanks, but I'll probably skip that one.

In The Probability Broach by L Neal Smith, the US is seen as very bad, compared to a libertarian utopia that exists in a parallel universe.

This one sounds more interesting, but in Wikipedia the US in that one is described as "anti capitalist", so definitely not the actual US.

2
Educational_Copy_140•

It wasn't the US per se, but the scientists who created the warp technology. They destroyed ALL the military sites of a number of fascistic, communist and dictatorial nations (specifically avoiding as many civilian casualties and population centers) in addition to China and then went and built themselves a base on the Moon

0
Xeelee1123•

I remember the callousness of the writing when they committed their genocide. and it was one of the few books which I threw away, the other being Ringo's Watch on the Rhine, which was even more overtly fascist.

5
Educational_Copy_140•

A lot of Ringo's stuff that deal with scenarios like full on alien invasions have the gov't tend to go pretty hard fascist, at least towards the "full governmental control and shooting you if you disobey and try to run" side of things.

I mean, to try and be somewhat fair anyway, the Posleen War series has humanity facing an engineered genocidal alien invasion and forcibly uniting everyone was kind of the only way to survive.

I find a lot of scifi novels and series tend to go that way when humanity is facing that sort of scenario. Even in games, Halo for example

2
Xeelee1123•

I agree, but i think Taylor and Ringo have crossed a line, in particular Ringo with his adulation of the SS. After I read that, just seeing his name makes me gag.

3
ArielSpeedwagon•

Robert Heinlein's "Solution Unsatisfactory" shows the U.S. dominating the world, but neither the narrator nor the person running the U.S. is entirely pleased with it.

Alternities by Michael Kube-McDowell shows a version of the world in the 1970s where in some ways the U.S. and the Soviet Union have changed places.

There have been several short stories and novels where the Cuban Missile Crisis on 1962 escalated into an all-out nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., causing the utter destruction of the latter with lots of collateral damage and making the U.S. a pariah nation.

5
[deleted]•

[deleted]

4
nachofOP•

There have been several short stories and novels where the Cuban Missile Crisis on 1962 escalated into an all-out nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., causing the utter destruction of the latter with lots of collateral damage and making the U.S. a pariah nation.

I read one of those, there was a conspiracy by the UK to take over the US nuclear stockpile (everybody else had gotten rid of their nukes, only the US had them anymore, and the UK wanted them). It was… interesting.

1
DaughterOfFishes•

Charles Stross’ other big series, The Laundry Files, also has a bad US, but like the Merchant series it’s an alternate universe.

5
nachofOP•

I read the first couple of those. I have them in my to read list. It's definitely something I should enjoy, but for some reason I never get around to them.

1
diffyqgirl•

Last Exit by Max Gladstone, maybe. There's a line that's something like "every stone of this country is built atop blood" which basically sums up a lot of the themes of the book. The main characters are from various marginalized groups struggling to see a future for themselves.

4
nachofOP•

This one looks interesting. How similar/different is the prose style to This Is How You Lose The Time War? That's the only other book by Gladstone I've read, and while I liked the story, I didn't really enjoy the writing style, but since it's a collaboration maybe it's totally different.

1
diffyqgirl•

Hmm, I would say it's closer to This Is How You Lose The Time War than to his other books. The prose is very flowery. His Craft Sequence books are less so, though those are secondary world and don't meet the ask.

1
topazchip•

RA Heinlein wrote, "The Revolt in 2100" about the collapse of a theocratic-fascist dictatorship that had ruled the former United States for several generations.

Peter Watts in his writings does not have a fond view of the US government; he had an extremely bad encounter with TSA goons and is no longer allowed entry.

Transmetropolitan has >!a US president who is somewhat less savory the Trump administration and a few uncanny parallels despite being more than 20 years old.!<

4
ChodeheedAndLamebria•

Transmetropolitan is a great suggestion for OP. It wouldn't have occurred to me to mention it, but it is perfect.

3
nachofOP•

Thanks, I'll look into it.

1
ForestyForest•

Daemon and Freedom TM by Daniel Suarez

3
nachofOP•

This one looks interesting, thanks!

1
Educational_Copy_140•

How has no one mentioned Fallen Angels by Niven and Pournelle yet?

3
myspicename•

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

2
8livesdown•

Wasn't the US government basically a no-show in Snow Crash?

2
Lapplloobb•

If I remember right everything was run by corporations, if government existed in any capacity it was subservient to corporations

2
Educational_Copy_140•

The main plot point turned out to be an attempt by the remnants of the US gov't to destroy their version of cyberspace and wipe out all the power and influence of the corporations and mini-states and to reassume control

1
8livesdown•

Where in the book was that said?

The plot was driven by Bob Rife.

1
Educational_Copy_140•

YT's mother worked for the Feds and they were working on a virus, Snow Crash, that was supposed to take out everything

1
bodyisreality•

Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch takes place during a future war in which the US is waging germ warfare against neutral countries. In another of his novels, 334 you follow the life of different characters in a class divided and over populated New York City in 2025.

2
networknev•

Mackey Chandler's April Series and Family Law

1
seaQueue•

The US and the anti-AI laws (the Hamilton act) they're attempting to export worldwide are kind of a background malevolent force in Ian McDonald's River of Gods. Fantastic cyberpunk book and well worth a read.

1
slyphic•

Read some Canadian authors, it's a consistent theme I've noticed. Robert Sawyer (or Robert Charles Wilson, I can never keep those two straight) for instance.

1
nachofOP•

British authors too — the two I mentioned are by British authors (they also really dislike the UK government, it seems)

1
A1Protocol•

America is a Zoo. That would fit your search, and it's highly political.

1
nachofOP•

The reviews for that one are confusing. The two one-stars: one seems to say the author is a racist right winger extremist, while the other seems to say he's a communist.

The part about the author himself being a character doesn't seem really great, to be fair…

1
A1Protocol•

Those are trolls from Goodreads and Netgalley. Ha.

1
NSWthrowaway86•

The Amtrak Wars books by Patrick Tilley is fun - for the first few books at least.

1
xiox•

Stephen Baxter's Titan has a right wing anti-intellectual isolationist US government. Be warned that it's an extremely depressing read.

1
nachofOP•

It seems to be the second in a trilogy. Does it make sense without the first one?

1
xiox•

I'm fairly sure it can read by itself. It's a very long time since I read it, however.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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nachofOP•

That's The Mirage, by Matt Ruff (or at least that one has that same premise). It's a balkanized North America, with religious fundamentalists (funded by Texas, the Saudi-equivalent) staging an attack on towers in I think Baghdad in the United Arab States, the world's largest superpower. The 9/11 date is also "reversed" in that it uses the day/month order that's standard in most of the world, so the attacks happen in November 9th.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
nachofOP•

I liked it when I read it (according to Goodreads, May 2012), but I really don't remember much other than a few trivia points from the settings (like Saddam Hussein being a gangster boss in Baghdad collecting artifacts that leak from an alternate reality, which is our world).

1
Previous-Medium-6219•

I know you said actual but The Culture novels

-6
nachofOP•

I mean, I definitely see that the Culture would see the US (and any other currently existing Earth state) as evil, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for (great books though)

1
Previous-Medium-6219•

No I’m saying that the culture are a great British/American analogue in their colonialist and espionage actions around the world.

1
nachofOP•

Hm, while the Culture can mess up, and they are definitely not above intervention in other people's affairs, I wouldn't call them colonialist, at all. I don't think there's a reasonable comparison between the fully automated utopia of the Culture and the colonialist, highly militaristic, extremely propagandized, police state that is the current day US.

0
Previous-Medium-6219•

Many advanced” civilizations thinks they can meddle in the affairs of others. That’s what makes the books interesting. The Use of Weapons even uses non-culture agents to do their bidding/dirty work.

1