Can A Book Change The World?

by Julie Bertagna

The cash machine had just swallowed the cards of two women in front. I went to another bank, slid my card in the machine. Nothing. I thought of all the banks crashing in the financial crisis. I hadn’t seen the news that day. Had there been a crash while I'd been out? What if I couldn’t get any money?!

Eventually, I did. But for a surreal moment I felt like Offred in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale who can’t get money from a cash machine one day because women’s bank accounts have been seized by the government - for the good of the nation. And suddenly she is plunged into a terrifying dystopia... 

That fictional moment, when everything changes in an instant has stayed with me since I was young. It made me wonder: what if our freedoms are more precarious than we think and could be snatched away if we don’t guard them?

Today’s young adults were small when the twin towers fell on 9/11 and I’ve often wondered how growing up in an ‘Age of Terror’ with daily images of war and violence would affect them. My daughter doesn’t know what it’s like to board a plane without shoes and phone, even a lipgloss, examined for bomb-making materials...  

In the years after 9/11, US publishers weren’t keen on my YA novel about young survivors in post-apocalyptic future, kicking back against a brutal world empire. 

Teenagers wouldn’t want dark, dystopian fiction in such troubled times....would they? 

But young readers were seeking books that held up a cracked mirror to the world. Lots wrote to me saying, I’ll never forget your book, it’s changed the way I see the world. 

        Does a book really have the power to change the world?

Neuromancer by William Gibson was a stunning vision of cyberspace that influenced techiesdeveloping the web. Space scientists find their ideas in science fiction. Watch this brilliant vid from European Space Agency. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four  by George Orwell predicted a Big Brother world full of CCTV. 

Apple took ideas for iPads and iPhones from Star Trek!

If ideas in books can seep into reality, could the craze for dystopia change our world?

Why does dystopia grab you? Is it pure escapism? Or something deeper? Does it make you fearful? More sussed about the world? Is it a kickback, via imaginary characters, against the forces that control a teenager’s life - parents, school, politicians, and other forces that threaten to stamp all over your future?

What if fictional events really happen? A 'live' death on reality TV? Governments controlling the internet ‘for our own good’? (This happens in my new book.) What if young rioters mysteriously disappear, once arrested? (Slated). Are controlled futures like Matched and Divergent possible? If the Earth’s climate changes, will we survive by building domed cities (Under The Never Sky), towering sky cities (Exodus), or traction cities that can trundle across parched lands? (Mortal Engines). Or will we abandon Earth? (Across The Universe) 

Is the future destined to be grim? Or full of amazing new discoveries? Will it be a brave new world? Or new worlds?

Nobody controls the future - it’s still to unfold. Anything might happen. 

And anyone (maybe you?!) could be a pivotal part of the future in some way you can’t yet imagine. Maybe that’s the appeal of Katniss in The Hunger Games, Kyla in Slated, Laura in The Carbon Diaries, Nailer in Ship Breaker, Josh inThe Joshua Files, Tris in Divergent, Mara and Fox in my Exodus trilogy... ordinary teenagers who do extraordinary things to survive.  

In a YA dystopia, lead characters change events in some crucial way - their victories, large or small, offer hope. In adult dystopian fiction, characters tend to be ground down by the system. Their defeat is a warning to the reader: do not take this path!

What dystopian or futuristic books do you love? What scenes and characters will live on inside you?  

The kids and young adults of today will be in charge of the world soon! So, what kind of future do you want?