This month’s FanSci book club reading was The Handmaid’s Tale (fantasy (in theory, but should probably be filed in “current events”), 311 pages by Margaret Atwood.

“Environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s Commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive.”

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW.

Because holy buckets, do I have a significant amount of thoughts about this book. I will say right from the beginning that this book is horribly unpleasant to read but it’s absolutely necessary and will definitely NOT get any easier to read as the United States gets closer to the major elections coming up in November 2024.

GO READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW.

Anyway.

One of the points of discussion during our book club meeting involved how when one of our members read this book twenty years ago in high school, it was a fun read because there’s “no way the United States could ever get to that point.” One of the other members of the group had a similar comment. And I think that’s what great about science fiction and fantasy and also what’s truly alarming about this book specifically because the original draft for this book began in 1984, according to the newly added author forward at the beginning of my book.

And I am definitely glad the library copy I read of this book had the author commentary at the beginning because there were several very crucial comments made about the nature of this book and the main character’s identity. One of the other members of the group mentioned the television series and how the author commentary is used during the show version of this story and adds more depth to Offred’s identity. I’m unlikely to watch the show, as the magic moving picture box doesn’t hold the same sway over me as it seems to for the rest of the population, but those comments helped our discussion about making Luke a less crappy partner and giving Offred her name back.

Our discussion on the character of Luke was interesting, as most of the people in the book club are non-male, which means none of us reacted very well when Offred starts getting to the parts about how we got to that point in the world, where religious fanatics were able to take control of everything and push women back into the role of incubators instead of the viable humans we already are and how Luke reacted to the initial changes. In the book, Luke is just like, it’s no big deal, I’ll take care of you and things will be fine while Offred is rightfully panicking about the loss of constitutional rights and their safety. I think this attitude is prominent in many males, as fundamentally, nothing would have changed for them, especially not at the beginning, as that’s an attitude I see with many males in the current world we live in. It’s not them who is losing rights or does the same job for less pay or has any experience at all with the world not catering to them and meeting their every want. Women have always had the onus of being reproductive slaves to western civilization. So because Luke’s life didn’t change, he didn’t see the need to get upset about anything happening.

And then what happened to Moira and Offred’s mom were both really hard to read. Both of them considered themselves activists before the rise of Gilead but Moira’s spirit was completely gone by the time Offred meets her again at the “playboy” party and they both saw videos with her mother in one of the nuclear waste clean up areas, which means her fate was pretty much also sealed.

I imagine it would be so hard to keep fighting or even just to build yourself a mental safe place like Offred did, but then Offred started slipping and when the book ends with Nick giving her the “Mayday” code and then the black car showing up but the reader not knowing if Offred was being rescued or taken for torture, it was rough. I almost didn’t read the follow-on chapter with the academic conference about a hundred years in the future but even my book club agreed that it would be beneficial to know how they got out of the Gilead age.

Because with religious extremism on the rise in the United States and certain populations more concerned with violating women’s constitutional rights and controlling women and their bodies, it’s not hard to think that maybe the 6 January 2021 insurrectionists right here in the United States in the real world were attempting exactly what happened around page 174: “It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.” And then, three paragraphs later, they suspended the United States Constitution. And that’s exactly what I see the religious extremists doing right now in our modern United States.

It truly terrifies me how close to this future we are.

I can’t express enough how important it is to vote, especially in your local elections. Yes, I know this year is a major presidential election for the U.S., but your local elections are critical. The primaries came and went, whether you knew it or not. If you’re in the United States, now is a great time to make sure you are registered to vote https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote. Now is also a good time to check your local elections and see if any positions are running unopposed and maybe put your name in the hat so at the very least, you can protect small pockets of democracy.

Every little bit helps.

Every little bit matters.

Don’t let The Handmaid’s Tale be our future.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books, 2017.