7 Books In Which Technology Goes Horribly Wrong
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Anyone who has suffered a computer crash that deletes seven years’ worth of emails, photos, and Word docs knows technology doesn’t always work as planned. Sometimes our GPS steers us into a lake, sometimes we butt-dial exes, and sometimes the machines attain sentience and rise up to exterminate us. That’s the risk we take in exchange for being able to order sushi from anywhere.
Some of the best novels ever written are based on the idea that technology not only can but will go wrong—and they’re not all science fiction, either. Here are seven novels exploring what might happen when technology betrays us.
Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton
It’s a tale as old as time: Man figures out how to clone dinosaurs, dinosaurs turn around and eat man. The idea that there are things mankind was not meant to investigate is an ancient one, that has served as the basis for horror novels since time immemorial. Jurassic Park updates this concept of forbidden knowledge and the rotten fruits it yields with the slick idea of cloning dinosaurs from residual DNA traces—with predictably horrific results. If only people would stop thinking cloning is merely incredibly creepy and realize it could also knock us all down a notch on the food chain.
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
An odd choice, you say? That’s because you’re not paying attention. Sure, for the most part Tolkien’s masterpiece doesn’t have much to do with technology—unless you consider Saruman and his despoliation of Isengard, which is couched in clear technophobic terms. In short, Saruman the Many-Colored leaves behind the wisdom and power of his fellow Istari and begins industrializing, raping Isengard of resources, cutting down trees, and embracing technology. And it’s this embrace that leads to his downfall, as it angers the Ents and in ways large and small causes the series of events leading to Saruman’s death. The moral of this bit of the story? Ensure no immortal tree beings live nearby when you decide to salt the earth in your backyard.
The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy
Sure, you could make the point that a nuclear submarine loaded with missiles and designed to be nearly invisible is actually working as intended when it comes very close to sparking World War III. But the genius of The Hunt for Red October is, in many ways, the fact that the technology at its center would not be nearly as “gone wrong” without the fears and desires of its human crew and the Americans trying to claim it. The motto of the book seems to be “nuclear submarines don’t kill people, people (in possession of nuclear submarines) kill people.”
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson
Software has given us so much: Angry Birds, cat videos, Britney Spears albums. So it’s easy to forget software isn’t magic, it’s technology, and technology that could so easily go wrong. In Reamde, Stephenson drops a computer virus into a virtual world and lets the ripples extend into the real one, leaving death, property damage, and awesome gunfights in its wake. Considering the story delves deeply into an imaginary massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that helps spread the virus, this is actually a case of two technologies gone wrong.
Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
The Entertainment is the ultimate betrayal. As Homer Simpson once said of television (and by implication, all entertainment), it’s our teacher, mother, and secret lover—so the idea of an entertainment so perfectly constructed people would gladly cut off their own fingers (or, if possible, someone else’s fingers) in order to watch it just once more cuts to the core of our streaming, downloading, and always-entertained society. If entertainment itself turns against us, we’re doomed.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
For a lot of people, the idea of immortality is exciting stuff. Except when it means you’re actually dead, and cancerous cells taken from your body without your consent live on forever as invaluable material for laboratories around the world. The story of the Lacks family’s pursuit of justice after discovering the ongoing use of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cells is a stark reminder that even the technology we rely on to keep us alive and healthy can be turned against us—even after we’re gone.
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
If you want to talk about technology gone wrong, you can’t avoid the atomic bomb, as there are very few ways for technology to go more wrong than the potential end of the world. It’s the worst-case scenario of the fundamental forces of our universe being used not to feed the hungry, or to build incredible things, but to destroy in one tiny sunburst of energy. Again, it took human intention to turn this technology against us, and this incredibly rich and thoughtful biography of the man who led the way and his regrets and reactions to the consequences of his research puts a serious spin on an idea that’s usually exciting and fun in tension-filled thrillers.