Shhh!!

[onyxhawke]

It's a conspiracy, I know it is. I took some great picks of the foliage today. Sadly the computer won't read the memory card. Not in the camera, not in the adapter and not in the memory card reader. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. This is enemy action.

I just wish i knew who the enemy was. It's much easier to counter a known adversary. Is it the Illuminati? Maybe its Green Peace who in attempting to prove global warming are trying to keep pictures of trees from appearing on the internet? Or is it possible that the company who made my computer has designed it to fail so I need to buy a new computer? Maybe they are even in league with the government who would win because I'd be taxed on that purchase?


Who knows maybe it isn't a conspiracy and I'm just struggling for something to fill this neglected space?


A lot of SF/F has a conspiracy at its heart. Sometimes it is the major motive force of the plot, sometimes its a tantalizing subplot. I've read a lot of urban fantasy lately that had conspiracy theories at their core. Once of the better ones was Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Goes to Washington. Unlike some of the intrigue laden fiction I've seen lately it keeps the conspiracy tightly wrapped and makes it very difficult to figure out exactly who was part of it and how willingly.

I do wonder at why we see so much in the way of conspiracy stories in UF. It might be that our world has enough fodder for them that they are easier to form here and near here than in some pure fantasy world or space colony.

So what are some of your favorite conspiracy theories? What books do you like that are centered around a conspiracy or two?

Comments

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

I still think Heinlein's "They" is the best conspiracy story ever. Though it's not booklength. Thank God--it might be pretty hard to take.

[sandykidd.livejournal.com]

I believe the Universe is conspiring to give me an altogether too interesting life story and yet not enough dead relatives to grant me the freedom to write it. ;)

[thecrazyfinn.livejournal.com]

UF thrives on shadowy supernatural organizations. They're also the poster children for 'there must be a conspiracy'. So a lot of authors add the required conspiracy. It also provides a sufficiently powerful adversary who can't openly move against the protagonist.

I've seen it handled best in the Dresden books. You don't even get an inkling that a conspiracy exists for the first 6-7 books and even now, at book 9 there's only hints of what's going on.

[eneit.livejournal.com]

I like the religion as a conspiracy plot in Jennifer Fallon's Second Sons trilogy.