I would recommend re-reading The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas as a companion story then. Maybe you'll get to underhand techno-pessimism as something more than the the result of people "forgetting the incredible technology that makes their quality of life real".

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bc569a80a344f9c 4 days ago | parent [-]

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

Why Don’t We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole by Isabel Kim. My favorite short story of 2024, and very much worth reading if you’re at all familiar with LeGuin’s original story.

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filoeleven 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Thank you for sharing this! Having just read it now, it's quite short (~5 minute read) and I also recommend it.

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JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I haven’t read any of this work. Where would you start?

	▲	bc569a80a344f9c 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		They’re both short stories, less than 10 minutes to read. If you’d like to read novel length LeGuin, “The Left Hand Of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” are excellent. Much of her most lauded work shares a universe, but each novel stands alone and doesn’t share relevant characters, let alone protagonists. Edit: „The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas“ can be read at https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf