We've continued where we left off, and I'm very pleased to see that you haven't forgotten everything we discussed almost a month ago. As the last post suggests, we were learning about dystopian literature a sub-genre within the science fiction realm, which is often now refer to as speculative fiction.
In Neil Gaiman's introduction to the novel, he explains that one thing to make sure we realize is that when reading spec. fiction, authors aren't necessarily trying to predict what will happen in the future, but rather, they are commenting on the present. Authors observe their time and place and ask three questions:
What if...
If only...
If this goes on...
Writers, like Ray Bradbury were concerned about their own world, which at the time for Bradbury, the television was beginning to take over the evenings and lives of every American family. He worried that if this goes on, no one will read books anymore. And so Fahrenheit 451 was born.