Patton Oswalt is a stand-up comedian and actor. He is on Twitter.

I really wish my selection wasn’t prescient but, unfortunately, Gene Wolfe’s "Book of the New Sun" tetralogy could very well be a million-years-into-the-future portrait of where we’re going as a society.

A failed interstellar culture, Wolfe's society has fallen backward from fear into inscrutable religious ritual, mistaking technology for magic and, worst of all, elevating torture to spiritual ecstasy. Every time I see a tweet in support of torturing America's enemies, or poo-poohing science and its calls for caution, or praising Donald Trump, I flash forward to Wolfe’s wondrous dystopia.

We’re planting the seeds now.



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