The Handmaid's Tale/YMMV

• Anvilicious
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped
• Fridge Brilliance: The society is so completely ridiculous that it becomes absurd and there seems to be no reason why it can last. That's because it can't, so it collapses after only seven years.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The destruction of the government is blamed on Muslim terrorists initially, giving far-right forces an excuse to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and institute their own perverse version of Christianity.
• Nightmare Fuel: A surprising amount.
  • A snippet from the book.

"But WHOSE fault was it?"
"Her fault. Her fault. Her fault."
"WHO led them on?"
"She did. She did. She did."
"And why would God allow such a terrible thing to happen?"
"Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson."

• • • Now factor this in: they were talking about a 14-year old girl being gang-raped.
  • The Colonies. You really don't want to be sent there They're used for cleaning up nuclear waste until they die from the radiation poisoning. It's basically gulags. Also hinted is that black people, who are supposedly sent to "national homelands" (a la South Africa) may in fact be suffering extermination.
• Sci Fi Ghetto: Margaret Atwood insists the book is Speculative Fiction, but not Science Fiction. "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen."
  • Nevertheless, the book won the first Arthur C. Clarke award in 1987.
  • There are signs that Atwood's mellowed since then.