The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I reread this book and my biggest fear is that it would seem dated.  having finished it, my greatest surprise is that it did not seem dated at all.  On the contrary, it seemed more relevant than it did when it was first published, almost 30 years ago.  Which is the scariest thing of all. 

Why is that?  This is a book about the United States being taken over in a military coup because the elected government is felt to be too liberal.  The society has lost its moral compass, the hard liners believe, and they need to take over.

Well, that all sounds remarkably familiar.  Women have been the target of a group of predominantly male, predominantly Republican lawmakers and the story doesn't seem nearly as far fetched in 2014 as it did in the 1980's.  That alone is frightening enough.  Then there is the story itself.  The newly empowered establish a rigidly puritanical society with dissenters being hung (which is essentially everyone who disagrees with them), men becoming dictators and women relegated to the role as breeders, who have no control over their bodies.  Juxtapose that with the Republican rhetoric of the last couple of years--women who get pregnant weren't raped by definition, because to be pregnant is to have invited the sex, that children born of rape are gifts from god, that women have no right to reproductive health or decisions about their own bodies.  Hmmm, it is eerily familiar.

Then comes the kicker--all these supposedly puritanical men are not so squeaky clean--they visit prostitutes, they break the rules with the wome they sleep with, and they are no different from the men we have in power now.  It is all too sordid.  Add to that the destruction of the environment--which is from pollution, not global climate change (Atwood got that piece wrong), and you have a tale that reflects the early 21st century.  It just didn't seem all that much like science fiction to me.