I’m fudging a little bit: this isn’t a book, it’s a short story. It’s an absolutely outstanding short story however. It’s based on a story by Ursula K. LeGuin and expands on it in ways that made me want to go and read the original. Were I not locked joyfully within the Dungeon Crawler Carl universe so completely that I plan to start a reread the moment I finish book 7, I would. As it is I’ll have to wait.
Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole is based around the idea (from the LeGuin story) that in order for Omelas, the best place on the planet, to be the best place on the planet, there must always be a child in the hole, where the child does nothing but suffer. Basically, imagine that sacrificing to the Sarlacc Pit gave you infinite prosperity and good times as an entire society. I can’t speak to the original story because I haven’t read it, but the short story deals with the consequences of a series of people who rightly think that’s a fucked up situation killing the child, and the consequences of that.
This story is a meditation on mob mentality, the abstraction of suffering away from our eyes, exploitation, and the illusions we hold as a group. It’s basically what pseudo-intellectuals try to hit on when they babble about the Trolley Problem, only this actually explores things and pokes at the limitations of such a simplistic idea. On top of that, it does so with strong style and an acid humor befitting the grim premise.
A link to the story is below. Absolutely go read it.
Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim