Thursday 1 October 2020

Some Utopias And Dystopias

In one kind of time travel story, the protagonist merely visits a future period and learns what is happening then:

News From Nowhere by William Morris I have yet to read but I definitely know that it is utopian;

The Time Machine by HG Wells seems utopian but turns out to be dystopian;

"Welcome" by Poul Anderson, which I will shortly reread, is ambiguous until its very last word which shockingly reveals it to be dystopian.

In both The Time Machine and "Welcome," the shock is the realization that the future society has revived cannibalism.

As far as I remember, "Welcome" is not about time travel properly so called because there is no possibility of a return journey. This qualification also applies to Anderson's "Time Heals" and The Long Way Home. Otherwise, The Long Way Home is like The Time Machine. Modern men arrive in, and must try to understand, a future society.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The ending of "Welcome," along with those of some other stories such as "The Martyr," "Eutopia," and WORLD WITHOUT STARS were certainly a surprise to me!

Ad astra! Sean