Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Galactic Milieu Trilogy by Julian May
Miracleman by Alan Moore
Earth is utopianized by cosmic influence although not by alien intervention in:
In The Days Of The Comet by HG Wells
Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
Unaided human beings utopianize Earth in:
The World Set Free by HG Wells
The Shape Of Things To Come by HG Wells
In much American sf, a better future is sought not by improving Earth but by leaving it. A few people escape from the Solar System while a dictatorship is imposed on Earth in:
They Shall Have Stars by James Blish
The Draka History by SM Stirling
But the ultimate saga of human freedom on an interstellar scale has to Poul Anderson's Technic History, especially in its accounts of the early exploration and eventual colonization of Avalon.
Utopias and dystopias are valid fictional forms. Utopians should both describe a qualitatively different society and demonstrate its feasibility.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I might have included Anderson's "The High Ones" alongside Blish's THEY SHALL HAVE STARS and Stirling's Draka books. Perhaps it was too short to be placed in such a list?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Did a few people escape from Earth while the dictatorship was imposed on Earth?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, anti-Communists ("Whites") in the crew of that STL star ship successfully plotted against and overthrew the Reds while most of the latter were in frozen sleep.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And did they then colonize an extra-solar planet? (I don't remember.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, one of the planets neighboring Zolotoy. I forget the name they chose for it.
Ad astra! Sean
America is descended from people who left their previous countries to get away from something and/or to establish an order that was blocked where they came from.
It's natural that we associate escape with utopia.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And MANY would love to escape a Marxist-Leninist regime which conquered all Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment