The Songs of Distant Earth - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008) (Ballantine, 1986)
Includes a description of a eutopia of abundance.
The first version of what became the novel was published as “The Songs of Distant Earth.” If. Worlds of Science Fiction 8.4 (June 1958): 6-29. This was rpt. in Science Fantasy 12.35 (June 1959): 99-128; in his The Other Side of the Sky (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), 207-45; and in his From the Ocean, From the Stars (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), 295-320. A second version was published as a short movie outline in Omni 12.3 (September 1981): 77-79, 132; and rpt. exp. with an introduction (291-93) in his The Sentinel: Masterworks of Science Fiction and Fantasy Illus. Lebbeus Woods (New York: Berkley Books, 1984), 295-99 and illus. on 294.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Staring at the Sun - Julian [Patrick] Barnes (b. 1946) (Jonathan Cape, 1986)
The novel traces the life of a woman from her childhood to old age (99), much of it in her own voice. The last section (139-97) is set in a future that has seen a revolt of old people demanding respect after a spate of Old People’s Suicides taking place outside the official voluntary euthanasia system. This is a very small part of the novel, with most of the third section reflections on death and religion through the eyes of her son, who is in conversation with the General Purpose Computer, then the supposedly more advanced, The Absolute Truth computer.
U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. 197 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Taronga - Victor [Michael Kitchener] Kelleher (b. 1939) (Viking Kestral, 1986)
Young adult post-catastrophe dystopia set in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The catastrophe, which is not described, has left people fighting to survive and turning to cannibalism. Taronga, which is the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sydney</st1:place></st1:city> zoo, looks like a food source to some but others protect the animals. At the end, after an epic battle, the animals are freed and move out into the countryside as do the central characters, a girl and a boy.
U.K. ed. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author; South African author

Time-Slip - Graham Dunston Martin (b. 1932) (Unwin Paperbacks, 1986)
Post-catastrophe religious dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Scottish author

Triad - Sheila [Rosemary] Finch (b. 1935) (Bantam Books, 1986)
Some elements of a gender-role reversal as background to the novel.
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

Watchmen - Alan [Oswald] Moore (b. 1953); Dave [David Chester] Gibbons (b. 1949) (DC Comics, 1986)
Dystopia based around the actual events of the period but with superheroes being suppressed by the government but also used by the it. A film, Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, directed by Zach Snyder, was released in 2009. An HBO series  created by Damon Lindelof (b. 1973) was broadcast in nine episodes beginning October 20, 2019.
Rpt. in one vol. New York: DC Comics, 1987; and as Watchman. The Deluxe Edition. New York: DC Comics, 2013.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Wickwyn: A Vision of the Future - Robert Van de Weyer (SPCK, 1986)
A religious eutopia based on revived village life. The book presents the history of England up to the 1980s and then projects a future in which, while technology made it possible to eliminate economic insecurity, automation put people out of work. This led to a movement to the countryside and the revitalization of village life.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Baaa - David Macaulay (b. 1946) (Houghton Mifflin, 1985)
A picture book that describes the world after all humans have disappeared and sheep wander into town and gradually take on all the characteristics of humans with dystopian results.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Between the Strokes of Night - Charles [A.] Sheffield (1935-2002) (Baen, 1985)
In 2010 the human race on Earth has been killed off in nuclear war and survives only in small colonies in space, but these humans expand further into space. The second part of the novel is set in 27,698 and deals with the colonized planets, particularly Pentecost, which comes into contact with a race of space-faring immortals with a faster than light drive, and much of the novel is hard SF concerned with the technology.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

"Broad Sunlit Uplands" - Craig Harrison (b. 1942) (New Outlook (New Zealand), 1985)
Dystopia. Technological advances make it easier for the government to control people, but there is also a culture of violence that attracts people and requires a large police and private security presence.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Male author

Children of the Dust - [Elizabeth Rhoda Wintle] [Holden] (1943-2013) (John Lane The Bodley Head Children's Books, 1985)
Young adult post-nuclear war novel and the revival of human communities.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Irish author

"The Government in Exile" - Paul [A.] Collins (b. 1954) (Urban Fantasies, 1985)
Dystopia of violence and class division. A completely collapsed system in which everyone has quit trying, and the unemployed are killed for sport and food.
Rpt. in his The Government in Exile and other stories (Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Sumeria, 1994), 25-36; and in The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection. Ed. Rob Gerrand (Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Black Inc., 2004), 326-34.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Australian author; English author; Male author

Infinity's Web - Sheila [Rosemary] Finch (b. 1935) (Bantam Books, 1985)
One woman at different times and places including the present world, a world of apparent sexual freedom, a dystopian world of great scarcity, and a dystopia in which the Third Reich rules where the woman is a sorceress.
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

Inside Babel - [Andrew James] Wilson (1948-2013) (Chatto & Windus. The Hogarth Press, 1985)
Sequel to 1984 Wilson with the emphasis on the humor and various failed projects to control people and technology.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Intersection" - Gwyneth [Ann] Jones (b. 1952) (Despatches From the Frontiers of the Female Mind; An Anthology of Original Stories, 1985)
Authoritarian dystopia which the protagonist sees as an ideal world. The author calls this story a preview of her 1986 Jones.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"Kool Running" - Paul [A.] Collins (b. 1954) (Omega Science Digest (Sydney, NSW, Australia), 1985)
Revolt against a world dominated by computers. See the note at 1980 Collins.
Rpt. in SF International (also called International Science Fiction) (Los Angeles, CA), no. 1 (January 1987): 47-54; and in his The Government in Exile and other stories (Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Sumeria, 1994), 39-48.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Australian author; English author; Male author

Last Letters from Hav - Jan Morris (1926-2020) (Viking, 1985)
Description of a visit to an imaginary country, which the author says was intended to reflect her lack of understanding of the countries she had visited and the changes they were undergoing. The country has both eutopian and dystopian elements.
Rpt. in her Hav comprising Last Letters from Hav and Hav of the Myrmidons (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), 1-187.
Keywords: English author; Transgender author

"Lover from Beyond the Dawn of Time" - Josephine [Mary Howard] Saxton (b. 1935) (The Power of Time, 1985)
Begins with a highly organized eutopia,but shifts to a horror story.
Keywords: English author; Female author

A Maggot - John [Robert] Fowles (1926-2005) (Jonathan Cape, 1985)
Mostly a fictional background of the parentage of Ann Lee (1736-84) of the Shakers but includes a short description of heaven as a eutopia.
U.S. ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Rpt. New York: New American Library, 1986.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The New World: An Epic Poem - Frederick Turner (b. 1943) (Princeton University Press, 1985)
Post-catastrophe eutopia/dystopia set 400 years in the future in which both fossil and nuclear fuels have been exhausted, many people have been killed in pogroms aimed at the middle class and others have left Earth altogether. The U.S. has divided into old cities that dominate the remaining suburbs, whose inhabitants are slaves, fundamentalist religious areas, and the Free Counties, which are under attack.
An excerpt was published in Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias. Ed. Kim Stanley Robinson (New York: Tor, 1994), 215-28.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

"Outlines for Urban Fantasies" - Michael Wilding (b. 1942) (Urban Fantasies, 1985)
Surrealistic dystopia presented in a series of vignettes about a future of fear and violence.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

"Silence in Having Words: Purple" - Josephine [Mary Howard] Saxton (b. 1935) (The Power of Time, 1985)
Authoritarian dystopia that tries to control all aspects of life.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Third Millennium: A History of the World: AD 2000-3000 - Brian [Michael] Stableford (1948-2024); David [Rowland] Langford (b. 1953) (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985)
History of the future that reads as a technological eutopia after the period of crisis between 2000 and 2180.
U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

The War Plays. A Trilogy - Edward Bond (1934-2024) (Methuen, 1985)
Dystopia following a nuclear war in which, in the first two plays, life becomes violent and dangerous with people generally isolated. In the third play a small beginning is made toward rebuilding human contact.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The 2024 Report; A Concise History of the Future 1974-2024 - Norman [Alastair Duncan] Macrae (1923-2010) (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984)
Detailed Christian, libertarian, technological eutopia that traces the process of change from the present to the eutopia. The changes and the impact of the eutopia is shown through biographies.
U.S. ed. as The 2025 Report: A Concise History of the Future 1974-2025. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1985. x + 258 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Brother in the Land - Robert [Edward] Swindells (b. 1939) (Oxford University Press, 1984)
A young adult post-nuclear war dystopia designed to demonstrate to the readers that such circumstances will be truly horrifying.
Rpt. with an "Afterword" by the author. Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1986. U.S. ed. New York: Holiday, 1985.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Greening of Mars - Michael Allaby (b. 1933); James [Ephraim] Lovelock (1919-2022) (André Deutsch, 1984)
The novel is mostly about the terraforming of Mars, the trip to Mars by immigrants, and their initial adjustment to the new planet, but the main protagonist,  briefly presents Mars in eutopian terms. All manual work performed by robots. Everyone is vegetarian. Every book and article ever published on Earth is available electronically. Growing social diversity. No guns. Very limited crime. Lovelock was the founder of the Gaia theory that Earth is a living entity.
U.S. ed. New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1984.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Last Amazon - A[rthur] Bertram Chandler (1912-84) (DAW Books, 1984)
Sequel to 1968 Chandler in which women are born and Amazons emerge on the planet New Sparta that was originally all men. John Grimes is instrumental in defeating the Amazons. Graham Stone in his Australian Science Fiction Bibliography (Sydney, NSW, Australia: Graham Stone, 2004), 11 says that its working title was Find the Lady.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

Natfact 7 - John [Kimberley] Tully (b. 1923) (Methuen Children's Books, 1984)
Although originally published as for young adults, this is a fairly standard dystopia and revolt. In this case the dystopia turns out to be better than the goal of the revolt.
Rpt. [London]: Magnet, 1987.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Protectorate - Mick [Michael Anthony] Farren (1943-2013) (New English Library, 1984)
Authoritarian dystopia with a deep division between the rich and the poor but with all under aliens.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Spaceache - [Andrew James] Wilson (1948-2013) (Chatto & Windus. The Hogarth Press, 1984)
Humor describing the dystopia of a collapsing economy and corruption brought about by the technology for freezing people. See also 1985 Wilson.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Theatre of Timesmiths - Garry [Douglas] Kilworth (b. 1941) (Victor Gollancz, 1984)
Authoritarian dystopia. City frozen in ice controlled by a small group of authoritarian leaders. The novel is about the ultimately successful struggle to escape.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Trauma 2020: Book 1 Urban Prey - Peter Beere (b. 1951) (Arrow Books, 1984)
Dystopia of violence with constant war in Europe. The second volume Trauma 2020: Book 2 The Crucifixion Squad. London: Arrow Books, 1984 is a dystopia of violence in a collapsed future Britain. The third volume Trauma 2020: Book 3 Silent Slaughter. London: Arrow, 1985 continues the same themes.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The True Story of Lilli Stubeck - James [Harold Edward] Aldridge (1918-2015) (Hyland House, 1984)
Young adult novel that discusses a character's belief in utopia and its effects on him and his friends.
Rpt. Ringwood, VIC, Australia: Puffin, 1985.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

Vail - Trevor Hoyle (b. 1940) (John Calder/Riverrun Press, 1984)
Near future dystopia in which toxic waste is deliberately dumped by the government on the overpopulated areas of England. London is an enclave for the rich and powerful.
Rpt. London: Abacus, 1989.
Keywords: English author; Male author

What To Do When the Russians Come: A Survivor’s Guide - [George] Robert [Acworth] Conquest (1917-2015); Jon Manchip White (1925-2013) (Stein and Day, 1984)
Cataloged in libraries as non-fiction, and while that is clearly what the authors intend, it depicts the dystopia that would ensue after a successful Soviet invasion of the United States as it would impact the day-to day-lives of Americans. The last bit of advice is that such an invasion occurs is BURN THIS BOOK.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author; Welsh author

"The Byrds" - Michael G[reatrex] Coney (1932-2005) (Changes: Stories of Metamorphosis. An Anthology of Speculative Fiction About Startling Metamorphoses, Both Psychological and Physical, 1983)
The story, which is about people who use technology, such as anti-gravity belts, to emulate birds, is set in a future with restrictions on population size that encourages the elderly to be euthanized. The Department of Rest establishes how much the population has to fall and sends out a monthly brochure Your Choice for Peace to senior citizens with a form in which that are asked to “describe all that is good about their life, and a few of the things which bug them. At the end of the form is a box in which the oldster indicates his preference for Life or Peace. If he does not check the box, or if he fails to complete the form, it is assumed that he has chosen Peace, and the send the Wagon for him” (189). This is a very small part of the story.
Rpt. in Northern Stars. The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction. Ed. David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant (New York: Tor, 1994), 188-99.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

"Calling all Gumdrops" - John [Thomas] Sladek (1937-2000) (Interzone, 1983)
Sixties adults become children while Seventies and Eighties children and advanced computers take on adult roles. Presented generally positively.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Canopus in Argos: Archives. Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1983)
The last of the five volumes in her Canopus in Argos: Archives series. See also 1979, 1980 (2) and 1982 Lessing. This volume is a satire on the power of emotion, particularly as reflected in speech, to overwhelm reason. A Canopean is infected with "undulant Rhetoric" and treated in the Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Futuretrack 5 - Robert Westall (1929-93) (Kestrel, 1983)
Dystopia of a highly computerized system run by an elite. The dystopia is controlled by the Techs with a middle class desperate to avoid even the slightest hint of dissent, and a lower class living in extreme poverty and violence. The novel ends with the computer discovering ethics and morality.
Rpt. London: Collins Voyager, 2002. U.S. ed. New York: Greenwillow Books, [1983?].
Keywords: English author

Golden Witchbreed - Mary [Rosalyn] Gentle (b. 1956) (Victor Gollancz, 1983)
Although mostly an adventure novel, it includes one society that can be called eutopian that lives in telestre or a group of 50 to 500 living together on the land and supporting themselves.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"The Harvest of Wolves" - Mary [Rosalyn] Gentle (b. 1956) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1983)
A dystopia of fundamentalist religious suppression that chooses whether someone can live with limited government support or is transferred to a Welfare Camp, where they are unlikely to live long.
Rpt. in Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, 1995), 114-22.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Ice Belt - [Stephen] [Gallagher] (b. 1954) (Sphere, 1983)
Sequel to his 1978 Dying of Paradise. This novel continues the dystopia of the previous one, but it focuses on an alien invasion.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Kelly Country - A[rthur] Bertram Chandler (1912-84) (Penguin Books with the assistance of the Literature Board of the Australia Council, 1983)
Alternative history describing an Australian war of independence that followed from the Australian icon Ned Kelly not being killed. Eutopia and dystopia with Australian ending up being successfully invaded by various countries.
The stories “Kelly Country.” Void Science Fiction and Fantasy (Melbourne, VIC, Australia), [no. 3 (1976)]: 63-73; and “The Way It Was.” Omega Science Digest (Sydney, NSW, Australia), [no. 2] (March/April 1981): 54-57; 125-27 are the basis of the novel. “Kelly Country” has been rpt. in Australian Science Fiction. Ed. Van Ikin (St. Lucia, Qld, Australia: Queensland University Press, 1982), 166-80. Book rpt. (Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1984), 166-180. “The Way It Was” has been rpt. as “A New Dimension.” In his Up to the Sky in Ships (Cambridge, MA: The NESFA Press, 1982), 69-86, which is bound with Lee Hoffman, In and Out of Quandry (1982).
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

Night Operation - [Arthur] Owen Barfield (1898-1997) (Towards, 1983)
Dystopia set in the 22nd century in which people have fled underground into the sewer system to escape from terrorist attacks. Rock is played constantly over loudspeakers. The people have forgotten history and focus almost entirely on their biological lives with the Three Rs replaced with the Three Es (ejaculation, defecation, and eructation). Language has lost many words. No marriage or the family.
Rpt. in A Barfield Sampler: Poetry and Fiction. Ed. Jeanne Clayton Hunter and Thomas Kranidas with an afterword by Owen Barfield (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 129-72; and separately as Night Operation. [Shinfield, Eng.]: Barfield Press UK, 2008. 2nd ed. [San Raphael, CA: Barfield Press, 2009. The book has a hagiographic “Introduction” by Jane Hipolito (ix-xii).
Keywords: English author

The Rape of Shavi - [Florence Onye] Buchi Emechta (1944-2017) (Ogwugwu Afor Co., Ltd./Umuezeokolo, 1983)
The novel portrays the conflict between a eutopian tribal society and the first white people they come into contact with. The eutopia is destroyed.
U.S. ed. New York: George Braziller, 1985.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Nigerian author

Rates of Exchange - Malcolm [Stanley] Bradbury (1932-2000) (Secker & Warburg, 1983)
Satire on contemporary Eastern Europe through the imaginary country of Slaka. Continued in his Why Come to Slaka? London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1986; rpt. London: Arena, 1987, which is a guidebook to Slaka.
Rpt. London: Arena, 1984.
Keywords: English author

Albion - Brenda Vale (Spindlewood, 1982)
A post-catastrophe eutopia focusing on village life with limited power sources, the revival of crafts, a rebuilt and extended canal system, and community decision-making. Not romanticized, but generally a good life. One emphasis is the sustainable architecture.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Female author

All Our Tomorrows - Ted [Theodore Edward le Bourthillier] Allbeury (1917-2005) (Granada, 1982)
Authoritarian dystopia of a Russian occupied Britain. People choose the system to correct the faults of the current situation, which includes daily violence, and to avoid the collapse of the country. Some resistance.
U.S. ed. New York: Mysterious Press, 1989.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Canopus in Argos: Archives. The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)
The fourth of the five volumes in her Canopus in Argos: Archives series. See also, 1979, 1980 (2) and 1983 Lessing. This novel presents the coming destruction of Planet 8 as it enters a terminal ice age and the positive way the people respond to the crisis. An opera with music by Philip Glass was created based on the novel and premiered in Houston, TX in July 1988. The libretto was published as Philip Glass and Doris Lessing, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. An Opera in Three Acts. Based on the Novel by Doris Lessing. [Bryn Mawr, PA]: Dunvagen Music Publishers, 1988.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Eye of the Queen - [Anthony] Phillip Mann (1942-2022) (Victor Gollancz, 1982)
Describes a very complex, truly alien society that is in some ways eutopian. The residents of Pe-Ellia are asexual, telepathic, and live in a world in which the whole planet is alive. They go through seven stages of development, each of which produces new markings on their skin. The goal is to achieve symmetry in the last stage. They reproduce through the Queen, who appears to be an alien from a different world, and they also return to her in death.
Rpt. London: Victor Gollancz, 2001.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Male author

Jenny Ewing - [Frank] Yorick Blumenfeld (1932) (Centaur, 1982)
Atomic war and shelter dystopia.
Rpt. as Jenny, My Diary. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982. Rpt. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1983.
Keywords: Dutch author; English author; Male author; US author

Manshape - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (DAW Books, 1982)
An Interstellar Bridge connects all the human worlds that had up to that point been isolated, but one world, Azrael, initially refuses to be connected. It has a unique social organization that does not value existence, and when connected it tries to export its beliefs to other worlds.
Shorter version originally published as "Bridge to Azrael." Amazing Stories 38.2 (February 1964): 6-78. Rpt. as Endless Shadow. New York: Ace Books, 1964. Ace Double bound with Gardner F. Fox, The Arsenal of Miracles (1964).
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Tapestry of Time - [John Middleton] [Murry] [Jr.] (1926-2002) (Victor Gollancz, 1982)
Final volume of a trilogy called The White Bird of Kinship. See also 1978 and 1981 Murry. This volume resolves issues of the previous two and leads to the recognition of interdependence.
Rpt. London: Futura, 1986.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Travels to the Enu: Story of a Shipwreck - [Heinz Jakov] [Landwirth] (1927-2007) (Eyre Methuen, 1982)
The novel presents a satire on the present in the form of a weird, fantastic, imaginary country. It begins on a dystopian ship crewed by murderers and psychopaths where the passengers are required to do all the work and are robbed and murdered. Then the ship sinks, and the protagonist makes it to the island of the Enu, who seem to be half human and half baboon in apparently separate species and have a odd affinity for birds that occupy nests on men's heads.
Keywords: Austrian author; English author; Male author

V for Vendetta - Alan [Oswald] Moore (b. 1953); David Lloyd (b. 1950) (DC Comics, 1982)
Dystopia. Graphic novel depicting a corrupt, totalitarian regime in England being resisted by a superhero.
Books 1 and 2 “Vertigo” and “Vincent” published in the U.K. in Warrior in 1982 and 1983. Published in U.S. as V for Vendetta, nos. 1-10 (1987-1988). Collected ed. New York: DC Comics, 1989. Rev. exp. ed. New York: DC Comics, 1990. Rpt. New York: DC Comics, 2005.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Very British Coup - Chris[topher John] Mullin (b. 1947) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1982)
The left wins an election, and the establishment works to overthrow it. A sequel is The Friends of Harry Perkins. London: Scribner, 2019 that is primarily a political novel set in the dystopia that Brexit has produced with a potential war between China and the U. S. in the background.
Rpt. London: Corgi, 1988; and London: Politicos, 2001.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Voyage From Yesteryear - James P[atrick] Hogan (1941-2010) (Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 1982)
Earth had established colonies of children in the Alpha Centuri system and decades later sent adult colonists and an army to take control. The first group and established a libertarian eutopia and had no intention of being taken over by the new one. The book won the Prometheus Award of the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Rpt. New York: Baen, 1999. U.K. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1984.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author; US author

The Anarch Lords - A[rthur] Bertram Chandler (1912-84) (DAW Books, 1981)
The novel shows the attempt to bring law and order to an anarchist (in its negative sense) world.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

The Castaways of Tanagar - Brian [Michael] Stableford (1948-2024) (DAW Books, 1981)
A planetary eutopia that freezes its outcasts (criminals and dissidents). With the rediscovery of Earth and the plan to explore it, the outcasts become necessary and so some are brought back to life. The eutopia, Tanager, is composed of Intellectuals, who dominate, Hedonists, and Pragmatists, who occupy a middle ground between the other two.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Control of Violence by mass tranquillisation 1981-2001" - Paul Western (b. 1963) (New Scientist, 1981)
Mass tranquillization is used by the Riot Protection Squad to control and prevent violence. Presented positively. At the end it is suggested that the next step will be introducing mood improving drugs into the water to reduce tension, and specifically to improve race relations. Won the British Association of Young Scientists/New Scientist essay competition for 1981.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Dream of Kinship - [John Middleton] [Murry] [Jr.] (1926-2002) (Victor Gollancz, 1981)
Middle volume of a trilogy called The White Bird of Kinship. See also 1978 and 1982 Murry. In this volume, the secular power tries to destroy the religious heresy known as Kinship, but a new age is developing.
U. S. New York Pocket Books, 1981.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Entropy Tango: A Comic Romance - Michael [John] Moorcock (b. 1939) (New English Library, 1981)
Dystopia and suggestions of eutopia. Alternative history using some characters from the Russian Revolution, like Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein 1879-1940) and Nestor Makhno (1889-1935).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Gor Saga - Maureen [Patricia] Duffy (b. 1933) (Eyre Methuen, 1981)
A novel about a boy whose mother was a gorilla set in a class divided dystopia controlled by computers.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Hello America - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Jonathan Cape, 1981)
Dystopia. The United States had collapsed in the past and an expedition of rediscovery finds it inhabited with a wide variety of dystopian societies.
U.S. ed. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1988.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Islanders - John Rowe Townsend (1922-2014) (Oxford University Press, 1981)
Young adult dystopia in which an isolated island with a rule that no outsiders will be allowed has to deal with the disruption caused by two young people saving the lives of two other young people from outside.
U.S. ed. New York: J.P. Lippincott, 1981.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Man Who Loved Morlocks: A Sequel to 'The Time Machine' As Narrated By the Time Traveller - David J[ohn] Lake (1929-2016) (Hyland Press, 1981)
H.G. Wells's time traveler returns to the future and discovers a people descended from the Morlocks. They have created a society similar to ancient Sparta, where he chooses to stay. On his first trip he had inadvertently killed most of the Eloi and the original Morlocks, who had no immunity to diseases he carried. Includes a report by the Morlocks on the first trip.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Indian author; Male author

The Song of Phaid the Gambler - Mick [Michael Anthony] Farren (1943-2013) (New English Library, 1981)
Complex future fantasy with dystopian elements.
U.S. edition in two vols. as Phaid the Gambler. New York: Ace Books, 1986; and Citizen Phaid. New York: Ace Books, 1987.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Sons of Light - [James] David Rudkin (b. 1936) (Eyre Methuen, 1981)
Dystopian play set on an isolated island in the Atlantic where there have been experiments on humans.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"To Market, to market" - Josephine [Mary Howard] Saxton (b. 1935) (Woman Space: Future and Fantasy Stories and Art by Women, 1981)
Post-catastrophe dystopia of cannibalism.
Rpt. in her The Power of Time (London: Chatto & Windus/The Hogarth Press, 1985), 95-96.
Keywords: English author; Female author

While there's HOPE - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Keepsake Press, 1981)
Plan to achieve world peace through the voluntary exchange of hostages.
Keywords: English author; Male author

¡Abracadabra! - [Cyril] Wolf Mankowitz (1924-98) (Gill and Macmillan, 1980)
The dystopia of a depressing welfare state and its mistreatment of the elderly as background to a novel about alchemy and magic.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“Ashkenazia” - Clive [John]] Sinclair (Encounter, 1980)
Satire on culture and politics. Yiddish is the national language of Ashkenazia, but all the authors are desperate to be translated into English, The point-of-view character is one of those authors. Corrupt politics, and the Prime Minister is desperate to conclude a deal with Hitler for Ashkenazia’s uranium deposits. Much of the action takes place at a writers’ conference.
Rpt. in his Bedbugs (London: Alison & Busby, 1982), 113-22; rpt. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 113-22. and in his For Good or Evil: Collected Stories (London: Penguin, 1991, 238-248.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Bender, Fenugreek, Slatterman and Mupp" - D[avid] G[uy] Compton (1930-2023) (Interfaces, 1980)
Dystopia of a technological world which tries and fails to make humans feel useful.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Canopus in Argos: Archives. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five (as narrated by the Chroniclers of Zone Three) - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980)
The second of the five volumes in her Canopus in Argos: Archives series. See also 1979, 1980 Canopus in Argos: Archives. The Sirian Experiments, 1982, and 1983 Lessing. In this volume cross zone marriages bring together opposites. An opera with music by Philip Glass (b. 1937) was created based on the novel with the libretto by Lessing. The first performance was in German in Heidelberg May 10, 1997, trans. Saskia M. Wesnigk. The first performance in English was June 7, 2001, in Chicago.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Canopus in Argos: Archives. The Sirian Experiments. The Report by Ambian II, of the Five - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980)
The third of the five volumes in her Canopus in Argos: Archives series. See also 1979, 1980 Canopus in Argos: Archives. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five, 1982, and 1983 Lessing. In this volume Ambian II, a Sirian bureaucrat, is used by the Canopeans to introduce the Sirians, who believe themselves the superior beings, to higher ways.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Daymare - [Sir] [Thomas Willes] [Chitty] [3rd Baronet] (1926-2014) (Macmillan, 1980)
Britain collapses and produces a dystopia, which the novel shows in its effect on a village.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Gardens of Delight - Ian Watson (b. 1943) (Victor Gollancz, 1980)
Eutopia and dystopia based on the Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) painting, The Gardens of Earthly Delights, which is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The novel has three sections similar to the triptych, the Gardens, which open and close the novel. Hell, and Eden.
U.S. ed. New York: Timescape, 1982.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Island. A Male Chauvinist Comedy" - James Saunders (1925-2004) (Bye Bye Blues and Other Plays, 1980)
Satire. Men seemed to have died out and women reproduce without them. Three young sisters have been placed on an idyllic isolated island to live a new and better life. They long for something they can't identify, and then some men show up.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Lost Philosophy of Love - [Roy Victor] [Wallace] (1927-1917) (Author, 1980)
Eutopia called Many Waters of about 2,000 people based on agriculture and light industry. Calls it a commune. Common meals. Has its own school. A lot of New Age healing. The second edition is illustrated. The author says that an alternative title could be The Way to Utopia.
Rev. ed. illus. Fold-out map. Brisbane, QLD: Love Publications, 1982. 61 pp.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

A Rag, a Bone, and a Hank of Hair - [David] [Higginbottom] (1923-2016) (Kestrel, 1980)
Young adult flawed utopia. A future population bred to be peaceful cannot themselves have children and a breeding program using people stolen from the past is started.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Riddley Walker - Russell [Conwell] Hoban (1925-2011) (Jonathan Cape, 1980)
Post-catastrophe dystopia describing the society that has developed in England, which is presented as a primitive but complex society. The novel is presented as written by a member of the society, Riddley Walker, and is in the language that is used by the society.
U.S. ed. with the subtitle A Novel. New York: Summit Books, 1980. Exp. ed. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998, with two illus., an “Afterword” (223-27), “Notes” (229-31), and a “Glossary” (233-35) by the author.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Russian Hide-and-Seek; A Melodrama - Kingsley [William] Amis (1922-95) (Hutchinson, 1980)
Dystopia of the U.K. overrun by the U.S.S.R.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Tetrarch - Alex[ander] Comfort (1920-2000) (Shambala/Random House, 1980)
Allegory/fantasy depicting a number of eutopias and dystopias based loosely on various mythologies and William Blake (1757-1827) in particular. Verula is an evil city with high technology and a repressive culture and represents the contemporary world. The central eutopia, Los, is a sexually free, cooperative society. There are appendices of “The Losian Religion As Expounded by William Blake,” Losian Grammar, examples of the Losian Script, and a Losian Vocabulary. While the author is best known for his books on sexual technique like The Joy of Sex (1972), his career ranged through fiction, poetry, anarchist theory, the biology of aging, and geriatric psychology. For an extremely detailed biography, see Eric Laursen, Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort Author of the Joy of Sex. Chico, CA/Edinburgh, Scot.: AK Press, 2023. 740 pp. See also 1943, 1961 and 1989 Comfort.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"That's No Way to Treat a Fairy" - Fitzgerald, Luchia (Crystal Crone (London), 1980)
Eutopia. The Leprechauns ruled the small people enslaving some their own people, the workers, and the fairies, and the women were treated worst of all. A women's revolution brings about communities of mixed men and women, all men, and all women, which is presented as a eutopia within the post-revolutionary eutopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Irish author

The Travails of Jane Saint - Josephine [Mary Howard] Saxton (b. 1935) (Virgin Books, 1980)
The novel begins with Jane Saint being sentenced to total reprogramming in an isolation chamber for being a revolutionary, which, in the context, means an advocate for women’s liberation. The novel then follows her “experiences” during the period she is in the chamber, experiences that center around a quest to free women. Much fantasy, with talking dogs, one of whom is named Merleau-Ponty, after the French philosopher; a friendly, supportive demon; a witch; a shaman; and so forth. See also 1989 Saxton, which is a sequel.
Part previously published as "Jane Saint's Travails." Amazons! Ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson (New York: DAW Books, 1979), 107-16.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Under Plum Lake - Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) (Jonathan Cape, 1980)
Eutopian fantasy set in Egon, a world under the sea that evolved separately from the world above and has advanced further both technically and psychologically. The protagonist is a thirteen year old boy.
U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"A Walk on the Wild Side" - Paul [A.] Collins (b. 1954) (Ad Astra (London), 1980)
Future dystopia of violence set in Sydney.
Rpt. as “A Walk on the Wild Side.”in The Cygnus Chronicler: An Australian Review of Science Fiction and Fantasy (West Ryde, NSW, Australia) 3.1 (7) (December 1980): 4-5; and as "Suburban Walk" in Paper Children: Selections from the McGregor Literary Competitions 1980-81. Ed. Alan Lawson (Toowoomea, QLD, Australia: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1982), 98-104; as "Spaziergang Suburban Walk." Trans. Christoph Göhler. In SF aus Australien: "Wahr sind die Träume der Götter" und 10 weitere Geschichten. Ed. Paul [A.] Collins and Peter Wilfrit (München, Germany: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1983), 117-24; and as "Weesechosek, 'A Good Place to Live'. In his The Government in Exile and other stories (Melbourne, VIC. Australia: Sumeria, 1994), 1-11.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Australian author; English author; Male author

Benefits - Zoë Fairbairns (b. 1948) (Virago, 1979)
Feminist dystopia. Government encourages and then forces women to stay home and care for their families. It then tries to control conception by requiring contraception and later putting a contraceptive in the water. This causes major fetal damage and creates the beginnings of a backlash.
Rpt. with an "Introduction" by the author (i-iv) Nottingham, Eng.: Five Leaves, 1998.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Brats. A Novel of the Future - R[onald Henry Glynn] Chetwynd-Hayes (1919-2001) (William Kimber, 1979)
Post-catastrophe authoritarian dystopia. The Brats are the sub-human creatures who hunt in packs, kill everything, and are the dominant life form.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Canopus in Argos: Archives. Re: Colonised Planet 5. Shikasta. Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979)
The first of five volumes detailing the history and future of earth and other zones. See also 1980 (2), 1982, and 1983 Lessing. The Canopeans are the most advance beings and watch over others, interfering from time to time, not always successfully. Colonised Planet 5 appears to be Earth.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1979.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Fight for Manod - Raymond [Henry] Williams (1921-88) (Chatto & Windus, 1979)
The first part of the novel, which is the part excerpted by Milner, describes a plan to transform an area of Wales from a backwater into a substantial, thriving community. The rest of the novel concerns the difficulties of doing that.
London" Hogarth Press, 1988. An excerpt was published in Tenses of the Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia. Ed. Andrew Milner. Ralahine Utopian Studies 4 (Oxford, Eng,: Peter Lang, 2010), 215-30, with an editor’s introduction (215-16).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Love Siege - Tom [Donald] Wakefield (1935-96) (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979)
Near future authoritarian dystopia. In 1983 "political" meetings of any sort are forbidden, with even school staff meetings having to have a government official in attendance. Nonconformists are killed. But there is successful resistance.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A New Utopia - Peter [Christopher] Milward [S.J.] (1925-2017) (Aratake Shuppan, 1979)
Eutopia structured like More's Utopia with two parts. The first part is a factual journal of his trip with Japanese friends to Bruges, Belgium to visit the area where More was when he began writing Utopia. The second part (40-68) is a eutopia that contrasts the real Japan with a eutopian version that centers on religion and simplicity.
The first two parts were published as In Search of Historic Britain. [Tokyo, Japan]: Aratake Shuppan, 1978; and In Search of More's England. [Tokyo, Japan]: Aratake Shuppan, 1978.
Keywords: English author; Male author

News from the City of the Sun - Isabel [Diana] Colegate (b. 1931) (Hamish Hamilton, 1979)
A novel about the history of an intentional community from the 1930s to 1970s. The members have divergent views of what eutopia will be like and how to bring it about.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"Our Lady of Desperation" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (Ladies From Hell, 1979)
Dystopian satire. After a revolution in the U.K. in which the Civil Service becomes dominant a four class system is established. Class A (the Civil Service and other powerful people) pays no taxes and classes B and C pay taxes at the rate of 60 and 70 percent respectively. Class D, the focus of the story and composed "anybody on whom the suspicion of creativity falls" (21) is supposed to pay at the 70% rate, but an error in the law allows them to make considerable incomes. In response the government assigns a minder to every individual in Class D to oversee all their activities.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Out There Where The Big Ships Go" - [John Middleton] [Murry] [Jr.] (1926-2002) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1979)
Eutopia brought about through a galactic game that was brought back to a ravaged Earth from a distant eutopian planet. Having reached the planet humans were then allowed to play the Game, which was the route to the next step in human evolution.
Rpt. in his Out There Where The Big Ships Go (New York: Pocket Books, 1980), 9-37; and in The 1980 Annual World's Best SF. Ed. Donald A. Wollheim with Arthur W. Saha (New York: DAW Books, 1980), 217-45.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Revolution Island - Julian [Charles] Fane (1927-2009) (Hamish Hamilton and St. George's Press, 1979)
Socialists take power and establish an authoritarian dystopia. The novel ends with a the dystopia being overthrown. Anti-socialist and anti-trade union.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Sixth Winter - Douglas Orgill (b. 1922); John Gribbin (Simon and Schuster, 1979)
Climate-change (new ice age) dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Unlimited Dream Company - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Jonathan Cape, 1979)
Mostly fantasy but the setting has utopian elements.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Web - [John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon] [Harris] (1903-69) (Michael Joseph, 1979)
The novel is primarily science fiction, but it focuses on a planned utopian community to be established on an island in the South Pacific.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Windows - D[avid] G[uy] Compton (1930-2023) (Berkley Books, 1979)
Continuation of 1974 Compton which begins with the final words of the previous book. The reporter, who blinded himself in the previous book as the only way to stop broadcasting, becomes involved in a plot, which is ultimately defeated, to overthrow governments.
Rpt. New York: Ace Books, 1983.
Keywords: English author; Male author

1985 - [John Anthony Burgess] [Wilson] (1917-1993) (Hutchinson, 1978)
The first part of the book (13-102) is an analysis of Nineteen Eighty-four. The rest (103-219) is a fairly typical anti-labor dystopia--Tucland [TUC = Trades Union Congress]--but including an attack on Arab interests in the U.K. The book also includes "A note on Worker's English" (221-26/499-504 in the reprint) and "Epilogue: an interview" (227-40/505-18 in the reprint).
Rpt. in his Future Imperfect. The Wanting Seed. 1985 (London: Vintage, 1994), 283-518 and includes his "1985 and The Wanting Seed--An Introduction" (v-viii).
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Alien Sensation." - Josephine [Mary Howard] Saxton (b. 1935) (Cassandra Rising, 1978)
Far future dystopia. Humans spend life drugged and dreaming, being fed experiences in pill form. They are maintained by aliens, and apparently humans had already chosen this way of life before the aliens arrived to colonize the planet.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Enemies of the System; A Tale of Homo Uniformis - Brian [Wilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (Jonathan Cape, 1978)
Authoritarian dystopia based on a Biological Communism that has created Homo Uniformis (Man Alike Throughout). They live in a flawed utopia (no passion, violence, or doubt) and meet primitive descendants of Homo Sapiens on the planet Lysenka II, named after Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976), Joseph Stalin's director of biology, who believed the newly acquired characteristics could be passed on to descendants, a position generally rejected by geneticists.
U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. Rpt. New York: Avon, 1981. A story entitled "Enemies of the System" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 54.6 (325) (June 1978): 5-65.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Ennead - Jan Mark (1943-2006) (Kestrel, 1978)
Young adult novel set on a desolate planet where the human race is creating a new dystopia. At the end there is a revival of hope.
U.S. ed. New York: Crowell, 1978.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Feelies - Mick [Michael Anthony] Farren (1943-2013) (Big O Publishing, 1978)
Dystopia. Future where the rich spend their lives in electronic private fantasies or "feelies" as described in Huxley's Brave New World (1932). The poor drink, drug and watch TV. The danger for the rich is that the feelies can break down.
Rev. ed. New York: del Rey, 1988.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The King of Hell - W[ilfred] D[ennis] Pereira (1921-2014) (Robert Hale, 1978)
A penal colony planet controlled by an apparently eutopian world (Elysium) is a dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Last Rose of Summer - Stephen Gallagher (b. 1954 (Corgi Books, 1978)
Authoritarian dystopia with governmental control through computers that provided everything to the people except freedom. See also 1983 Gallagher.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Long Walk to Wimbledon - H[enry] R[eymond] F[itzwalter] Keating (1926-2011) (Macmillan, 1978)
Dystopia in which extensive fighting has broken out in London, which lays in ruins as the conflicts continue. The novel focuses on one man who must navigate his way across the devastated city.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Motel Architecture" - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Bananas, 1978)
Dystopia where everyone lives isolated from each other. Machines do most work, with TV repair one exception.
Rpt. in his Myths of the Near Future (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), 178-94; and in his The Complete Short Stories (London: Flamingo, 2001), 989-99.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Report of the Committee on the Operation of the Sexual Containment Act. Chairman: Michael Schofield. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales by Command of Her Majesty, October 1984 - Michael [George] Schofield (1919-2014) (Davis-Poynter, 1978)
Authoritarian dystopia under a law to control "excessive" sexual activity. Members of the Committee include Mr. Leopold Bloom and Mrs. Winston Smith.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Road to Corlay - [John Middleton] [Murry] [Jr.] (1926-2002) (Pocket Books, 1978)
Authoritarian religious dystopia set in a post-catastrophe future with the beginnings of both a new Enlightenment and a reformed religion. First volume of a trilogy called The White Bird of Kinship; see also 1981 and 1982 Murry.
The "Prologue. Piper at the Gates of Dawn." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 50.3 (298) (March 1976): 4-51 is rpt. in the U.S. editions (11-73) (Book Club ed. 1-58), but not in the U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 1978.
Keywords: English author; Male author

SS-GB: Nazi-occupied Britain 1941 - Len [Leonard Cyril] Deighton (b. 1929) (Jonathan Cape, 1978)
The background of the novel is the Nazi dystopia as reflected in the title.
Rpt. London: Penguin Books, 2021. U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Suicide of Man" - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1978)
Future eutopia proves only a staging ground to an apparently higher existence.
Rpt. in The Best of John Brunner (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984), 239-66.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Three Ways" - Brian [Wilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1978)
Men (no women were on the ship) return to Earth after a long trip to find it entirely under five dystopias. After a new ice age and two nuclear wars, most people live underground and there are constant wars among the dystopias, Corporatia, Socdemaria, Communia, Neutralia, and Third World. Widespread poverty and few human rights. The men end up in different countries, but their situations are much the same, except for one who moves to Zealandia, a colony of Australia, where he becomes a colonial boss. The others return to space.
Rpt. in his New Arrivals, Old Encounters: Twelve Stories (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979), 25-51.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Awakening Water - [Geoffrey Robins] [Crosher] (1911-90) (Chatto & Windus, 1977)
Young adult dystopia in which people are kept in line with drugs. A young man escapes to a democratic eutopia.
U.S. ed. New York: Hastings House, 1979.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Colossus and the Crab - D[ennis] F[eltham] Jones (1918?-81) (Berkley Books, 1977)
Last volume of the Colossus series. See 1966 and 1974 Jones. In this volume the Martians propose to remove half of Earth's oxygen to use on Mars. After many adventures a reactivated Colossus produces a better plan acceptable to both Earth and Mars.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Confessions of Josef Baisz - Dan Jacobson (1929-2014) (Secker & Warburg, 1977)
Standard totalitarian dystopia as background to a autobiography of a man living in the dystopia and successfully rising within it.
U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Keywords: English author; Male author; South African author; US author

"The Dark Tower" - C[live] S[taples] Lewis (1898-1963) (The Dark Tower and Other Stories, 1977)
Dystopia of an evil society. Posthumously published incomplete story in which Ransom of the space trilogy appears. See 1938, 1943, and 1945 Lewis.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Northern Ireland author

A Dream of Wessex - Christopher [McKenzie] Priest (1943-2024) (Faber and Faber, 1977)
The novel presents a future (2135-37) after a series of earthquakes has destroyed much of Britain, and it is a Soviet state, generally presented neutrally. Wessex is an island off the coast that is a holiday resort where many of the rules of the mainland do not apply and, as a result, it attracts many tourists from the Islamic North America. The focus of the novel is on two individuals projected to the future Wessex from the mid-1980s who choose to stay there.
U.S. ed. as The Perfect Lover. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Drinking Sapphire Wine - Tanith Lee (1947-2015) (DAW Books, 1977)
A group leave the domed cities described in 1976 Lee and establish a community in the desert. Initially attacked by the cities, they are eventually left alone and begin the process of living a life without robots, body and sex changes, and with the possibility of permanent death.
Rpt. in her Biting the Sun (New York: Bantam Books, 1999), 169-370.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Earth Again Redeemed. May 26 to July 1, 1984 on this earth of ours and its alter ego. A Science Fiction Novel - Martin [Burgess] Green (1927-2010) (Basic Books, 1977)
Two alternative future dystopias set in 1984. One is post-nuclear catastrophe and the other is a world of seventeenth century colonial attitudes facing a religious war in Africa. Contact occurs between the two and both are changed.
Rpt. without the second subtitle. London: Sphere Books, 1979.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Empty World - [Sam] [Youd] (1922-2012) (Hamilton, 1977)
Young adult pandemic dystopia.
U.S. ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1978. 134 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Horsemen" - Brian [Wilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, 1977)
A simple, agricultural eutopia is destroyed by people from Earth. The people are closely in tune with their planet, vegetarian, live in marriage groups, and have rich inner lives. The arriving Earth ship releases the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death) from the psyches of the nine people from Earth on the ship onto the planet.
Rpt. as “New Arrivals, Old Encounters.” In his New Arrivals, Old Encounters. Twelve Stories (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979), 9-14.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Intensive Care Unit" - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Ambit, 1977)
Dystopia where all live isolated, meeting in person is illegal, with meetings of families particularly prohibited, and all communication is by television. The story focuses on a man who chooses to meet his wife and children in person, and they kill each other.
Rpt. in his Myths of the Near Future (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), 195-205; in his The Complete Short Stories. (London: Flamingo, 2001), 946-52; and in a separately paged section entitled “P.S. Ideas, interviews & features . . .” (1-18) at the end of the reprint of his High-Rise (London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 2-10.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Molly Zero" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (Triax: Three Original Novellas by James Gunn, Keith Roberts, Jack Vance, 1977)
Authoritarian dystopia in which all children are raised together in single sex groups. One girl revolts, escapes, and experiences life on the outside.
Expanded into his Molly Zero. London: Victor Gollancz, 1980.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Nightwatch - Andrew M[ichael] Stephenson (b. 1946) (Futura, 1977)
Mostly adventure and intrigue. Authoritarian dystopia set in 2006 with the Earth near collapse and aliens arriving.
U.S. ed. New York: Dell, 1977.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Passion of New Eve - Angela [Olive Stalker] Carter (1940-92) (Victor Gollancz, 1977)
Dystopia. The novel traces a man's travel across a disintegrating U.S., beginning with a violent New York City where African Americans blow up Columbia University and are building a wall around Harlem and women are attacking men. In the West he is captured by a women's group, who surgically turn him into a woman. Escaping he is captured and mistreated by various groups.
U.S. ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"Please Don't Shoot the Trees" - Patricia Highsmith (1921-95) (A Book of Contemporary Nightmares, 1977)
Horror tale based around a future of extreme pollution in which the cities have been abandoned to the poor. Nature fights back.
Keywords: English author; US author

The Realms of Tartarus - Brian [Michael] Stableford (1948-2024) (DAW Books, 1977)
A technological eutopia built above a polluted earth and the dystopia on the surface where humans, animals, and plants had evolved into a myriad of new species.
The first section had originally been published as The Face of Heaven. The Realms of Tartarus Volume One. London: Quartet, 1976 as the first of an intended three volumes.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Right Hand of Dextra - David J[ohn] Lake (1929-2016) (DAW Books, 1977)
Background of dystopian Puritan society but includes a eutopia of humans transformed into centaurs. A non-utopian sequel is The Wildings of Westron. New York: DAW Books, 1977.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Indian author; Male author

"The Shack at Great Cross Halt" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (New Writings in SF, 1977)
Dystopia focusing on an isolated group of people living next to a major highway but completely disconnected from the larger world. The focus characters had escaped from the dystopia, and the story ends with the beginning of a fight back against the dystopia.
Rpt. in his Ladies From Hell (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979), 54-85.
Keywords: English author; Male author

That Good Between Us - Howard Barker (b. 1946) (Gambit: International Theatre Review, 1977)
Authoritarian dystopia created in the U.K. by a Labour government.
Rpt. in That Good Between Us. Credentials of a Sympathizer (London: John Calder, 1980), 1-59.
Keywords: English author; Male author

They: A Sequence of Unease - Kay [Kathleen Elsie] Dick (1915-2001) (Allan Lane, 1977)
The unnamed narrator lives on the Sussex Coast in an undefined future and describes life as everyone is menaced by a mysterious “they” who are enforcing conformity and the erasure of cultural memory by destroying books and art and killing those who resist. Anyone living alone, “they” see as reflecting an individualism that must be eliminated. “They” approve of children’s cruelty.
Rpt. London: Faber, 2022, with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado. 107 pp. U.S. ed. New York: McNally Editions, 2022, with an Afterword by Lucy Scholes (103-112), parts of which originally appeared as “A Lost Dystopian Masterpiece” in The Paris Review (August 13, 2020). https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/08/13/a-lost-dystopian-masterpiece/ 112 pp.
Keywords: English author; Lesbian author; Swiss author

Ulster and Its Future After the Troubles - Michael [Steven] Sheane (b. 1946) (Highfield Press, 1977)
Non-fiction that ends with a chapter "Postscript Ulster: Its Future After the Troubles" (153-72) that projects the situation in 2000 after Britain has withdrawn from Northern Ireland and a federal Ireland is established. Quite modest in its ideas.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Northern Ireland author

Worlds for the Grabbing - Brenda Pearce (b. 1935) (Dennis Dobson, 1977)
As befits the title, the novel is about the corrupt system of colonization and the exploitation of other planets. The main character has too-high ethical standards for the system.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Alteration - Kingsley [William] Amis (1922-95) (Jonathan Cape, 1976)
Religious dystopia. Alternative history set in 1976 in which a Pope rules England from his seat in Yorkshire. No Reformation. No science.
Collector’s Edition illus. Debbie Hughes with an “Introduction” by Brian W. Aldiss (vii-xii). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1993. Rpt. New York: New York Review of Books, 2013 with an “Introduction” by William Gibson (vii-x).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Anarchy Pedlars - [Christopher John] [Portway] (1923-2009) (Robert Hale, 1976)
Dystopia created by the future revival of a cult of assassins.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Another Eden - W[ilfred] D[ennis] Pereira (1921-2014) (Robert Hale, 1976)
The novel begins in the overpopulation dystopia of Earth, and then moves to a planet being settled to offload population. The people have been told that it is Edenic, but it is in fact extremely dangerous, and then the aliens attack.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Broken October: New Zealand 1985 - Craig Harrison (b. 1942) (A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1976)
Authoritarian dystopia. The New Zealand government in 1985 is a military dictatorship, which violently puts down a revolt. New Zealand, in cooperation with the South African authorities, institutes a pass system for Maori. The U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the U.S. government are involved to ensure access to New Zealand's mineral wealth and the use of New Zealand troops as needed. See also his plays Tomorrow Will Be a Lovely Day (1975) and "Whites of Their Eyes" (1975), both of which came from this novel as it developed but before it was published.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Male author

The Concrete Horizon - Dan Morgan (1925-2011) (Millington Books, 1976)
Dystopia--future over-organized urban monads are failing. Pressure grows from agricultural complexes. Disaster.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Decibels." - John [Barry] Hale (b. 1926) (Prompt Three: Five short modern plays, 1976)
Overpopulation dystopia where noise is a constant. To have a child, someone must die with voluntary euthanasia encouraged, and there are regulations on how much space a person can occupy.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Don't Bite the Sun - Tanith Lee (1947-2015) (DAW Books, 1976)
A novel about being a teenager in a future world designed to be eutopian with robots doing the work in domed cities and where you can die and be brought back and change your body type and your sex at will. The teenagers see the eutopia as deeply flawed. See also 1977 Lee.
Rpt. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1987; and in her Biting the Sun (New York: Bantam Books, 1999), 1-167.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Florians - Brian M[ichael] Stableford (1948-2024) (DAW Books, 1976)
First of the six volume Daedalus Mission series in which the purpose of the Daedalus is to contact colony planets to find out what has happened and help if needed. The first planet contact, Floria, appears idyllic society, but the Planners have created an unequal society by limiting knowledge. The second volume is Critical Threshold. New York: DAW Books, 1977. 160 pp. In it, a colony that should have thrived has collapsed. The third volume is Wildeblood's Empire. New York: DAW Books, 1977. 192 pp. This colony, originally called Poseidon, has become an apparently thriving empire named after leader. Of course, the reality is different, and it is actually an authoritarian dystopia. The fourth volume, set on the planet Arcadia is The City of the Sun. New York: DAW Books, 1978. 189 pp. U.K. ed. London: Hamlyn 1980 had modelled its system on Tommaso Campanella’s (1568-1639) La Città del Sole (1611) but with changes that made it more dystopian than eutopian.  The fifth book is set on the planet Attica Balance of Power. New York DAW Books, 1979. 173 pp. and concerns a failing human colony, and its interactions with an alien colony also on the planet. The final volume, Paradox of the Sets. New York: DAW Books, 1979. 176 pp. is set on the Planet Geb where humans have enslaved what appears to be a semi-intelligent native population. All volumes are concerned with both the ecology of the planets and the forms of society established.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Hotel De Dream - Emma [Christina] Tennant (1937-2017) (Victor Gollancz, 1976)
A series of conflicting dreams by people living in a boarding house take on reality and merge. Some of the dreams are eutopian or dystopian; e.g., one is of an ideal city and one is of Amazonian women. Also, the characters in a novel being written by one of the tenants come to life.
Rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1986.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Scottish author

The Man With Two Memories - J[ohn] B[urdon] S[anderson] Haldane (1892-1964) (Merlin Press, 1976)
Detailed eutopia with a stress on psychoanalysis and drugs to control both the mind and body. Two-thirds of the children are clones who are chosen by the society for desirable characteristics with the other third being normal births.
Keywords: English author; Indian author; Male author

"Missa Privata" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (New Worlds, 1976)
Dystopia of a Communist dominated Britain. Poor, dull, drab, and with a dominant military. White party members are fairly free.
Rpt. in his Ladies From Hell (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979), 173-98.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Vision 1-6" - Clifford Harper (b. 1949) (Undercurrents. Radical Technology, 1976)
Anarchist utopia described in six illustrations with brief notes and some with captions. The visions are of a collectivised garden, a basement workshop, an autonomous village, an autonomous terrace, a community workshop, and a community media centre. Strikingly, the only people shown working are women, and Colin Ward comments on this saying, “Note that the last male chauvinist is sulking in the corner. The women have taken over the shop” (133/Why Work 153).
U.S. ed. (New York: Pantheon Books/Random House, 1976), 48-49, 94-85, 132-33, 168-69, 200-201, 228-29. Rpt. in a different order as foldout plates in Why Work? Arguments for the Leisure Society. Ed. Vernon Richards (London: Freedom Press, 1983), 149-54, with commentary by Colin Ward  rather than the original description.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Young Tom" - Dan Morgan (1925-2011) (New Writings in SF, 1976)
Overpopulation dystopia in which one can get a "life credit" permitting the birth of a child on the death of a relative.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Comet - [Jane Francis] [Brady] (1934-85) (Hamilton, 1975)
Dystopia. After a catastrophe, there has been a growth of violence and an authoritarian system. Population severely depleted. Books banned. Domestic animals have become wild.
U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Electronic Lullaby Meat Market - John [Barry] Spencer (1944-2002) (Quartet Books, 1975)
Humor. Authoritarian dystopia with brainwashing through musak.
Keywords: English author; Male author

End Product - Barry [Leslie] Norman (1933-2017) (Quartet Books, 1975)
A grim satire on race relations in which a black, African hominid becomes an edible herd animal.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Freeway: A Play in Two Acts - Peter Nichols (b. 1927) (Faber and Faber, 1975)
Dystopia which the author says should not be compared to the classic dystopias, involving a massive traffic jam where people have to live for an extended period in their cars and motor homes. Set in a violent future where roads other than the freeways are not safe.
Rev. in his Plays: One (London: Methuen Drama, 1991), 407-510, with an introduction by the author (409-11); and London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Grimus - [Ahmed] Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) (Victor Gollancz, 1975)
Something of a metaphysical adventure novel with science fiction elements. The main society described is labeled "utopian" (186) because it functions on a basis of rough equality and with no money.
Keywords: English author; Indian author; Male author

"Heavens Below: Fifteen Utopias" - John [Thomas] Sladek (1937-2000) (The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F, 1975)
Series of short utopias gone wrong. Some are jokes rather than serious comment.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

High-Rise - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Jonathan Cape, 1975)
Dystopia of violence within an apartment block.
Rpt. London: Harper Perennial, 2006 with an added, separately paged section at the end entitled "P.S. Ideas, interviews & features . . ." (1-18), which includes 1977 Ballard (2-10).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch - Michael G[reatrex] Coney (1932-2005) (DAW Books, 1975)
Dystopia. Society where personal slavery has replaced imprisonment for certain crimes.
U.K. ed. as The Girl With a Symphony in Her Fingers. Morley, Eng.: The Elmfield Press, 1975.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

King Creature Come - John Rowe Townsend (1922-2014) (Oxford University Press, 1975)
Borderline young adult novel in which society is divided into Persons, who rule and are indulged, and Creatures, who revolt with the assistance of two young people from the colony of Persons.
U.S. ed. as The Creatures. New York: J.B. Lippincott. 1980.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Ministry of Children" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (New Worlds, 1975)
Dystopia. The negative effects of the establishment of large, general schools in Britain. Violence, illiteracy. The setting is an overpopulated future but that is not a focus.
Rpt. in his Ladies From Hell (London: Victor Gollancz, 1979), 86-126. SFF,
Keywords: English author; Male author

Morrow's Ants - Edward [Solomon] Hyams (1910-75) (Allen Lane, 1975)
Dystopia. An industrialist applies his knowledge of ant colonies to human workers and develops a new community on the same principles. Set in Wales.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Multiface. Science Fiction - Mark [Peter Marcus} Adlard (b. 1932) (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1975)
Picture of a controlled society of the future that is presented as a eutopia, albeit with problems. See also 1971 and 1972 Adlard.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Pessimist Utopia - Theo Crosby (1925-94) (Pentagram Papers 2, 1975)
A plea for small is beautiful, individuality.
Keywords: English author; Male author; South African author

Return to the Gate - William Corlett (1938-2005) (Hamish Hamilton, 1975)
A fairly vague near future young adult dystopia describing a heavily regulated, bureaucratic, poor, society. Conflict among people of differing backgrounds and ideas.
1975 Corlett, William [Harold] (1938-2005). Return to the Gate. London: Hamish Hamilton. U.S. ed. Scarsdale, NY: Bradbury Press, 1977. NZ A fairly vague near future young adult dystopia describing a heavily regulated, bureaucratic, poor, society. Conflict among people of differing backgrounds and ideas.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Settling the World" - M[ichael] John Harrison (b. 1945) (The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F, 1975)
An odd utopia in which god has been found behind the moon and brought back to Earth, where what appears to be a eutopia of peace, plenty, and security develops. But god is an immense beetle, which no one notices, and beetles are replacing humans in positions of authority.
Rpt. in Best SF: 75. The Ninth Annual. Ed. Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976), 126-53; and in his The Ice Monkey and other stories (London: Victor Gollancz, 1983), 59-79.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Shockwave Rider - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Harper & Row, 1975)
A complex dystopia that has an embedded eutopia opposed to the dystopia. The focus of the dystopia is on a program to identify geniuses, particularly among orphans and other children who can be taken without being noticed. They are then educated and trained (brainwashed and conditioned) to develop their particular bent so as to be most useful to the system. One man uses his talent with computer systems to escape, although much of the novel follows him as his memories are searched after he is captured. The eutopia, called Precipice, is a small town with advanced, ecologically sensitive architecture, a radically decentralized political system, and an egalitarian population. The man, who again escapes, uses his talents to save Precipice from attack by the government.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Tomorrow Will Be a Lovely Day - Craig Harrison (b. 1942) (A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1975)
Dystopia. The military takes over New Zealand after a revolt by young Māori against both pākehā and their elders who have accommodated to a system based on prejudice and discrimination. The politicians dither and conspire against each other, and the U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) offers “its usual support” to the military dictator, who will shortly be replaced in a coup by younger officers. See also his 1975 “The Whites of Their Eyes” and his Broken October: New Zealand 1985 (1976).
Rpt. Auckland, New Zealand: Longman Paul, 1981.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Male author

"What You Get For Your Dollar" - Brian W[ilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F, 1975)
Future development of the Middle East based on the United Nations establishing M.E.R.O. or the Middle East Reclamation Organization designed to reclaim the Sinai and Negev deserts. Cooperation of Arabs and Israelis, who establish the independent State of Sinai and live together without amicably. Development of science and art.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Whites of Their Eyes" - Craig Harrison (b. 1942) (Act, 1975)
Dystopia. Future violent conflict between Māori  and Pākehā. See also his Tomorrow Will Be a Lovely Day (1975) and Broken October: New Zealand 1985 (1985).
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; English author; Male author

Wooden Centauri: A Science Fiction Novel - Paul [Raymond] Drennan (1949-2003) (Elmfield, 1975)
A far future authoritarian dystopia in which many planets are under one government with a law that prohibits any knowledge of the past. Two people from the past arrive and change begins to take place.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"You Get Lots of Yesterdays, Lots of Tomorrows, and Only One Today" - Laurence [William] James (1942-2000) (New Writings in SF, 1975)
Dystopia where all everyone sleeps except for one supposedly perfect day.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Albion! Albion! - [Reginald Charles] [Hill] (1936-2012) (Faber & Faber, 1974)
Dystopia of violence. England without a Parliament and with football/soccer hooligans in control. The country has been broken up into four districts representing four football/soccer clubs.
Rpt. London: Faber & Faber, 1986. Rpt. under the author's name as Singleton's Law. Sutton, Surrey, Eng.: Severn House, 1997.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Bitter Pill - A[rthur] Bertram Chandler (1912-84) (Wren, 1974)
Dystopia of generational conflict in which individuals are classified as a "Senior Citizen" at 45 and given the "choice" of voluntary euthanasia or working in an Australian forced labour camp or a Martian penal colony. Mars is being developed to take Earth's excess population. A revolt on Mars frees the people to build a new life there with no compulsory retirement, but the ending suggests that Mars faces an uncertain future of conflicts over power.
Developed from his "The Bitter Pill." Vision of Tomorrow (Sydney, NSW, Australia) 1.9 (June 1970): 52-63.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

The Centauri Device - M[ichael] John Harrison (b. 1945) (Doubleday, 1974)
Dystopia. The world is divided between the Israeli World Government and the Union of Arab Socialist Republics, with the Earth destroyed at the end. A contrasting anarchist planet is presented in eutopian terms.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Churchill Play, As it will be performed in the winter of 1984 by the internees of Churchill Camp somewhere in England - Howard [John] Brenton (b. 1942) (Eyre & Methuen, 1974)
England as an authoritarian dystopia in 1984 with a concentration camp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Class War Comik Number 1 New Times - Clifford Harper (b. 1949) (Epic Publications, 1974)
Intended to be the first of six issues, but no more were published. In this issue, the people in a rural anarchist intentional community are completely disengaged from politics and only interested in themselves as individuals so that little work gets done, and the work that gets done is not necessarily what is needed.
New ed. as Class War Comix No. 1.  Princeton, WI: Kitchen Sink Enterprises, 1979.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe - D[avid] G[uy] Compton (1930-2023) (Victor Gollancz, 1974)
Media dystopia in which a reporter has his eyes replaced with TV cameras which transmits everything he sees. His first assignment is to film Katherine Mortenhoe’s death in a world where disease no longer exists, and the title of the TV series is “The Unsleeping Eye”. A film entitled Death Watch directed by Bernard Tavernier (b. 1941) was produced in 1980.
Rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1980 with an "Introduction" by Susan Wood (v-xix); as Death Watch. London: Magnum Books, 1981. U.S. ed. as The Unsleeping Eye. New York: DAW Books, 1974. Rpt. New York: Pocket Books, 1980; and under the original title New York: New York Review Books, 2016 with an “Introduction” by Jeff Vandermeer (vii-xii). .
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Fall of Colossus - D[ennis] F[eltham] Jones (1918?-81) (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974)
Dystopia. Sequel to 1966 Jones. See also 1977 Jones. In this volume the computer Colossus has ended war but uses its power to control all human activity. A successful conspiracy disables Colossus with help from Mars.
New York G.P. Putnam's Sons_
Keywords: English author; Male author

Inverted World. A Novel - Christopher [McKenzie] Priest (1943-2024) (Faber and Faber, 1974)
Primarily a science-oriented science fiction novel, but the social setting is an authoritarian, controlling dystopia.
U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Rpt. without the subtitle New York: New York Review Books, 2008 with an “Afterword” by John Clute (315-22).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Last of the Country House Murders - Emma [Christina] Tennant (1937-2017) (Jonathan Cape, 1974)
Authoritarian overpopulation dystopia.
Rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1986.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Scottish author

The Memoirs of a Survivor - Doris [May] Lessing (1919-2013) (The Octagon Press, 1974)
Dystopia of a collapsed civilization.
U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1976.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Noah’s Castle - John Rowe Townsend (1922-2014) (Oxford University Press, 1974)
Young adult dystopia set in a world with a collapsing economy with extreme inflation, based on Post-World War I Germany. The novel focus on a man who hoards non-perishable goods to protect his family while causing problems for others.
U.S. ed. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott, 1975.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Pale Invaders - [Geoffrey Robins] [Crosher] (1911-90) (Chatto and Windus, 1974)
A young adult post-catastrophe novel presenting a simple, agricultural society in eutopian terms. When girls are of an age to have children, they enter the "Parent's House" together with the boy of their choice, as long as he agrees. The Pale Invaders are outsiders who are searching for coal to use in re-starting the technology that brought about the catastrophe. The novel ends with the notion that this time it can be done better.
U.S. ed. New York: Atheneum, 1976.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Paradise Game - Brian [Michael] Stableford (1948-2024) (DAW Books, 1974)
The planet Pharos is a paradise with no conflict, and the novel focuses on the conflict between those who want to package it for profit or conserve it.
U.K. ed. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1976. 158 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest" - Angela [Olive Stalker] Carter (1940-92) (Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces, 1974)
Simple, Edenic eutopia as setting for the sexual coming-of-age of twins.
Rpt. in her The Collected Angela Carter: Burning Your Boats. Stories (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995), 58-67.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"The Ramparts" - Hilary [Denham] Bailey (1936-2017) (Universe, 1974)
A pastoral eutopia that is vegetarian, democratic, and completely peaceful has always sent its eccentrics and antisocial people into the surrounding forests and forgotten them. The forest people return and kill the inhabitants one of the towns.
Rpt. (New York: Popular Library, 1976), 165-91.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Rats - James [John] Herbert (1943-2013) (New English Library, 1974)
Dystopia in which rats destroy civilization but ultimately appear to be defeated. His Lair. London: New English Library, 1979. U.S. ed. New York: New American Library, 1979 (PSt) is a sequel where the rats return. His Domain. New York: Signet, 1985 is a post-nuclear war story where the survivors have to fight rats that thrive on radiation (CU-Riv).
U.S. ed. New York: New American Library, 1975. A graphic novel version is The City: The Rats Saga Continues.... London: Pan Books, 1994. Ellipses in the original. Illus. by Ian Miller. Lettered by Judy Balchin.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Web of Everywhere - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Bantam Books, 1974)
Future dystopia based on instant transportation to anyplace. The novel focuses on a man who visits places he is not supposed to visit.
U.K. ed. London: New English Library, 1977.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Wild Jack - [Sam] [Youd] (1922-2012) (Hamilton, 1974)
Young adult novel set in 23rd century England in which an authoritarian dystopia is contrasted with an outlaw culture.
U.S. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1974.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Winter's Children - Michael G[reatrex] Coney (1932-2005) (Gollancz, 1974)
Dystopia set in a new ice age in a small community threatened by cannibals and telepathic Pads controlled by a single man.
Rpt. London: Sphere Books, [1976]. Parts originally published as “Discover a Latent Moses.” Illus. Jack Gaughan (1930-1985) Galaxy Science Fiction 30.1 (April 1970): 32-53, 158; and “The Snow Princess.” Illus. Uncredited. Galaxy Science Fiction 31.2 (January 1971): 28-54.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Aftermath 15 - W[ilfred] D[ennis] Pereira (1921-2014) (Robert Hale, 1973)
Authoritarian dystopia after a nuclear war with the U.S. divided into red, blue, and white zones based on exposure to radiation. Those released from the red to the blue become slaves as do those released from the blue to the white. The white zone includes a huge city, over a mile high which is an overpopulation dystopia except for those at the top. Outside the city is a gold zone for the elite of the elite. Described as the first volume of a trilogy and ends in a manner that requires a continuation, but no evidence can be found of later volumes.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Anti-Zota - Eric [Alexander] Burgess (1912-95); Arthur [Henry] Friggens (b. 1920) (Robert Hale, 1973)
Eutopia for some, dystopia for others. Long-lifers versus short-lifers.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Cloud Walker - Edmund Cooper (1926-82) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1973)
Post-catastrophe society that has abolished machinery and has achieved a good life. Story of a boy who dreams of flying and invents an air ship that brings the eutopian world closer together.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Crash - J[ames] G[raham] Ballard (1930-2009) (Jonathan Cape, 1973)
Dystopia--sex and technology.
Rpt. London: Triad/Panther, 1985. This ed. includes Ballard's "Introduction to the French Edition of Crash (1974)" (5-9). U.S. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Friends Come in Boxes - Michael G[reatrex] Coney (1932-2005) (DAW Books, 1973)
Authoritarian dystopia with control of access to immortality. The dystopia that is produced by an usual means of achieving immortality that requires the brains of the immortals to be kept in boxes until the body of a baby is available to receive it. But, with immortality available, few babies are born.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

"The Great Wall of Mexico" - John T[homas] Sladek (1937-2000) (Bad Moon Rising, 1973)
Future satirical U.S. dystopia in which there is an incompetent president, the government spies on everyone, the elderly are warehoused, and a wall is built to keep out illegal immigrants. 1971 Waskow is probably the basis for this.
U.K. ed. without the T. in his name (London: Hutchinson of London, 1974), 125-58. Rpt. without the T. in his name in his Keep the Giraffe Burning (London: Panther, 1977), 168-99; and again without the T. in his name in SciFiction www.scifi.com/scifiction/ Posted December 22, 2005. No longer available online.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Green Gene - Peter [Malcolm de Brissac] Dickinson (1927-2015) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1973)
Humorous dystopia in which Apartheid has been designed to exclude all Celts, who are literally green. The humor is directed both at the English and at the Celts and the Irish in particular.
U.S. ed. New York: Pantheon, 1973. Rpt. New York: DAW Books, 1975.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Heart Clock - [Reginald Charles] [Hill] (1936-2012) (Faber and Faber, 1973)
Dystopia in which life expectancy is controlled by the government depending on what the economy can bear.
Rpt. under the author's name as Matlock's System. Sutton, Surrey, Eng.: Severn House, 1996.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Square Root of MC" - Laurence [William] James (1942-2000) (New Writings in SF, 1973)
Includes, briefly, a eutopia of peace and plenty on Earth brought about by aliens.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Stone That Never Came Down - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Doubleday, 1973)
Religious dystopia with very strict rules regarding behavior that is also racist. The novel focuses on the spread of a drug that radically improves sense impressions and raises awareness that undermines the dystopia and sets the stage for a better society.
Keywords: English author; Male author