"The Factory" - Naomi [Margaret] Mitchison (1897-1999) (Nova Three, 1972)
The story is set in a present-day, completely realistic dystopia in which a factory’s emissions kills all the animals near it.
Keywords: Female author; Scottish author

Falk - Keith Hanks (b. 1940) (Cassell, 1972)
Catastrophe followed by the Second Coming in the person of a flawed man who tries to establish a better society and fails. An authoritarian dystopia follows.
Keywords: UK author

The Flesheaters - David [Neil] Ireland (b. 1927) (Angus and Robertson, 1972)
Dystopia set in the near future stressing the insanity of the contemporary world. The novel focuses on a large house inhabited by a surreal group of people. At the end the house, a refuge for many, is replaced by a widened road.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

Fugue for a Darkening Island - Christopher [McKenzie] Priest (1943-2024) (Faber & Faber, 1972)
Dystopia of racial war.
U.S. ed. entitled Darkening Island. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Funeral" - Kate [Katie Gertrude Meredith] Wilhelm (1928-2018) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Post catastrophe dystopia with society divided into castes. The center of power is the schools and teachers hold great authority, and children are under the complete control of the teachers. The old resent the young and had most of them killed three times in the past.
Rpt. in her The Infinity Box: A collection of speculative fiction (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 288-318; in More Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Novelettes By Women About Women. Ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Vintage, 1976), 175-213; in In the Field of Fire. Ed. Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann (New York: Tor, 1987), 157-68 with an editors’ note on 158; in Women of Wonder: The Classic Years. Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 263-87; in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 47-67; 2nd ed. ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 47-67; and in The Future is Female! More Classic Science Fiction by Women Volume 2: The 1970s. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: Library of America, 2023), 23-58, with a biographical note on 474-476 and a note on the text on 479-481.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Gantlet" - Richard E[arl] Peck (b. 1936) (Orbit: An Anthology of New Science Fiction Stories, 1972)
Overpopulation and pollution dystopia.
Rpt. in The City 2000 A.D.: Urban Life Through Science Fiction. Ed. Ralph Clem, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1976), 254-65.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Generation Gaps" - Clancy O'Brien (Analog Science Fiction--Science Fact, 1972)
Dystopia of generational conflict.

Genius Unlimited - John T[homas] Phillifent (1916-76) (DAW Books, 1972)
Eutopia of geniuses where everyone who works independently has problems, and the people have to learn both to work together and be practical.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Gift of Nothing" - Joan C[arol Hunter] Holly (1932-82) (and walk now gently through the fire and other science fiction stories, 1972)
Eutopia. A planet is being opened up to colonization, which will destroy the existing society, which is presented as a eutopia paralleling those of traditional Native American Indians.
[Science Fiction Book Club ed.] (Philadelphia, PA: Chilton Books Co., 1972), 57-95.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Goat Song" - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1972)
Dystopia of a computer-run stable society balanced by a wild country in which violence is permissible. A constant population is maintained.
Rpt. in The Collected Short Stories of Poul Anderson. Volume 4 Admiralty. Ed. Rick Katze (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2011), 281-306.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Heirs of Babylon - Glen [Charles] Cook (b. 1944) (New American Library, 1972)
Authoritarian dystopia in a future of constant, devastating war.
Keywords: US author

“The Hippie-Dip File” - Robert Thurston (b. 1936) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1972)
Dystopia in which drugs provided by the government are used to “rehabilitate” those on the left.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"I Tell You, It's True" - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Nova, 1972)
Dystopia brought about by electronic brainwashing.
Rpt. in his Conflict (New York: Tor, 1983), 128-50; and in Earth In Transit: Science Fiction and Contemporary Problems. Ed. Sheila Schwartz (New York: Dell, 1976), 171-90.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Il Pianeta come festival--The Planet as a Festival" - Ettore Sottsass Jr. (1917-2007) (Casabella, 1972)
Short, illustrated sketch of a world with no production problems. The cities have disappeared, and everyone is an artisan-artist.
Keywords: Italian author

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman - Angela [Olive Stalker] Carter (1940-92) (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1972)
Surrealistic dystopia in which a man destabilizes reality, thus producing many fantastic events. Much violence including violent sex. The novel describes one man's successful attempt to find the source of the problem and defeat it. In the course of his search, he comes across a number of small societies, all of them ultimately dystopian.
U.S. ed. as The War of Dreams. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Iron Dream - Norman [Richard] Spinrad (b. 1940) (Avon, 1972)
From an alternative history in which Hitler becomes an SF writer. This presents Hitler's novel Lord of the Swastika (1953) (Won Hugo 1954) and a scholarly afterword. The novel presents a far future earth where Nazi's struggle for power.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Knowledge Park - Stephen Franklin (b. 1922) (McClelland and Stewart, 1972)
Eutopia in which Canada establishes a major international data center on a huge tract of land on the Ontario Québec border. As a result, Canada becomes the center of the knowledge industry, and this transforms Canada and ultimately the world.
Keywords: Canadian author

Lear - Edward Bond (1934-2024) (Eyre Methuen, 1972)
A reimagining of Shakespeare’s Lear as a vicious, paranoid autocrat who tries to keep out imaginary enemies by building a wall. Sometimes called the most violent play ever staged.
Rpt. in his Plays: Two (London: Methuen Drama, 1989), 1-102. U.S. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Les Blancs. A Drama in Two Acts. Final Text Adapted by Robert Nemiroff - Lorraine [Vivian] Hansberry (1930-65) (Samuel French, 1972)
The play explores the dystopia of colonialism in Africa. The title refers to Jean Genet’s Les Nègres (1958).
Also published in Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays of Lorraine Hansberry. Ed. Robert Nemiroff. New York: Random House, 1972. “Les Blancs is 47-172, with “A Critical Background” (35-46) and “Postscript” by Neimroff (173-86) that discusses reviews of the play. Includes materials not part of the Broadway production. The play is also analyzed by Julius Lester in his “Introduction” (3-32).
Keywords: African American author; Female author

The Light That Never Was - Lloyd Biggle Jr. (1923-2002) (Doubleday, 1972)
Some dystopia and some satire. The novel is set on a planet that is devoted to art and once produced many great artists but is now flooded with mediocre artists selling to hordes of tourists. The plot centers on pogroms against non-human aliens.
Rpt. New York: DAW Books, 1973.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Machines of Loving Grace" - Gardner R[aymond] Dozois (1947-2018) (Orbit, 1972)
Overpopulation and machine dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Man Who Waved Hello” - Gardner R[aymond] Dozois (1947-2018) (Universe 2: An Original Collection of All-New Science Fiction, 1972)
Dystopia set in a future where the government provides everything one needs based on one’s status seen through the eyes of a man in the middle ranks who will never rise further.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Mistress of Downing Street - Walter Harris (b. 1925) (Michael Joseph, 1972)
Dystopia in which a woman, who is 25 and voluptuous, becomes Prime Minister after her husband is murdered. She tries to revitalize an authoritarian corporate world that is controlled by an individual capitalist through his control of all the world's robots, which have replaced all workers..
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Moth Race" - Richard Hill (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Overpopulation dystopia where people are given pills to keep them under control and food comes in pills. People could live long lives and were fed, clothed, housed, and ensured of regular sex but only a few were permitted to have children. In the annual race people self-selected to race in cars over a course on which gates would spring up and, if they hit one, they died in the wreck. Only one man had ever survived, and his reward was the best of everything.
Keywords: Male author

Motorman - David Ohle (b. 1941) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1972)
Influential post-apocalyptic novel with violence, odd illnesses, and the struggle to survive in such conditions.
Rpt. Brooklyn, NY: 3rd Bed Press, 2004.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael [Scott] Reed (b. 1938) (Doubleday, 1972)
Dystopia. One thread of a thematically and typographically complex novel is a conspiracy of whites to destroy African American culture.
Keywords: African American author; Male author

"Nobody's Home" - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) (New Dimensions II, 1972)
Eutopia. The focus of the story is an extended family of eighteen adults living in a future world with a fairly low population. The main technological change is a matter transmitter that allows nearly instantaneous travel to any place on Earth, which means that only some are living together at any one time. The family described values high intelligence, and it is implied that this is the norm. Each person must contribute "tax labor" to the Earth community.
Rpt. in Women of Wonder. Ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Vintage, 1974), 231-56; illus. Dennis Neal Smith in her The Zanzibar Cat ([Sauk City, WI]: Arkham House, 1983), 52-69; and in Women of Wonder: The Classic Years. Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 249-62.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Nowhere On Earth - Michael [Aiken] Elder (1931-2004) (Robert Hale, 1972)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

"The Old Folks" - James E[dwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (Nova 2, 1972)
Dystopia in which senior citizens live in retirement communities and treat their children and grandchildren as enemies. The story is told through the eyes of a couple visiting her parents at Sunset Acres in Arizona, which is built as a eutopian version of a Kansas small town, complete with ice cream parlor. They learn that the inhabitants are united in paying their children back for all the trouble they caused them as children and ensuring that there is no money left to inherit.
U.K. ed. (London: Sphere, 1975), 133-51. Rpt. in Best SF: 1972, Ed. Harry Harrison and Brian W[ilson] Aldiss (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973), 29-47.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Original Community of James D. Fox?" - Malcolm Fraser (Mate, 1972)
Fiction about the establishment of a religious commune in early New Zealand.
Rpt. in The First New Zealand Whole Earth Catalogue (Wellington, New Zealand: Alister Taylor, 1972), 189-90.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author

Our Paradise Inside the Earth - Theodore Fitch (Theodore Fitch, 1972)
Pamphlet that argues that the Christian paradise is found inside the Earth. Based in part on the Apocrypha. Enoch (Chapters 17-65) is interpreted as describing the interior of the earth. The New Jerusalem will be inside the Earth. Largely quotations.
Rpt. as A Mansion is Built for You In Paradise: Our Lord's Over all Plan For Us His Work In the Next Age. Pomeroy, WA: Health Research, [1986].
Keywords: Male author

"The Perplexities of John Forstice" - Bertrand [Arthur William] Russell (1872-1970) (The Collected Stories of Bertrand Russell, 1972)
Discussion of the nature of the good life modeled on 1877 Mallock. In his The Prospects of Industrial Civilization. New York/London: Century, 1923, written in collaboration with his then wife Dora Russell (1894-1986), he lays out a few of the basic principles that he contends are necessary for a good life. Fundamental to his vision is “The greatest possible amount of free development of individuals” (279), which requires “a compromise between justice and freedom” (279). And he goes on to say that “In a just world, no one will inherit money, no one will own more land than he can cultivate himself, no one will be supported in idleness if he is physically fit to work” and “no one will be allowed to starve” (280). Standing in the way  are “Greed, the lust for power, and the tyranny of custom” (287).
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

"Pigeon City" - Jesse Miller (Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, 1972)
Dystopia of a welfare state of the future in which everything is provided, and the people have become lethargic. A few people with energy and drive try to disrupt the system.
Keywords: Male author

"Project 40" - Frank [Patrick] Herbert (1920-86) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1972)
Dystopia where humans are bred to be hive creatures. They have been in existence for some 300 years and currently comprise 54,000 members living in an extensive underground hive in Oregon. The hive is developing a new weapon that could destroy the Earth and uses it to blackmail the U.S. government to leave it alone. The hive's plan is to continue to grow until it completely overwhelms the rest of the world.
Repub. as Hellstrom's Hive. New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1973. Rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1974; and New York: Tor, 2007. U.K. ed. London: New English Library, 1974.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Prosperity Plan; The only way to maintain widespread, well-founded prosperity and free enterprise in any society without war without debt without hardship without inflation without high taxes without big government and without communism - A[lbert] A[rcher] Van Petten (1925-2005) (Utopian Publishers, 1972)
Plan for good society. "1. Eliminate all taxes on transactions. 2. Pay $2 per day to every citizen. 3. Derive all revenues from an Inefficiency tax. 4. Exempt $20,000 per person. 5. Assess at the highest current offer" (viii). See also 1959 and 1989 Van Petten.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Resurrection of Roger Diment - Douglas R[ankine] Mason (1918-2013) (Ballantine Books, 1972)
Dystopia in which from birth to death no one grew old or ugly and everyone lived a life of pleasure but did not die natural deaths.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

Revelations: A Paranoid Novel of Suspense - Barry N[athaniel] Malzberg (b. 1939) (Warner, 1972)
Technological dystopia with the emphasis on a TV talk show that uncovers the secrets of people and governments.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Rule Britannia - Daphne Du Maurier (1907-89) (Victor Gollancz, 1972)
Dystopia of the U.S. "protecting" Britain. Britain and the U.S. merge, and the U.S. becomes all Disneyland.
U.S. ed. New York: Doubleday, 1972. Rpt. New York: Avon, 1974.
Keywords: English author

"Seventy Years of Decpop" - Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1972)
Effects of a radical drop in population which causes serious problems at first but results in a better life for most people.
Rpt. in his Pearls from Peoria. Ed. Paul Spiteri (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2006), 169-211
Keywords: Male author; US author

Shareworld - Morris Hershman (b. 1920) (Walker & Co, 1972)
Dystopia of free enterprise. Extrapolation of the economic ideas of Louis O. Kelso (1913-91), who developed the Employee Stock Ownership Plan. On Kelso, see the Kelso Institute at www.kelso.institute.org.
Rpt. as The Crash of 2086. Canoga Park, CA: Major Books, 1976.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Sheep Look Up - John [Kilian Houston] Brunner (1934-95) (Harper & Row, 1972)
A pollution dystopia that presents a world of the near future in which it is necessary to always wear a filter mask whenever one is outside, most food has been contaminated by chemicals used in fertilizers, etc., the water is unsafe for drinking without boiling, etc. Added to this is the leaking of poison gas buried in mountains in Colorado into the water supply and into the food factory and the effects on those who eat the food. Widespread disease, unemployment, and starvation. The corrupt U.S. government is attempting to control the world economy for the benefit of U.S. corporations, and those trying to change the government are under attack. No man between sixteen and sixty can get a visa to leave the country unless they have served in the military or have a medical exemption. The main opposition group lives in an intentional community in Colorado. At the end of the year covered by the book, revolts are occurring throughout the U.S. and many cities are on fire.
Rpt. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2003, with a brief "Introduction" by David Brin (xiii-xiv) and an "Afterword" by James John Bell (369-88) on the books environmental message; and Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2009. 300 copy ed. illus. Dan J. O’Driscoll and with an “Introduction” by Kim Stanley Robinson (7-11), “John Brunner A Short Autobiography” (409-35) by Brunner, “John Brunner Interviewed by Ian Covell” (437-55), and “Noise Level” (457-59) by Brunner reprinted from Science Fiction Review, no. 29 (January-February 1979): 15-16.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Soft Kill - Colin [Lewis] Free (1925-96) (Heinemann, 1972)
Background of an authoritarian, overpopulated dystopia using surgery and drugs to control its people.
U.S. ed. New York: Berkley, 1973.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

"Solitaire" - Robert [Woodruff] Anderson (1917-2009) (Solitaire & Double Solitaire, 1972)
Dystopia set in a highly mechanized future where most people's interactions are with machines rather than other people.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Some State of Affairs - Eugene Vale (W. H. Allen, 1972)
A group of capitalists buy an island and hire an idealistic college professor to write a constitution. They want a sovereign state free from taxes, hippies, and so forth. Conflict develops between the capitalists' desires and the ideals of the professor. The professor wins and plans to develop a system of world law.
Keywords: Male author

"Soundless Evening" - [Shirley Bell] Hoffman (1932-2007) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Overpopulation dystopia in which each person could have one child and any children beyond that were killed at age five.
Rpt. in Earth In Transit: Science Fiction and Contemporary Problems. Ed. Sheila Schwartz (New York: Dell, 1976), 152-55.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Stoned Counsel" - [Ben Neal] [Ramsey] (1921-77) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Satire on the drug culture and the legal profession in which a variety of drugs are used in court by attorneys.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Students of the Light; An Educational Odyssey - John [Harvey] Mann (Grossman, 1972)
Educational eutopia describing a school that is very much of the "Sixties". The school is presented through three diaries by students describing their experiences, which are basically good, but that also reflect the problems of the period. Education as an encounter group.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Tangled Web" - H[enry] A. Hargreaves (b. 1928) (New Writings in SF, 1972)
Dystopia. The story is set in a small, isolated, mining community in the Arctic of a combined Canada and the U.S. and is concerned with the future of religion. All Christian religions have combined into the Christian United Spiritual Society, are computer linked for confession and other sacraments, and have government support.
Rpt. in his North by 2000: A Collection of Canadian Science Fiction (Toronto, ON, Canada: Peter Martin Associates, 1975), 19-41.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"They Cope" - Dave [David John] Skal (1952-2024) (Orbit, 1972)
Dystopia of sensory overload.
Keywords: Male author; US author

This Star Shall Abide - Sylvia [Louise] Engdahl (b. 1933) (Atheneum, 1972)
Young adult highly structured, religious, authoritarian dystopia which turns out to be better than it initially seems. The society is led by Scholars, who keep knowledge to themselves, in the middle are the Technicians, who keep the machines running that make the planet inhabitable, and at the bottom are the villagers, who work the land. See also 1973 and 1981 Engdahl.
U.K. ed. as Heritage of the Star. London: Victor Gollancz, 1973. Rev. in Children of the Star (Atlanta, GA: Meisha Merlin, 2000), 15-215 together with 1973 and 1981 Engdahl, with an “Afterword” to the Collection (719-21) and “Sylvia Engdahl Biography” ([723-24]).
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Thrumthing and Out” - Zenna [Charlson] Henderson (1917-83) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1972)
The story is set in a society that has cut itself off from the outside world, the Out, which is considered to be a deadly threat. The society inside the walls is slowly decaying as are the walls and most knowledge has been lost.
Rpt. in Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson. Ed. Patricia Morgan Lang (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 419-46.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"To the Chicago Abyss" - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (The Wonderful Ice Cream and Other Plays, 1972)
Post-catastrophe dystopia where the minor artifacts of the past are remembered by an old man, who is arrested for reminding people of the little things, Bradbury calls them "mediocrities", they used to have.
Can ed. (Toronto, ON, Canada: Bantam Pathfinder Editions, 1972), 127-61.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Total Influence or Outcome of the Matter: THE SUN." Part 11 of "Laying down the tower" - Marge Piercy (b. 1936) (off our backs, 1972)
Fairly vague eutopian poem regarding children and their need for freedom. See also 1970, 1976, 1980, and 1991 Piercy.
Rpt. as "Outcome of the Matter: The Sun." In her Circles on the Water: Selected Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 137-38.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Triage - Leonard C[ase] Lewin (1916-99) (Dial Press, 1972)
Dystopia. Presents a picture of a near future where the "unfit," and many others, are being eliminated by a planned campaign of murder, accident, and genocide.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Unseen Hand" - [Samuel Shepard] [Rogers] III (b. 1943) (The Unseen Hand and Other Plays, 1972)
A baboon/man from a future authoritarian dystopia in which brain implants control people travels into the past to find three brothers (two dead) to help overthrow the dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Volteface. Science Fiction - Mark [Peter Marcus} Adlard (b. 1932) (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972)
Sequel to 1971 Adlard describing an authoritarian overpopulation dystopia in which the population is manipulated by a small group of executives. In this novel the executives decide to reintroduce work and intentionally appoint incompetent people to management positions because this will reproduce twentieth century business. See also 1975 Adlard.
Keywords: English author; Male author

We Can Build You - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (DAW Books, 1972)
Attempt to build a eutopia on the moon. Android neighbors provided to make it easier to adjust.
Early version as "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum." Amazing Stories 43.4 - 5 (November 1969 - January 1970): 6-67, 140; 30-105.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Weihnachtabend" - Keith [John Kingston] Roberts (1935-2000) (New Worlds, 1972)
Alternative history dystopia with Nazi Germany in control of Britain.
Rpt. in Best SF: 1972, Ed. Harry Harrison and Brian W[ilson] Aldiss (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973), 55-94
Keywords: English author; Male author

"When It Changed" - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Eutopia without men, who had all died in a plague, and the clash that occurs when men from Earth arrive. The eutopia is called Whileaway, the name of the eutopia in 1975 Russ. The story is told from the point-of-view of one of two happily married women with three children.
Rpt. in her The Zanzibar Cat ([Sauk City, WI]: Arkham House, 1983), 3-11; in The New Women of Wonder: Recent Science Fiction Stories By Women About Women. Ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Vintage, 1977), 227-39; in Kindred Spirits: An Anthology of Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot (Boston, MA: Alyson Publications, 1984), 45-53; in The Best of the Nebulas (New York: Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, 1989), 204-10, with an “Author’s Foreword” on 203; in Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. Ed. Judith A. Little (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), 333-40; in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 507-15 with an editors’ note on 507-08; in Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology. Ed. Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2015), 194-202; in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 603-07 with an editors’ note on 602; in The Future is Female! More Classic Science Fiction by Women Volume 2: The 1970s. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: The Library of America, 2023), 59-69, with a biographical note on 492-493, and notes on the text on 481-483; and in Russ, Novels and Stories. Ed. Nicole Rudick (New York: The Library of America, 2023), 621-629, with a Chronology on 681-694 that includes chronologically references to Russ’s publications, notes on the text on 697, and notes on 708-710.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Who Needs Men? - Edmund Cooper (1926-82) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1972)
Dystopia of a future where men are no longer biologically required because of cloning and parthenogenesis. The few remaining men are being exterminated. Love and desire enters and complicates the situation.
U.S. ed. as Gender Genocide. New York: Ace Books, 1973.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“A Windmill in the West” - Peter Carey (b. 1943) (Meanjin, 1972)
The setting for the story is an Australia that is divided between Australia and the United States and focuses on a soldier who is stationed alone at the border with the single instruction of not letting anyone cross it.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

"With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama" - Richard A[llen] Lupoff (1935-2020) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Dystopia with Earth's past racial conflict now taking place in space.
Rev. in his Space War Blues. New York: Dell, 1978. Rpt. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1980 with an "Introduction" by James R. Frenkel (v-xi). The volume also includes an "Introduction: Sailing the Dark With the Bentfin Bappa Zappa Kid" by Ellison (9-26), a "Preface: And I Awoke--Was This Some Kind of Joke" by Lupoff (27-33) and revised versions of his related stories "Our Own little Mardi Grass." Heavy Metal (August 1977): 58-61, 96; "After the Dreamtime." New Dimensions IV. Ed. Robert Silverberg (New York: New American Library, 1974), 9-39; "Sail the Tide of Mourning." New Dimensions 5. Ed. Robert Silverberg (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 214-34; and "The Bentfin Boomer Girl Comes Through." Amazing Stories 50.4 (March 1977): 28-46.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Word for World is Forest" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories, 1972)
Human colonial dystopia versus indigenous eutopia. Exploitative colonization that treats the indigenous inhabitants as if they were animals, enslaving them, raping them, and destroying their way of life to ship timber back to Earth, which had been denuded of it. The indigenous inhabitants have a very complex, non-technological life deeply in tune with their planet. No government or overall authority with significant cultural difference among the communities. The women in each community, and the especially the headwoman, and the practical organizers of their communities’ activities. Some of the men were active dreamers in touch with a different reality.
. Published separately New York: Berkley, 1976. Rpt. London: Gollancz, 1977, with an “Author’s Introduction" (5-10); London: Gollancz, 2014, with an “Introduction” by Ken MacLeod (1-3) and the “Author’s Introduction” (5-10); and in Hainish Novels & Stories Volume Two. The World for Word Is Forest Stories Five Ways to Forgiveness The Telling. Ed. Brian Attebery (New York: Library of America, 2017), 1-104 with a “Note on the Text” (780), “Notes (783-84), and “Introduction to The Word for World Is Forest” from the 1977 Gollancz edition (753-57).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"X: A Fabulous Child's Story" - Lois Gould (1932-2002) (Ms, 1972)
Gender-role non-differentiation in the future presented humorously but positively. An experiment is developed to raise a child so that its gender is unknown, and the story details some of the difficulties that arise. See 1972 Gould.
Keywords: US author

The Year Dot - [John Newton] [Chance] (1911-83) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1972)
Machine, authoritarian dystopia. Civilization is destroyed when machines stop. Stonehenge is one of the remains.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The 1990 Draft Constitution" - Arthur [Israel] Waskow (b. 1933) (motive, 1971)
A new constitution for the Federal Commonwealths of America that is based on autonomous ethnic, regional, and occupational groupings. The text is accompanied by a number of articles, all originally published in motive in its March and April 1971 issues, critiquing the proposed constitution. These articles are Jim Stenzel, “Tokyo: An Asian Critique of ‘1990’ (253-57) motive 31.5 (March 1971): 24-26; Steve Nickeson, “Toward a Civil Future” (258-61) motive 31.5 (March 1971) as “Notes Toward a Civil Future” (21-22); Merrill Jackson, “Weaknesses and Problems of the 1990 Constitution” (266-68) motive 31.6/7 (April-May 1971): 87 [Page wrong in Contents]; and Eleanor Burns Women’s Collective, “In a New Society Why Do We Have to Have a Boring Constitution?” (269-75) motive 31.6/7 (April-May 1971): 83-85 [Page wrong in Contents]. See also 1973 Waskow.
Rpt. As “Draft Constitution.” Futures Conditional. [Ed.] Robert Theobald (Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merril Co., 1972), 245-52. According to a note on 245, this was to be published in a book entitled The 1990 Draft Constitution, said to be forthcoming from The New American Library in January 1972. No such book exists.
Keywords: Male author; US author

2150 A.D - Thea Plym Alexander (b. 1936) (Macro Books, 1971)
Detailed eutopia--technologically advanced, telepathic, vegetarian. Unified society on high emotional, intellectual, and spiritual plane. There is a “Micro Island” where the ways of the past are still practiced. See also Don Plym and Thea Ann Plym. A Macro Philosophy for the Aquarian Age. 2nd ed. Grosse Pointe, MI: Macro Development Center, 1971; and Thea Alexander, The Prophetess; Conversations With Rana. Book Four of the How to Develop series. Tempe, AZ: Macro Books, 1972. 47 pp. where the differences between Micro and Macro lives are contrasted regarding past and future, love and hate, government and politics, freedom and bondage, wisdom and folly, crime and punishment, war and peace, religion and god, law and injustice, sex and marriage, good and evil, and life and death. For a plan to put some of the ideas into practice, see Macro Associates. Micro Society Community. Phase II. Phoenix, AZ; Macro Associates, nd.
Tempe, AZ Macro Books_
Keywords: Female author; US author

... and all the stars a stage - James [Benjamin] Blish (1921-75) (Doubleday, 1971)
Includes as background a dystopia of male-female conflict caused by a technology that allows parents to choose the sex of their children. Too many men made most of them superfluous.
U.K. ed. London: Faber and Faber, 1972. Abr. version originally published in Amazing Stories 34.6 - 7 (June - July 1969): 6-67, 80-131.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Andra - [Elizabeth Rhoda Wintle] [Holden] (1943-2013) (William Collins, 1971)
Young adult dystopia set in an authoritarian underground city and a revolt by the young people.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Irish author

"As Simple as That" - Zenna [Charlson] Henderson (1917-83) (Holding Wonder, 1971)
Post-apocalyptic (unknown cause) dystopia told from the point of view of the only remaining teacher and the few surviving children.
Rpt. (New York: Avon, 1972), 188-99; and in Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson. Ed. Patricia Morgan Lang (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 305-14. 978-1-61037-338-8
Keywords: Female author; US author

At a Beetle’s Pace: A Play in One Act - Louis E. Catron (1932-2010) (Samuel French, 1971)
Flawed utopia in which people do not age and rarely die. The play focuses on a man of the previous generation who is among the few who are old and the inept way the new generation deals with him. The third play in a trilogy on love in the twentieth-century. The others, neither of which are utopian, are Where Have All the Lightning Bugs Gone and Touch the Bluebirds.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Benefit, Necessity, and the Next Day” - Carl L[ee] Shears (1937-79) (Niggers and Po’ White Trash. Stories, 1971)
The story is a discussion between the President and a senior adviser, who is black, prior to the following law going into effect. “Any parent or parents, who are declared functionally or totally illiterate by a test administered by the Health, Welfare, and Education Department of the United States Government, without regard to race, color, or creed, will be placed in an education center for the purposes of bringing their reading and writing level up to the standards of the nation’s. Their children will be placed in an appropriate children’s home. If after a two-year period the parent or parents have not reached the necessary level, they will be sterilized and placed in an urban reservation for the mentally deficient for the rest of their lives. From that day forward, all rights as citizens will be forfeited. The parent or parents then become wards of the state” (22). The senior adviser believes that the law will mostly effect blacks. Another story in the same volume, “If There Is a Knock” (38-47) is about how the law affects poor blacks. See also 1971 Shears "That Day," 1973, 1974, 1975 (2), and 1978 Shears.
Keywords: African American author; Male author

"The Big Day" - Donald Malcolm (1930-2013) (New Writings in S-F, 1971)
Dystopia. Gladiatorial contests to alleviate boredom in a mechanized society.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

Blueprint for Yesterday - June Wetherell (1909-2010) (Walker, 1971)
Dehumanized technological dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Book of Stier - Robin Sanborn (Berkley Books, 1971)
While the novel ends in a dystopia, the text suggests a eutopia based on a new religion, peace, sex, and the flower-children emerging from Canada. Generational conflict led by an oppressive U.S. regime. U.S. absorbed by Canada.

Building the City of Man: Outlines of a World Civilization - W[alter] Warren Wagar (1932-2004) (Grossman Publishers, 1971)
Non-fiction with half the book on the current Crisis of Civilization (1-74) that could result in a spiral to barbarism. But the second half includes a eutopia, Cosmopolis (75-178), with an explanation of its institutions. A new world culture based on a world religion that will give rise to world morality. There will be an end to patriarchy, multiple family structures, and a “liberation of eros.” Radically reformed education and a world government. See also the author’s 1989 A Short History of the Future and 1991 The Next Three Futures.
Rpt. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman, 1971. xii + 180 pp.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Call of Utopia - Eric C[yril] Williams (1918-2010) (Robert Hale, 1971)
The novel begins in an authoritarian dystopia set in 2060 in which criminals are surgically altered to live in underwater prisons. One such prisoner, driven by his desire to find a eutopia in Brazil, escapes and finds his eutopia which stresses variety, few laws, and limited work.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Cities - Robert Kelly (b. 1935) (Frontier Press, 1971)
Describes many hidden cities, including at least two eutopias. The first, with elements of satire, is the Autonomous City-State of Fatima, an island in the Caribbean that is oil rich and with only three laws--“Do not Kill . Do Not Hurt People . Do Not Take What Isn’t Yours” (8). Another city, Ára in North Africa, is immensely advanced in biology but has no other technology. Yet another, Wuara in South America and the largest hidden city in the world, is far in advance of the rest of the world in biology (mature Wuarans can choose their gender), technology (Wuara has settled, Mars, two moons of Jupiter, and Venus), and social organization (each Wuaran states their needs for the next year in detail, and they are provided).
An earlier version appeared as "Cities." The Iowa Review 1.4 (Fall 1970): 28-51.
Keywords: Male author

Civilia: The End of Sub Urban Man. A Challenge to Semidetsia (The Architectural Press, 1971)
The plan for a new town on waste land with detailed discussions of land use, housing, amenities, and both home and street life.
A shortened version was published as Architectural Review 149.892 (June 1971): 325-408.

"Daughter" - Anne [Inez] McCaffrey (1926-2011) (The Many Worlds of Science Fiction, 1971)
Coming of age story with a background of a society that carefully chooses the occupations of its citizens based on their aptitudes.
Keywords: Female author; Irish author; US author

"The Discontent Contingency" - [Rex Thomas] [Vinson] (1935-2000) (New Writings in S-F, 1971)
Benevolent dictatorship which uses a happiness generator to control the people. This results in there being no creativity.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Ends - James Hughes (Alfred A. Knopf, 1971)
Dystopian future where government has decided on mass suicide and various misfits refuse.
U.K. ed. London: Secker & Warburg, 1971.
Keywords: Male author

Exiled from Earth - Ben[jamin William] Bova (1932-2020) (E. P. Dutton, 1971)
First volume of a trilogy. Supposedly utopian world government uses authoritarian means to maintain the status quo. A new society is established in space by a scientist exiled from earth in an attempt to create a free world. The first volume focuses on the decision to exile the scientists and their imprisonment on a large ship circling Earth. The second volume, Flight of Exiles. New York: E.P. Dutton. Rpt. in The Exiles Trilogy (New York: Berkley, 1980), 151-288. Rpt. New York: Baen, 1994. U.K. ed. (London: Methuen, 1984), 151-288, focuses on the exiles leaving Earth orbit for the stars and their discovery of a planet to settle. The third volume, End of Exile. New York: E.P. Dutton. Rpt. in The Exiles Trilogy (New York: Berkley, 1980), 289-441. Rpt. New York: Baen, 1994. U.K. ed. (London: Methuen, 1984), 289-441, is concerned with the exiles’ settlement on a planet and the establishment of good society.
Rpt. in The Exiles Trilogy (New York: Berkley Books, 1980), 1-149. Rpt. New York: Baen, 1994. U.K. ed. (London: Methuen, 1984), 1-149.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Faceless Man" - Jack [John Holbrook] Vance (1916-2013) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia in which every adult must wear an explosive device around their neck which can be set off by the rulers.
Rpt. as The Anome. Durdane: Book 1. New York: Dell, 1973. U.K. ed. London: Coronet, 1975. Repub. as The Faceless Man. New York: Ace Books, 1978; and as Durdane 1. The Faceless Man. San Francisco, CA: Columbia, PA: Underwood-Miller, 1984. Rpt. in Durdane. London: VGSF, 1989, which also contains The Brave Free Men. Durdane: Book II (New York: Dell, 1972) and The Asutra (New York: Dell, 1973). All are separately paged. Durdane is also rpt. as vol. 27 of The Complete Works of Jack Vance. Oakland, CA: Vance Integral Editions, 2005. The Anome (1-206); The Brave Free Men (207-422); and The Asutra (223-617).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Fall of New York - Miles Donis (1936-79) (David McKay, 1971)
Dystopia. New Left revolution leaves New York deserted except for children, who are fighting the Army, each other, and the Mafia. The Army wins.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Far Side of Evil - Sylvia [Louise] Engdahl (b. 1933) (Athenaeum, 1971)
Young adult novel in which a planet has reached the stage in which they are likely to annihilate itself with nuclear weapons. The same protagonist as and called a sequel to 1970 in Engdahl, although in her “Afterword” to the 2003 edition, the author says this work is aimed at an older audience.
Rpt. Illus. Richard Cuffari. New York: Collier, 1989; and Illus. Jody Hewgill. New York: Walker, 2003, with an “Afterword” by the author (321-24). U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 1975.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The First Team - John [Dudley] Ball [Jr.] (1911-88) (Little, Brown, 1971)
Dystopia depicting a Soviet takeover of the U.S. The novel focuses on the successful underground resistance.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Frog Pond" - Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (b. 1942) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1971)
Pollution dystopia but shows a small community adapting to the new conditions.
Rpt. in her Cautionary Tales (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978), 9-17; and in The Future is Female! More Classic Science Fiction by Women Volume 2: The 1970s. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: Library of America, 2023), 11-22, with a biographical note on 477-478.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Furthest - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (Ace Books, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia with women in an inferior position.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Future" - Tim[othy Richard] Shadbolt (b. 1947) (Bullshit & Jellybeans, 1971)
Eutopia that says that in the future there will be free distribution of goods, which he calls "love shops"; communes; co-operatives; a New Zealand rock music revival; more pot smoking; a growth in underground media; activist farmers; radicals directly involved politically; a growth of political awareness among the people; a bi-cultural society; and the end of the war in Vietnam.
See also the author's untitled contribution to Ans Westra, Notes on the Country I Live In (Wellington, New Zealand: Alister Taylor, 1972), 9-12; and his Concrete Reality [Cover adds Poems]. Green Bay, Auckland, New Zealand: Republican Press, 1981 for related statements.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author

Gadget Man - Ron[ald Joseph] Goulart (1933-2022) (Doubleday, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia set in a future Republic of Southern California with a focus on a rebellion against the dystopia.
Based on a story of the same name in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy 35.6 (December 1968): 100-27.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Going" - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (Four Futures: Four Original Novellas of Science Fiction, 1971)
Dystopia of population control through voluntary suicide.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg. Volume Three: Something Wild is Loose: 1969-72 (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2008), 106-55 with an author's note on 105-06.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Gray Matters - William [Reinhold] Hjortsberg (1941-2017) (Simon & Schuster, 1971)
Dystopia in which brains are kept alive and required to follow the directions of a central computer.
Rpt. New York: Ace Books, 1972.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Great 24 Hour ‘Thing’ - Andrew J[efferson] Offutt [V] (1934-2013) (The Orpheus Series/Bee-Line Books, 1971)
Mildly erotic satire in which, as a joke, two of the beings that oversee Earth decide to mess with their sector by granting all males their sexual desires for twenty-four hours.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Guest of Honour - Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014) (Jonathan Cape, 1971)
As with much of Gordimer's fiction, the novel is concerned with racial strife in the dystopia that is South Africa, with what she calls "the interregnum", and, in this case, with the future of South Africa.
Keywords: Female author; South African author

Half Past Human - [Thomas J.] [Bassler] [M.D.] (1932-2011) (Ballantine Books, 1971)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Parts published originally as "Half Past Human." Galaxy Science Fiction 29.4 (December 1969): 16-76; and "Song of Kaia." If 20.8 (151) (November-December 1970): 4-85, which is published as "G.I.T.A.R." in the novel, which incorrectly gives this as the title of the story in If.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Horizon Alpha - Douglas [Rankine] Mason (1918-2013) (Ballantine Books, 1971)
Dystopia of a future rigid city as it breaks down.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

"How Can We Sink When We Can Fly?" - Alexei [Alexis Adams] Panshin (1940-2022) (Four Futures: Four Original Novellas of Science Fiction, 1971)
The environmental dystopia of the present contrasted with an ecologically balanced future.
Rpt. in Dream’s Edge: Science Fiction Stories About the Future of Planet Earth. Ed. Terry Carr (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1980), 130-56.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Human Side of the Village Monster" - Edward [Winslow] Bryant [Jr.] (1945-2017) (Universe, 1971)
Dystopia of overpopulation, pollution, poverty, hunger, and violence. Addictive contraceptives used to try to keep population growth down.
U.K. ed. (London: Dennis Dobson, 1971), 193-202. Rpt. in his Among the Dead and other Events Leading to the Apocalypse (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 93-102. Rpt. New York: Collier, 1974), 93-102.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Incident After" - Zenna [Charlson] Henderson (1917-83) (Holding Wonder, 1971)
Post-apocalyptic (unknown cause) dystopia told primarily from the point of view of the few remaining people, a woman who is afraid to leave her house, her two daughters, and her husband.
Rpt. (New York: Avon, 1972), 256-62; and in Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson. Ed. Patricia Morgan Lang (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 367-72.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Interface. Science Fiction - Mark [Peter Marcus} Adlard (b. 1932) (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971)
First of a series about Stahlnex (the only building material) Corp. which controls the world. A few genetically enhanced executives live in splendor and isolation while others live in an overpopulation dystopia. Creativity has mostly disappeared. The novel ends with a revolt against the corporation and its power. See also 1972 and 1975 Adlard.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Ishmael into the Barrens" - R[aphael] A[loysius] Lafferty (1914-2002) (Four Futures; Four Original Novellas of Science Fiction, 1971)
Dystopia, the "Gentle World," in which Hippies, rather misrepresented, are in control and legally require disorder.
Rpt. in his The Man with the Speckled Eyes. The Collected Short Fiction Volume Four (Lakewood, CA: Centipede Press, 2017), 305-53.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Lathe of Heaven" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (Amazing Stories, 1971)
Begins with a dystopian background stressing pollution and overpopulation. Search for eutopia driven by a power-hungry psychiatrist controlling a man whose dreams can change reality.
Repub. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971. Rpt. New York: Avon, 1973. U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 1972.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Little Dog's Day. A Novel - Jack Trevor Story (1917-91) (Allison & Busby, 1971)
Future authoritarian bureaucratic dystopia and an anti-bureaucratic movement.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Lorax - [Theodor Seuss] [Geisel] (1904-91) (Random House, 1971)
Children’s picture book depicting the creation of an environmental dystopia through logging an area until no tree is left, and all the wildlife have fled. Terri Birkett wrote a response to defend logging, The Truax. illus. Orrin Lundgren Memphis, TN: Hardwood Forest Foundation, 1995, which was sponsored by the National Wood Flooring Manufacturers’ Association. http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/NDow/files/TRUAX1.pdf. A TV adaptation was aired on CBS February 14, 1972. A feature film directed by Chris Renaud (b. 1966) with a screenplay by Cinco Paul (b. 1964) and Ken Daurio (b. 1972) was released March 2, 2012. A musical version with music and lyrics by Charlie Fink (b. 1986) ran at the Old Vic in London from December 2, 2015, to January 16, 2016, returned in 2017, and has toured in the U.S.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Los Angeles A.D. 2017 - Philip [Gordon] Wylie (1902-71) (Walker, 1971)
Overpopulation and pollution dystopia.
Rpt. New York: Popular Library, nd.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World - Walker Percy (1916-90) (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1971)
Dystopia located in Louisiana depicting a general collapse of the U.S. with some local institutions surviving. Racial conflict and, at the end, the northern cities with large African American populations have seceded. The protagonist believes himself to be a collateral descendant of Thomas More and regularly refers to him.
U.K. ed. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1971.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Military Hospital" - Phyllis [Fay Bloom] Gotlieb (1926-2009) (Fourteen Stories High, 1971)
Dystopia. The setting is a military hospital that is run entirely by robots except for one supervisor, who is there to ensure that nothing goes wrong and to adjust settings as needed. The hospital is primarily designed for casualties of all the wars around the world so that the soldiers can return to the front line. Outside the hospital the city's citizens are at war with each other.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author

"The Mind Prison" - Michael G[reatrex] Coney (1932-2005) (New Writings in S-F, 1971)
Dystopia. People had lived in a building originally built as a fall-out shelter and expanded as population grew. Fear of the outside, encouraged by the male leaders, keeps people inside long after it is no longer necessary.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

“The Mnemone” - Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) (Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?, 1971)
The story is set in a future dystopia in which most words have been lost, and some people, called Mnemones, travel from place to place selling words.
Rpt. in The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley. Book Four (Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1991), 245-53.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Moderan - David [Roosevelt] Bunch (1925-2000) (Avon Books, 1971)
Post-nuclear war dystopia in which one man is trying to cover the Earth with plastic. Others turn themselves into cyborgs and continue to fight each other.
Rpt. New York: New York Review Books, 2018, with the addition of eleven stories that did not appear in the first addition, three rpt. and eight published for the first time and with a “Foreword” by Jeff VanderMeer (ix-xx). Parts were originally published as “A Little Girl’s Xmas in Modernia.” Coastlines, no. 10 (3.3) (Autumn 1958): 31-35. rpt. as “A Little Girl’s Christmas in Modernia.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 18.1 (104) (January 1960): 102-07; rpt. in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction British Edition 2.2 (January 1961): 2-7 (Avon 166-72/NYRB 179-85); “Was She Horrid?” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 8.12 (December 1959): 120-24 (Avon 142-46/NYRB 153-57); “The Flesh-Man from Far Wide.” Amazing Stories 33.11 (November 1959): 134-38; rpt. in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 566-68 with an editors’ note on 555-56 (Avon 172-76/NYRB 186-90); “A Complete Father.” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 9.1 (January 1960): 104-09 (Avon 137-42/NYRB 147-52); “Strange Shape in the Stronghold.” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 9.3 (March 1960): 50-55 (Avon 102-08/NYRB 108-13); “Remembering.” Amazing Science Fiction Stories 34.4 (April 1960): 100-03 (Avon 162-66/NYRB 175-78); “Penance Day in Moderan.” Amazing Science Fiction Stories 34.7 (July 1960): 61-65 (Avon 98-102/NYRB 103-07); “Getting Regular.” Amazing Science Fiction Stories 34.8 (August 1960): 112-18 (Avon 108-14/NYRB 114-21); “A Husband’s Share.” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 9.10 (October 1960): 117-20 (Avon 133-37/NYRB 143-46); “The Warning.” Amazing Stories 34.11 (November 1960): 67-71 (Avon 189-94/NYRB 204-09); “The Final Decision.” Amazing Fact and Science Fiction Stories 35.2 (February 1961): 100-07; rpt. in Thrilling Science Fiction (October 1972): 124-31 (Avon 220-27/NYRB 237-45); “Has Anyone Seen This Horseman.” Shenandoah 12.2 (Winter 1961): 43-46 (Avon 194-98/NYRB 209-12); “The One From Camelot Moderan.” Descant (Winter 1962): 9-13 (Avon 179-84/NYRB 193-98); “It Was Black Cat Weather.” Illus. [Leo Ramon] Summers. Fantastic Stories of Imagination 12.2 (February 1963): 100-03 (Avon 155-59/NYRB 167-70); “Survival Packages.” Illus. [Leo Ramon] Summers. Fantastic Stories of Imagination 12.4 (April 1963): 70-74, 123 (Avon 80-85/NYRB 83-88); “One False Step.” Illus. [Leo Ramon] Summers. Fantastic Stories of Imagination 12.5 (May 1963): 90-95 (Avon 75-80/NYRB 77-82); “Sometimes I Get So Happy.” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 12.8 (August 1963): 103-06 (Avon 159-62/NYRB 171-74); “2064, or Thereabouts.” By Darryl R. Groupe [pseud.] Fantastic Stories of Imagination 13.9 (September 1964): 122-27 (Avon 92-97/NYRB 97-102); “Reunion.” Amazing Fact and Science Fiction Stories 39.2 (February 1965): 45-49 (Avon 184-89/NYRB 199-203); “Playmate.” Fantastic Stories of Imagination 14.5 (May 1965): 27-30 (Avon 130-33/NYRB 139-42); “The Walking Talking I-Don’t-Care Man.” Amazing Fact and Science Fiction Stories 39. 6 (June 1965): 6-10 (Avon 115-20/NYRB 122-27); “The Miracle of the Flowers.” The Smith, no. 7 (2.3&4) (October 1966): 11-23; rpt. in Pulpsmith 6.4 (Winter 1987): 108-15 (Avon 206-15/NYRB 222-31); “Incident in Moderan.” Dangerous Visions: 33 Original Stories. Ed. Harlan [Jay] Ellison (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 295-99, with an “Introduction” (293-94) by Ellison and an “Afterword” (302-03) by Bunch (Avon 215-19/NYRB 232-36); “How It Ended.” Amazing 42.5 (January 1969): 59-64 (Avon 233-40/NYRB 253-60); “No Cracks or Saggings.” The Little Magazine 4.1 (Spring 1970): 44-53; rpt. without the “s” on Saggings in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 557-62 with an editors’ note on 555-56 (Avon without the “s” 25-35/NYRB without the “s” 21-31); and “A Glance at the Past.” Illus. Dan Adkins. Fantastic Stories of Imagination 20.1 (October 1970): 84-86 (Avon 147-50/NYRB 158-61). A story first published in Moderan, “New Kings are Not for Laughing,” was rpt. in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 562-66 with an editors’ note on 555-56; rpt. in the New York Review of Books ed. (38-44). Stories first reprinted in the New York Review of Books ed. are “Two Suns for Two Kings.” Worlds of If Science Fiction 21.4 (159) (April 1972): 113-18 (NYRB 274-78); “When the Metal Eaters Came?” Galaxy Science Fiction 39.10 (June/July 1979): 120-22 (NYRB 304-07); and “A Little Girl’s Spring Day in Moderan.” Galaxy Science Fiction 39.11 (September/October 1979): 122-26 (NYRB 308-14). Stories first published in the New York Review of Books ed. are “A Little at All Times” 263-67); “The Joke” (268-73); “The Good War” (279-85); “In the Land That Aimed at Forever” (286-91); “Among the Metal-and-People People (292-97); “The Dirty War” (298-303); “December for Stronghold” (315-23); and “The Heartacher and the Warehouseman” (324-27).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - [Robert Lesly Carroll] [Conly] (1922-73) (Atheneum, 1971)
Young adult eutopian animal tale. Mrs. Frisby is a mouse who gets help from long-lived, intelligent rats that were the result of experiments at NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health). The rats created a eutopia for themselves after escaping from the laboratory.
Rpt. as The Secret of NIMH. New York: Scholastic, 1982, which was the title of an animated film version directed by Don Bluth (b. 1937) released that year. A direct-to-video sequel, The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, unrelated to the book and without Bluth's involvement was released in 1998.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"No Direction Home" - Norman [Richard] Spinrad (b. 1940) (New Worlds Quarterly, 1971)
Drug dystopia in which psychedelics are used in all aspects of life.
Rpt. in The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1. Ed. Terry Carr (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), 227-44; in his The Star-Spangled Future (New York: Ace Books 1979), 263-86 with an “Introduction to No Direction Home” (261-62), and in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 663-66 with an editor’s note on 663.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Our Man in Utopia" - [Douglas George] Fetherling (b. 1949) (Our Man in Utopia, 1971)
Poem about an authoritarian dystopia.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Out There - Adrian [Pearl] Stoutenburg (1916-82) (Viking Press, 1971)
Young adult future tale in which children from a dystopian domed city experience nature for the first time and work together to protect it.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The People of Prashad" - James Keilty (1947-79) (Quark 2, 1971)
Anarchist, nature-oriented eutopia located in a valley in the Himalayas. An alphabet is provided (72), and there is "An Informal Introduction to the Language of Prashad" (76-78).
Rpt. in The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F. Ed. Thomas M[ichael] Disch (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 49-80 with editor's notes on 49 and 80.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Pepper Leaf. An Episode - Colin [A.] Gibson (b. 1933) (Chatto & Windus, 1971)
The novel presents a small group of people who become isolated after a catastrophe and create a dystopia.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author

Pig World - Charles W[est] Runyon (Doubleday, 1971)
A Sixties style revolution succeeds but is corrupted by an authoritarian dictator.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Right to Revolt" "The Right to Resist" - [John] Keith Laumer (1925-93) (Worlds of If, 1971)
"The Right to Revolt" is the story of a group of men who take over a planetary government and have to deal with all the problems the previous regime faced. In this story, those resisting are short sighted, kill innocent people, and come close to ruining the economy. "The Right to Resist" is what happens next.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Roommates" - Harry [Max] Harrison (1925-2012) (The Ruins of Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future, 1971)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Rpt. in Above the Human Landscape: A Social Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Willis E. McNelly and Leon E. Stover (Pacific Palisades, CA: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1972), 312-31; and in Earth In Transit: Science Fiction and Contemporary Problems. Ed. Sheila Schwartz (New York: Dell Books, 1976), 97-120.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Saltflower - Sydney [Joyce] Van Scyoc (b. 1939) (Avon Books, 1971)
Includes some consideration of a eutopia based on privacy and a dystopia that eliminates it.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Scorpius Equation - [“Bud”] [Bernhardt] (1930-2008) (Traveller' Companion, 1971)
Gay male dystopia.
Rpt. New York: Badboy, 1993.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Sea is Boiling Hot - George [Everett] Bamber (b. 1932) (Ace Books, 1971)
Pollution dystopia. Sex and violence in domed cities.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Second Trip" - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (Amazing Stories, 1971)
Dystopian background where criminals have their personality wiped out and a new personality implanted.
Rpt. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1971
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Shepherd Is My Lord - Dimitri Gat (Doubleday, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia. One company rules the known galaxy.
Keywords: Male author

Short Visit to Ergon - E[dith] M. Osborn (b. 1902) (Marlowe House Ltd, 1971)
Detailed eutopia set on another planet. The people, who are all of one race, are telepathic in varying degrees. They believe that behind all matter is mind, and some of the people are developing significant mental powers, such as levitation. All people work to the extent they choose, and as long as they work two days a week they are provided with their basic needs. Includes a proposal for an ideal city on earth set in the U.S. (131-34) that is not related to the eutopia.
Keywords: Female author

"Silent in Gehenna" - Harlan [Jay] Ellison (1934-2018) (The Many Worlds of Science Fiction, 1971)
Dystopia of patriotism with the universities run by the military.
Rpt. in his Approaching Ellison: Road Signs on the Treadmill Toward Tomorrow. Eleven Uncollected Stories (New York: Walker, 1974), 97-114.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Sleep Two, Three, Four! A Political Thriller - John Neufeld (b. 1938) (Harper & Row, 1971)
Young adult future tale in which the U.S. President uses gangs to terrorize neighborhoods and stay in power.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Sleepwalker's World - Gordon R[upert] Dickson (1923-2001) (J. B. Lippincott, 1971)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Rpt. New York: DAW Books, 1972.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"The Sliced Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World" - Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) (New Dimensions, 1971)
Overpopulation dystopia in which each person is assigned to one day and only one day and "sleeps" all the other days. See 1985 Farmer and 2016 Farmer and Adams for works that develop the basic idea.
Rpt. in The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1. Ed. Terry Carr (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), 113-29; in The Grand Adventure: Masterworks of Science Fiction and Fantasy (New York: Berkley Books, 1984), 163-90; in The Classic Philip José Farmer 1964-1973 (New York: Crown, 1984), 130-45; and in The Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection. Ed. Michael Croteau (Np: Meteor House, 2018), 487-503.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Smith's Dream - C[hristian] K[arlson] Stead (b. 1932) (Longman Paul, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia set in New Zealand with the focus on one man's resistance to it. The second version includes the ending the author says he originally intended. In this ending the protagonist is killed, whereas the first ending is hopeful. The change takes place on page 140. Stead explains the change in "John Mulgan: A Question of Identity." In his In the Glass Case: Essays on New Zealand Literature (Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1981), 87-88 [Originally published in Islands 25 (7.3) (April 1979): 286-88]. A film version was entitled Sleeping Dogs (1977) and was directed by Roger Donaldson (b. 1945) with the screenplay by Ian Mune (b. 1941) and Arthur Baysting.
With a different ending Auckland, New Zealand: Longman Paul, 1973. Rpt. Auckland, New Zealand: New House Publishers, 1993. The change takes place on page 140. Stead explains the change in “John Mulgan: A Question of Identity.” In his In the Glass Case: Essays on New Zealand Literature (Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1981), 87-88 [Originally published in Islands 25 (7.3) (April 1979): 286-88].
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author

The Strong Man - H[enry] R[eymond] F[itzwalter] Keating (1926-2011) (Heinemann, 1971)
Dystopia. Political novel describing the struggle against a dictator who uses religion to manipulate people. The replacement is not much better.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Sun Grows Cold - Howard [Francis] Berk (1925-2015) (Delacorte, 1971)
Post-World War III dystopia. An underground Complex is involved in erasing memories, and the novel focuses on a man who wants to recover his.
U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 1971.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Survival World - Frank Belknap Long [Jr.] (1901-94) (Prestige Books, 1971)
The novel is set in a world devastated by pollution so that starvation has become the norm.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Terminus - Leonard [John] Daventry (1915-87) (Robert Hale & Co., 1971)
Dystopia where radioactive fallout from the bomb tests of the forties and fifties had caused cancers in babies and young children that led to a drop in the birthrate. Most people carry guns. Another society, the Terminus of the title, is a world without and disparaging of ideals; it is society that results from an upheaval in the original dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"That Day" - [Carl Lee] [Shears] (1937-79) (Niggers and Po’ White Trash. Stories, 1971)
The story about the dystopia that is black/white relations in a small town in Georgia and the opposition of both to a young black man who has been admitted to a predominantly white university. At the end, the white police chief kills him. See also 1971 Shears, “Benefit, Necessity, and the Next Day,” 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 (2), and 1978 Shears.
Keywords: African American author; Male author

THX 1138 - Ben[jamin William] Bova (1932-2020) (Paperback Library, 1971)
Authoritarian dystopia. Thought control. All people are bald; all clothes are white.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"A Time of Changes" - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1971)
Dystopia with an emphasis on group cohesion. Polite language does not include "I". No self-revealing. At birth bond brothers and sisters are chosen and more can be told to them. Sexual freedom except with bond brother or sister. Change brought about by a drug that opened people to each other.
Rpt. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1971
Keywords: Male author; US author

Time of the Great Death. A Novel - Claude M. Skinner (b. 1916) (Vantage Press, 1971)
A sleeper wakes novel in which a eutopia has developed after nuclear war, civil war, and disease has reduced the world population by three-quarters and a new mentality, called Humanism, has developed that values community and helping others over competition. The wakened sleeper cannot adjust and finds a woman who wants a strong, masterful man, which suggests that there are others who do not accept the new way of life. At the end of the novel, Earth has reverted to the old ways under a world-wide dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Time Story - Stuart [Richard Alexander Steuart] Gordon (1947-2009) (New English Library, 1971)
A future technologically advanced but structurally feudal dystopia.
U.S. Ed. New York: DAW Books, 1973.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

The T.N.A. Constitution (first draft 1971) - Terranian Nationalist Association (The Association, 1971)
Constitution for a democratic world government with restrictions on the powers of the individual states (known as Sectional National Governments).
See also Terranianism: A Plan to Unite Humanity. Humanity and the World in Unity and Peace, One World, One People, Terrania. [Burwood, VIC, Australia: np, 1973]; The Terranian, no. 1 - 73 (May 20, 1969 - December 1975); The Terranian National Constitution (third draft 1972). Burwood, VIC, Australia: The Association, 1972; and Join the Terranians/Terranian National Association. Burwood, VIC, Australia: The Association, [1972]. All at the State Library of Victoria.

Tolstoy Lives in 12N B9 - Eric Geen (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971)
Conformist, computerized dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; UK author

“Towards Helhaven: Three Stages of a Vision” - Kenneth [Duva] Burke (1897-1993) (The Sewanee Review, 1971)
A satiric essay that begins by reflecting on 1930 Burke and on the waste created by war and pollution, and then suggests the development of Helhaven, a “culture bubble” on the moon. Burke extends the satire in his “Why Satire, With a Plan for Writing One.” Michigan Quarterly Review 13 (Winter 1974): 307-37. Rpt. in his One Human Nature: A Gathering While Everything Flows 1967-1984. Ed. William Rueckert and Angela Bonadonna. Arranged and Annotated by William Rueckert (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 66-95.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Travels in Nihilon - Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) (W. H. Allen, 1971)
Satire on anarchism (nihilism).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Trial of Christopher Okigbo - Ali A[l’Amin] Mazrui (1933-2014 (Heinemann, 1971)
A post-death After-Africa (life is Herebefore) that on the surface appears to be eutopia but has most of the problems and conflicts of contemporary Africa. People appear to live well but the problems of Herebefore continue to influence action in After-Africa.
Keywords: Kenyan author; Male author; US author

The True North Blueprint. A Trilogy - Louis Capson (b. 1944) (Playwrights Co-op, 1971)
Play presenting a dystopia in which the authoritarian system grows stronger throughout the trilogy.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

The Unknown Industrial Prisoner - David [Neil] Ireland (b. 1927) (Angus & Robertson, 1971)
Contemporary industrial system as a dystopia comparable to the most vicious prison regime.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

"The Unsigned" - William [Herbert] Walling (b. 1926) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971)
Dystopia in which life insurance companies control life.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Vandenberg - [John] [Wadleigh] (1927-2013) (Stein & Day, 1971)
Dystopia of a communist takeover of the U.S.
Rpt. as Defiance; An American Novel. New York: Stein and Day, 1984.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"A Vision of Environment" - Peter L. Marks (American Scholar, 1971)
Essay describing an ecological eutopia that does away with existing political boundaries and replaces them with boundaries based on watersheds, each of which would contain one major city.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Warlord of the Air; A Scientific Romance - Michael [John] Moorcock (b. 1939) (Dell, 1971)
Alternative future histories. Describes some eutopian and some dystopian societies but not in much detail. The same approach is continued in two sequels The Land Leviathan. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974. U.K. ed. with subtitle A New Scientific Romance. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>: Quartet, 1974. Rpt. in his The Nomad of Time (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, [1982]), 157-302. Rev. with the subtitle For Mongazi Feza, who demanded justice. In A Nomad of the Time Streams: A Scientific Romance (London: Millennium, 1993), 157-297. U.S. ed. as The Second Adventure The Land Leviathan (Clarkson, GA: White Wolf, 1995), 147-276; and The Steel Tsar. New York: DAW Books, 1981. U.K. ed. with the subtitle Third Volume in the Oswald Bastable Trilogy. London: Granada, 1981. Rpt. in The Nomad of Time (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, [1982]), 303-441. Rev. with the subtitle To the memory of Michael Cornelius Dempsey, who died, as he had lived, a captain of his own ship. In A Nomad of the Time Streams: A Scientific Romance (London: Millennium, 1993), 299-457. U.S. ed. as The Third Adventure The Steel Tsar (Clarkston, GA: White Wolf, 1995), 277-423.
U.K. ed. London: NEL, 1971. Rpt. in The Nomad of Time (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, [1982]), 1-155. Rev. with the subtitle For Colin Ward and the international anarchist conspiracy. In A Nomad of the Time Streams: A Scientific Romance (London: Millennium, 1993), 1-154. U.S. ed. as The First Adventure The Warlord of the Air (Clarkston, GA: White Wolf, 1995), 1-146.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Wednesday, November 15, 1967" - Geo[rge] Alec Effinger (1947-2002) (The Ruins of Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future, 1971)
Post-catastrophe dystopia as seen by the last man.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?" - Kate [Katie Gertrude Meredith] Wilhelm (1928-2018) (Quark, 1971)
A story of multiple futures for one person. One is an authoritarian dystopia where everyone is required to watch a TV channel a specified number of hours each day. Another is an overpopulation dystopia. None are positive.
Rpt. in her The Infinity Box: A collection of speculative fiction (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 219-32.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The World Inside - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (Doubleday & Co., 1971)
Overpopulation dystopia with an emphasis on population growth, with large families living in huge buildings.
Rpt. New York: Tor, 2010 with a new “Preface” by the author (7-12). Part published in Galaxy Science Fiction as "The Throwbacks." 30.4 (August 1970): 26-54; "The World Outside." 30.6 (October/November 1970): 4-50, 192; "We Are Well Organized; An Episode--Urban Monad 116." 31.1 (December 1970): 38-69; and "All the Way Up, All the Way Down." 32.1 (July-August 1971): 140-60. Another part was published as "A Happy Day in 2381." Nova 1: An Anthology of Original Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Harry Harrison (New York: Delacorte Press, 1970), 17-33; rpt. in Earth In Transit: Science Fiction and Contemporary Problems. Ed. Sheila Schwartz (New York: Dell, 1976), 121-35; in A Day in the Life. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: Perennial Library, 1972), 100-17; in The City 2000 A.D.: Urban Life Through Science Fiction. Ed. Ralph Clem, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1976), 289-304; in Science Fiction: The Future. Ed. Dick Allen. 2nd ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 160-71; and in The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg. Volume Two: To the Dark Star: 1962-69 (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2007), 318-32 with an author's note on 317-18.
Keywords: Male author; US author

1989: Population Doomsday - Don[ald Eugene] Pendleton (1927-95) (Bee Line Books, 1970)
Overpopulation and pollution dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"2020 Hindsight" - William Thompson (Visions 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future, 1970)
Future of Canada as a eutopia with scientists in control. No equality. The U.S. is fascist.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"2020 Visions of an Electric Mutant German Historian Guitar Playing Berkeley Expatriate Prophet" - Hermann Rebel (Visions 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future, 1970)
Satiric poem. Complete freedom with tribal families as the basic social and legal units.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"2430 A.D.--Too Late For the Space Ark" - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (IBM Magazine, 1970)
Conformist dystopia in an overpopulated world. The focus of the story is one man who keeps the last zoo, holding the last few small animals on the planet. For the good of society, he is asked to get rid of them. He does and kills himself also. "And after that there was really perfection. for all over the Earth, there was . . . not one unsettling thought, not one unusual idea, to disturb the universal placidity that meant that the exquisite nothingness of uniformity had at last been achieved" (165-66).
Rpt. without the subtitle in his Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 159-66.
Keywords: Male author; US author

666 - Salem Kirban (1925-2010) (Salem Kirban, Inc, 1970)
Dystopia of the aftermath of the Rapture (see 1 Corinthians 15:52 and Thessalonians 4: 15-17) focusing on the Antichrist and Armageddon (see Revelation 16). His 1000. Huntingdon Valley, PA: Salem Kirban, Inc. Bound with his 666. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, [1970] is a sequel focusing on the 1000 years of the Millennial Age. See also 1968, and 1974 Kirban.
Rpt. bound with his 1000. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, [1973].
Keywords: Male author; US author

Adam and Eve and Newbury - Diana Bennett (Hodder & Stoughton, 1970)
Humor set in a dystopia of an overzealous welfare state. The novel focuses on those who do not fit in.
Keywords: Female author

"After the Ball (A Story of Man in the Future)" - Charles Alldritt (1908-2007) (Worlds in Mind, 1970)
Dystopia and eutopia. Mostly a criticism of contemporary conditions with a particular emphasis on the dystopia being brought about by overpopulation. Includes a brief general eutopia at the end after the population problem is solved.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author; UK author

After Things Fell Apart - Ron[ald Joseph] Goulart (1933-2022) (Ace Books, 1970)
Satire of a future U.S. broken into small enclaves. A women's group is killing men.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"America the Beautiful" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (The Year 2000: An Anthology, 1970)
Flawed utopia. The U.S. is a technological utopia that has solved the population and education problems. The legalization of marijuana and peyote has largely solved the drug problem, but there is constant war.
Rpt. in The Ruins of Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future. Ed. Thomas M[ichael] Disch (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 268-79; in The Best of Fritz Leiber (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), 311-24; in The Best of Fritz Leiber (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1974), 285-97; and in his Selected Stories. Ed. Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2010), 193-203.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Ancient Story of Selentag - Melvin [Ezell] Gorham (1910-94) (Sovereign Press, 1970)
An individualist anarchist eutopia and its ruin by people desiring power presented in the form of a myth. See also 1975 and 1979 Gorham. For other works from the same general perspective, see 1984 von Konen, the note there, 1984 Valoric Fire, and 1987 Pedersen.
Rev. as Kris Krinkle and the Moon Princess. Rochester, WA: Sovereign Press, 1991.
Keywords: Male author; US author

And Chaos Died - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) (Ace Books, 1970)
Telepathy on a eutopian planet with Earth an authoritarian dystopia. Children are considered babies until they are prepubescent, after which they become capable of acting telepathically. They can slow down their maturation, in the case mentioned because the girl wants to develop intellectually. Adults rarely talk. In the third section of the novel, the novel shifts abruptly among times and places. In one future Earth, the population has grown immensely, with some cities constructed underground and on and under the sea and few animals are plants remain. Food is manufactured and what plants still grow are contaminated. Few people are literate. People were generally free to do as they choose; drugs are commonly to induce experiences, including death. But there is no organized crime, sex is no one’s business except for the people involved, people have practically unlimited credit. One couple has traditional gender roles, as defined by the man.
Rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1978, with an “Introduction” by Robert Silverberg (v-xi).
Keywords: Female author; US author

Attitude - A. Neale McDougall (Vantage Press, 1970)
Eutopia and dystopia set at the end of the twenty-second century. The eutopia is the Intercontinental Federation that emerged after the Second Dark Age in the twenty-first century. Teaching is now an honored profession. The dystopia is the United States, which is fragmented and on the verge of civil war.
Keywords: Male author

Barrier World - Louis [Henry] Charbonneau (b. 1924) (Lancer Books, 1970)
Flawed utopia in which perfection is the only physical standard allowed, and there is a maximum age of 48. Compulsory exercise periods twice a day.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Bishop. A Novel - [Claude Cunningham] Bruce Marshall (1899-1987) (Constable, 1970)
First volume in a linked series on the future of the Roman Catholic Church. This volume serves as a prequel in that it is set in the present and is concerned with the reaction both within and outside the Church to the Pope's encyclical confirming the ban on all forms of contraception. See 1973, 1975, and 1976 Marshall for the other volumes in the series.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

"Black is Beautiful." - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (The Year 2000: An Anthology, 1970)
Flawed utopia. A future New York with both the city and the suburbs under domes. The city is black except for the white workers and tourists from the suburbs. From the perspective of a disaffected black teenager, the city appears a eutopia when the whites are gone on the weekends, and the city is certainly much better for blacks than at present, but it is shown to still have serious problems.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Blood of Tyrants" - Ben[jamin William] Bova (1932-2020) (Amazing Stories, 1970)
Dystopia. A plan to educate teenage gang leaders and then have them lead their former gangs to a less violent life backfires in that the gang leaders use their knowledge to organize to gain power.
Rpt. in his Forward in Time: A Science Fiction Story Collection (New York: Walker & Co., 1973), 17-34; and in The Best of Bova. 3 vols. (New York: Baen Books, 2016), 1: 113-131.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Bodyguard - Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008) (Jonathan Cape, 1970)
Dystopia of violence focusing on one ambitious man and what he does to succeed within the dystopia.
Rpt. London: Allison & Busby, 1988.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Canadiana" - Dennis Duffy (Visions 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future, 1970)
Dystopia of a militantly patriotic Canada.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"The Chosen" - Kate [Katie Gertrude Meredith] Wilhelm (1928-2018) (Orbit 6, 1970)
Overpopulation, authoritarian dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Communipaths - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (Ace Books, 1970)
Dystopia that uses those with telepathic ability, known as Communipaths, to send information throughout the galaxy. They are raised them in a crèche and are assigns them to a particular location where they live their brief lives communicating. This changes with the birth of a particularly powerful telepath.
Ace Double bound with 1970 Trimble.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Computer World - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83) (Modern Literary Editions Publishing Co, 1970)
Technological flawed utopia. In the U.S. at birth everyone is given a basic credit and a Universal Credit Card, which is also their means of identification. All records are kept by the International Data Center, which is threatened with destruction. Reynolds uses the same basic trope in a number of other novels.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Constitution for a United Republics of America" (The Center Magazine, 1970)
A proposal resulting from discussions at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. In the same issue, Rexford G[uy] Tugwell (1891-1979) discusses the constitution in "Introduction to a Constitution for a United Republics of America as suggested and discussed at The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions" (11-23).
Keywords: US author

Contact Lost - [Allan James] [Tucker] (b. 1929) (Jonathan Cape, 1970)
The third volume of a trilogy concerned with the development of the Soviet-Bonn bloc, an expanding authoritarian dystopia which Britain voluntarily joins. This volume is concerned with the successful underground opposition movement. See 1968 and 1969 Tucker.
U.S ed. New York: Stein and Day, 1970.
Keywords: Male author; Welsh author

Dance the Eagle to Sleep - Marge Piercy (b. 1936) (Doubleday, 1970)
Dystopia which has a required "19th Year of Service" seen through the eyes of various young people who are suppressed by their parents, their schools, and the social order in which they live. This part of the novel reads like a realistic novel which then shifts to the youth rebellion and the rest of the novel focuses on the rebellion, the people involved in it, their relations and conflicts, and the organizations they establish including urban and rural communities. See also 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1991 Piercy.
Rpt. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1971; and Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2012, with an "Introduction to the New Edition" by the author (vii-ix).
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Dear Aunt Annie” - Gordon [Stewart] Eklund (b. 1945) (Fantastic, 1970)
The story is set in a future after the Last War in which the United States killed off most of the population of the rest of the world. As a result, the entire culture came to center eliminating violence control by a robot agony aunt and centers where everyone is required, at least once every three months, to take an anti-violence pill. In the story, people are becoming immune.
Rpt. in Second Creation: Selected Stories Volume One ([Vancleave, MS]: Ramble House, 2016), 11-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution - Shulamith Firestone (1945-2012) (William Morrow, 1970)
One of the more radical feminist texts of the time, which ends with a chapter entitled "The Ultimate Revolution: Demands and Speculations" (183-224) [called "Conclusion: The Ultimate Revolution" (232-74) in the U.K. ed.]; and, in the rev. ed. a section called "Alternatives" (226-42) outlining a future feminist eutopia. The book ends with a chart outlining the history of the position of women from the beginnings into a far future "cosmic consciousness".
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1971. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1971.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; US author

"The Doomsday Show. A Cabaret" - George Macbeth; J. S. Bingham (New English Dramatists, 1970)
Brief dystopian play set in an authoritarian society that evolved in caves among the few survivors of a nuclear war.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Dragon Feast - John Elliott (Belmont Books, 1970)
United States occupied by Chinussian alliance. Dystopia but mostly about the counter-revolution.
Keywords: Male author

Earthjacket - Jon Hartridge (b. 1934) (Macdonald, 1970)
An authoritarian dystopia based on technology that has destroyed most of the natural environment. A successful attempt to undermine the imposed order results in the destruction of the society.
U.S. ed. New York: Walker, 1970.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Electric Crocodile - D[avid] G[uy] Compton (1930-2023) (Ace Books, 1970)
Authoritarian dystopia with constant surveillance. Almost everyone is bugged, and people have to use jammers to have a private conversation.
U.S. ed. as The Steel Crocodile. New York: Ace Books, 1970.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Enchantress of the Stars - Sylvia [Louise] Engdahl (b. 1933) (Athenaeum, 1970)
Young adult novel about a colonization scheme that has no concern about the welfare of the inhabitants. The same protagonist as in 1971 Engdahl.
Rpt. illus. Leo and Diane Dillon. New York, Walker, 2001, with a “Foreword to the 2001 Edition” by Lois Lowry (vi-xi) and an “Afterword to the 2001 Edition” by the author (287-88).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"E.R.A." - Timothy Findley (1930-2002) (Cavalier, 1970)
Dystopia that eliminates rural life. E.R.A. refers to an Environmental Redevelopment Agent, which are destroying the countryside by poisoning it.
Rpt. as “What Mrs. Felton Knew.” In his Dinner Along the Amazon (Markham, ON, Canada: Penguin Books Canada, 1984), 116-32; and in Ark of Ice: Canadian Futurefiction. Ed. Lesley Choyce (Lawrencetown Beach, NS, Canada: Pottersfield Press, 1992), 181-96.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards - Andrew J[efferson] Offutt V (1934-2013) (Paperback Library, 1970)
Armageddon (See Revelation 16). Conflict between a religious tyranny and a Satanist coven.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Farm of the Future" - Davis Meltzer [pseud.] (National Geographic, 1970)
Illustration with caption depicting the technology based eutopian future of the farm.

The Guardians - [Sam] [Youd] (1922-2012) (Hamish Hamilton, 1970)
Dystopia. Overcrowded cities for the proletariat. Rural life for the aristocracy. Maintained by psychological conditioning and brain surgery.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Homage to Raphael Hythloday" - David Austin; David Page (ARK (Journal of the Royal College of Art, London), 1970)
A eutopian education, with much criticism of even good contemporary education. In Utopia they teach the parents--which includes everyone who the child chooses to learn from--first. That means that no elementary schools are needed, and there are no age or generational distinctions. No one works but people create and make things as and when they choose.
Rpt. without the illus. in Anarchy 115 10.9 (September 1970): 266-268.
Keywords: Male author

"How the Whip Came Back" - Gene [Rodman] Wolfe (1931-2019) (Orbit, 1970)
Dystopia of the reintroduction of slavery.
Rpt. in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Tom Shippey (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1992), 385-99.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Hunter at His Ease." - Brian [Wilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (Science Against Man, 1970)
Dystopia of a future world constantly at war and "Progress" gradually destroying the environment.
Keywords: English author; Male author

I Will Fear No Evil - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1970)
Dystopia of violence.
Rpt. as vol. 1 of The Virginia Edition of his works. Decatur, GA: Meisha Merlin Publishing, 2006 and separately Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2008. Also published in Galaxy Science Fiction 30.4 - 31.1 (July - December 1970): 4-25, 96-184, 100-90; 96-186.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Indians Won - Martin [William] Cruz Smith (b. 1942) (Belmont Books, 1970)
Alternative history in which an independent North American Indian nation occupies half of the area of the U.S.
Rpt. New York: Severn House, 1982.
Keywords: Male author; Native American author

Indoctrinaire - Christopher [McKenzie] Priest (1943-2024) (Faber and Faber, 1970)
Anarchist eutopia set in Brazil 200 years in the future. There is no government. All simple decisions are left to individuals, but they are expected to consult on more complex ones, and there is a social hierarchy based on merit that may be consulted.
U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. U.K. ed. rpt. London: New English Library, 1971. [Rev. ed.] London: Pan, 1979 with an "Afterword" by the author (191-92). Part originally published as "The Interrogator." New Writings in S-F 15. Ed. [Edward] John Carnell (London: Dennis Dobson, 1969), 45-76.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Inside the Machine for Living" - Ross Mendes (Visions 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future, 1970)
Eutopia stressing technology. At thirteen children choose to be apprenticed, go to a university town, or join a Children's Crusade to improve some part of the planet.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

Intensive Care - Janet [Paterson] Frame (1924-2004) (George Braziller, 1970)
Dystopian ending to a family chronicle projected into a future in which a world war leads to a plan to improve the human race and the economy by eliminating all the unfit, including those susceptible to minor illnesses.
Rpt. Wellington, New Zealand: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1971; London: W.H. Allen, 1971; and Auckland, New Zealand: Century Hutchinson, 1987.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Female author

“Interurban Queen” - R[aphael] A[loysius] Lafferty (1914-2002) (Orbit 8: An Anthology of Science Fiction Stories, 1970)
Eutopia created when railroads were chosen over cars and highways.
Rpt. in Looking Ahead: The Vision of Science Fiction. Ed. Dick Allen and Lori Allen (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 87-95, with an editor’s note on 87 and “Questions” on 95; in Car Sinister. Ed. Robert Silverberg, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph Olander (New York: Avon Books, 1979), 134-44; and in The Best of R. A. Lafferty. Ed. Jonathan Strahan (London: Gollancz, 2019), 56-68, with an Introduction by Terry [Ballantine] Bisson (54-55). Rpt. New York: Tor, 2021.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Journey to Utopia - L. A. Glass (Vantage Press, 1970)
The novel describes a search for eutopia that permits the destruction of anything and anyone who gets in the way of the search.
Keywords: Male author; US author

King Strut - [Charles Sumner] Chuck Stone (1924-2014) (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970)
Black revolution presented positively but with substantial satire directed at the way the political system functions, particularly its favoritism and corruption. The novel focuses on a black politician, Hiram Elliott Quinault, possibly based on Adam Clayton Powell (1908-72), who rises to a position of seniority in the House of Representatives. His rise leads to the inevitable backlash from the established white politicians, who uses every means available to demean and diminish him. When a group of black nationalists declare the independence of Blackland in Mississippi from the U.S. and ask Quinault to be their President, he accepts, is expelled from Congress, and assassinated. In retaliation, the black nationalists kill twelve Congressmen and wounding others.
Keywords: African American author; Male author