Shadow of Authority - Robert [Ferns] Waller (1913-2005) (Jonathan Cape, 1956)
Satirical bureaucratic dystopia. A National Publishing Authority is established to control the publication of literature.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Skills of Xanadu" - Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1956)
Xanadu is a eutopia at once primitive and technological, with the technology allowing a natural way of life. See the note at 1949 Sturgeon.
Rpt. in his The Golden Helix (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1979), 166-90; in his To Here and the Easel (London: Panther, 1975), 68-98; and in And Now the News. . . Volume 9. The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Ed. Paul Williams (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2003), 51-79.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"There Will Be School Tomorrow" - V. E. Thiessen (Fantastic Universe, 1956)
Robot teachers programmed to serve the best interests of the children remove their parents.

To Live Forever - Jack [John Holbrook] Vance (1916-2013) (Ballantine Books, 1956)
Dystopia where immortality can be earned, but anyone trying to earn immortality becomes involved in a system of oversight that controls all aspects of life. The novel concerns a man who violates the rules and, in effect, gives people back their freedom.
Rpt. as "Clarges." In Gold and Iron Clarges The Languages of Pao. Vol. 7 of The Complete Works of Jack Vance (Oakland, CA: Vance Integral Editions, 2002), 191-459. UK ed. as To Live Forever. London: Sphere, 1976.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Tomorrow and Tomorrow - [Evan] [Hunter] (1926-2005) (Pyramid, 1956)
Satire of Vicarion, for vicarious, Movement, or Vikes, based on drugs, control of advertising, film, and TV with the slogan "Make-believe is better than reality". People live a vicarious life with all sex vicarious rather than real. An invention makes it possible for each member of the audience to feel the sensations of those in the film. Realists, or Ree, fight back and physical confrontation verges on civil war. At the end a compromise seems possible.
Also entitled Tomorrow's World. New York: Avalon, 1956.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Trap" - Kem[ys Deverell] Deverell] Bennett (1919-86) (Saturday Evening Post, 1956)
Aliens appear on Earth and abduct people from various countries around the world. One returns temporarily and explains that no one else wants to return from the alien planet, which is a cockaigne-like eutopia.
Rpt. in The Post Reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 173-88; Fantasy Voyages: Great Science Fiction from The Saturday Evening Post. [Rev. ed.]. Ed. Vincent Miranda (Indianapolis, IN: Curtis, 1979), 173-88 with an editor’s note on 174; and Wide-Angle Lens: Stories of Time and Space. Ed. Phyllis R. Fenner (New York: William Morrow, 1980), 147-63.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Universal Monetary System of National Credit Control: A Financial Revolution With Nationalized Accounting Merchandising at Cost. A New Democracy Based on Credit Card Currency - [John Bernard] [Ball] (b. 1911) (National Credit Control of America, 1956)
This work describes the author’s proposal for National Credit Control, in which paper currency and coins are replaced by a credit card system. Any economic activity not considered in the public interest is outlawed and refused credit card privileges. This pamphlet discusses farming, which is treated as any other industry, more than his others. Taxes are not levied on farm property or commodities but on produce as it is distributed. In 1957 the author ran in the Canadian federal election as a candidate in Regina, Saskatchewan for the National Credit Control Party, a party of his own creation. His purpose was to publicize the monetary system he developed. See “J.B. Ball National Credit Control” within “Six Candidates Offer Final Election Message.” The Leader-Post (Regina, SK, Canada) 48.132 (June 8, 1957): 3. See also 1956 Ball, Ahoy for Eternity and National Credit and Universal Monetary System of National Credit Control. Regina, SK, Canada: Ball Publishing Co.; The Handbook of the Universal Monetary System of National Credit Control. An Advanced Theory of Government and Finance. Regina, SK, Canada: J. B. Ball; 1961 Ball, Cosmocracy: The Universal Monetary System. Regina, SK, Canada: J.B. Ball; 1978 Ball, Permacredit. Universal Finance for Government & Industry. World Government without Trade Deficits. A Cash System of Accounting without Debt in Industry or Government or Taxes Against Industry or Credit Cards. Foremost, AB: Author; 1980 Ball, The Cosmic Laws of the Spectrum: Evolution and Government. By Barney Ballmark [pseud.]. [Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications];1982 Ball, Technomics. A Better Economy. International. By Barney Ballmark [pseud.]. [Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications]; 1986 Ball, Beyond Capitalism. Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications; and 1988 Ball, The Laws of the Micro Giants. An Odyssean Classic. Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications. Other versions include Technomics in one corporate world. By Barney Ballmark [pseud.]. [Foremost, AB: Author], [1983]; The Technomic Alliance [subtitle on the cover No Taxes on property or income, the obvious solution, total employment]. 3rd ed. By Barney Ballmark [pseud.]. Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications, 1984; Pathway to the Stars: Industrial Democracy Beyond Democracy and Christianity Plus the Photon Theory of Creation. Foremost, AB: Ballmark Publications, 1986. [New ed.] as The Pathway to the Stars. The Photon theory of Creation. Poetry. Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1987. Rpt. as Pathway to the Stars. Industrial Democracy Beyond Capitalism and Christianity Plus the Photon Theory of Creation. Includes Poetry Selections. Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1989. Another ed. as The Pathway to the Stars. By The Hobo Poet [pseud.]. Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1990 in four sections, [“Memoirs, Poetry, and Stories] (1-164),” “Industrial Capitalism--Beyond Capitalism” (165-213), “Gleaning from Prairie Art Shows” (214-29), and “Radiation Properties of Creation” (230-51); Technomics International. Perpetual Payroll Financing for Government and Industry. Rev. October 1986. [Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1986; Industrial Democracy. Beyond Capitalism and Christianity. Includes the Photon Laws of Creation. Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1989; and Industrial Democracy. Beyond Capitalism. This concept of world marketing explains how nations can finance total employment, without international debt, or taxation on property and income. New Economic System. Foremost, AB, Canada: Ballmark Publications, 1990. 53 pp.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

Up Jenkins! - Ronald [Francis] Hingley (1920-2010) (Longmans Green and Co., 1956)
Satire. England is split by a civil war into two warring states. There is a dystopia in the South, known as People's Britain, in which loyalty is based on stupidity and the educational system is based on stimulus response. The North is relatively unchanged. Subversion within the South leads to a Northern victory.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

"Woman's Work" - Garen Drussaï (1916-2009) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York), 1956)
Dystopian satire focusing on door-to-door salesmen.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The World Jones Made - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Ace Books, 1956)
A man who can see a year into the future overthrows a government based on relativism. Both produce authoritarian dystopias.
An Ace Double bound with Margaret St. Clair, Agent of the Unknown (1956), an earlier version of which was published as "Vulcan's Dolls." Startling Stories 25.1 (February 1952): 10-73. Dick rpt. separately Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1979. UK ed. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1968. Rpt. London: Panther, 1970; and London: Victor Gollancz, 2003.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Worlds Without End” - Clifford D[onald] Simak (1904-88) (Future Science Fiction, 1956)
Dystopia in a future run by a number of guilds, one of which sells long term dreams with people then waking up hundreds of years in their future. Another guild has taken control of the dreams so that the people get different dreams than the one’s they chose, dreams that the guild hopes to use to its advantage.
Rpt. in New Folks Home and Other Stories. The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, Volume 6. New York: Open Road Media, 2016. EBook
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Age of the Tail - H[arry] Allen [Wolfgang] Smith (1907-76) (Little, Brown, 1955)
Humor. People grow tails and this changes personal relations and social structures.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Angelo's Moon - Alec [John Charles] Brown (1900-62) (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1955)
Dystopia of the degeneration of the human race and the failure of a utopia called Hypoltania based on science but dependent on the labor of what were called morons. Primitivia or old Britain survives.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Another Antigone" - D. A. C Morrison (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
A eugenic dystopia in which love, poetry, art, etc. have been abolished. Infants with "lesser intelligence" are killed. The "highly-talent" are required to mate. Those believing in souls are exiled from the Earth. A young woman, like Sophocles's (496-406 BCE) Antigone, believes that there are higher laws than those of the rulers and frees an enslaved brain.

Ark of Venus - Clyde B. Clason (1903-87) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1955)
An adventure novel about the colonization of Venus, which is necessary because Earth is an overpopulation dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Atavists" - G. A. Rymer (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
Dystopia of a degenerated world of people of low intelligence deliberately created by the intelligent leaders of the "Total Scientific World State" to serve in factories. They are not sexually active and spend all their time watching T.V. or playing sports. They are called "folksies," speak "Babytalk," and are mostly illiterate.

"Autofac" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1955)
Dystopia. Automated factories and a revolt that destroyed the factory. At the end the remnants of the factory begin to rebuild it.
Rpt. in his The Variable Man and Other Stories (New York: Ace Books, 1957), 182-210; 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), 57-80; in Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick. Ed. Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 145-66; in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 4 The Days of Perky Pat (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 1-20, with the paperback edition having it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 4. The Minority Report (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1991), 1-20; and in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (London: Gollancz, 2017). U. S. ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 183-213 with an “Introduction” by Travis Beacham (181-82).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Before Dawn - Hanbury Pawle (1886-1972) (Hutchinson, 1955)
The novel is about the conflict between Christianity and Communism and the efforts of one man to save the world from Communism.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“Before the Fact” - Zenna [Charlson] Henderson (1917-83) (Universe Science Fiction, 1955)
The story is set in a future eutopia of complete security, health, no government “except in a coordinating capacity” (61) in which the suicide rate is rising, and some people find boring. The story turns, though, on the idea that children’s games and rhymes anticipate the future and, in this case, suggest a dramatic change.
Rpt. in Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson. Ed. Patricia Morgan Lang (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 411-17.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Birthright" - April Smith (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1955)
Eutopia of a beautiful planet that has never experienced problems, where the people work when and as they choose, where the children are raised with love to be independent. While there is a council, there is very little government.
Keywords: Female author

"The Blond Kid" - Herb Sutherland (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
Dystopia of the revival of National Socialism as a future religion worshipping Hitler.
Keywords: Male author

"Bluebird World" - [James Murdoch] [MacGregor] (1925-2008) (New Worlds Science Fiction (London), 1955)
Dystopia of emotion control.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author

The Bright Phoenix - Harold [Charles Hugh] Mead (1910-1997) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
Authoritarian dystopia with an emphasis on eugenics.
Rpt. London: Transworld Publishers, 1960.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Chromium Fence" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Imagination, 1955)
Robot perfection and unsuccessful revolt.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 3 The Father-Thing (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 291-303. The paperback edition has it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 Second Variety (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1991), 291-303; and in The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Three: Upon the Dull Earth [1953-1954]. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2012), 347-61.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Chrysalids - [John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon] [Harris] (1903-69) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
Post-nuclear war future. Religious dystopia set in Canada (Labrador). Emphasis on the traditional physical form of human beings. All plants and animals that mutate are killed. Mutant humans are killed or sterilized. Telepathic mutants develop and are discovered by a telepathic eutopian civilization that has developed in New Zealand.
Rpt. New York: New York Review of Books, 2008 with an “Introduction” (vii-xiii) by Christopher Priest. Some differences between editions. U.S. ed. as Re-Birth. By John Wyndham [pseud.]. New York: Ballantine, 1955. Rpt. as “Re-Birth.” In A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 1: 9-35.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Climbing Wave" - Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-99) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1955)
Anarchist eutopia with a balanced and sustainable attitude toward technology and the environment. Live in small communities. Traditional gender roles. The story is about the crew of a spacecraft that returns to the Earth after hundreds of years and their response to the situation they find.
Rpt. in Science Fantasy (U.K.) 7.19 (1956): 2-60; in If This Goes On. Ed. Charles Nuetzel (Beverly Hills, CA: Book Company of America, [1965]), 172-240; and in The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley. Ed. Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1985), 50-120.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Compleated Angler" - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83) (Startling Stories, 1955)
The background to the story is an overpopulated but seemingly technological eutopian future in which the last wild fish is caught.
Rpt. in his Compounded Interests (Cambridge, MA: The NESFA Press, 1983), 87-93.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Created He Them" - Alice Eleanor Jones (1916-81) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1955)
Post-nuclear war dystopia in which those few children born normal are taken to be raised by an authoritarian state. The story is told from the point of view of an abused wife and mother.
Rpt. in Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century. Ed. Justine Larbalestier (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2006), 65-75; and in The End of the World and Other Catastrophes. Ed. Mike [Michael Raymond Donald] Ashley (London: British Library, 2019), 305-17, with an editor’s note on 303.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Creator's Last Word" - Robert Cumming (21st Century: The Magazine of a Creative Civilization (Sydney, NSW, Australia), 1955)
A brief description of a eutopia in which the Creator has eliminated everything that caused problems in earlier attempts. Bisexual and can have sex in any form for pleasure. Reproduction by parthenogenesis with people chosen by lot. Old people sent to Old Citizens World. Earth was God's first creation in which mistakes were made, and God has lost interest in earlier creations.
Keywords: Male author

"The Crooked Man" - Charles Beaumont (1929-67) (Playboy, 1955)
Dystopia in which heterosexuality is illegal and heterosexuals are hunted. An operation is then required that makes everyone homosexual.
Rpt. in his Hunger, and Other Stories (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1958), 139-48; rpt. (New York: Bantam Books, 1959), 106-13; in his The Fiend (Chicago, IL: Playboy Press, 1971), 61-71; and in The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Chicago, IL: Playboy Press, 1966), 274-85.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Deep Freeze - [John Frederick] Burke (1922-2011) (Hamilton, 1955)
Only women and children are left on the planet, and a feminist eutopia is established. Conflict develops as the boys grow up.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Scottish author

Deep in the Sky. A Science Fiction Novel - Helga Nielsen (Exposition Press, 1955)
Eutopia called Salomnia, with some problems, on a planet called Canta. Everyone must consult with the Board of Adaptation about appropriate work. All medical care free. No alcohol. No tipping. Technologically advanced. Another country on the planet is called Seva is in conflict with Salomnia.
Keywords: Danish author; Female author; US author

"The Finding of the Way" - [John] Hugh MacLennan (1907-90) (The Montrealer, 1955)
Dystopia of mechanical thinking ruled by machines.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

The Forbidden Kingdom - Elleston Trevor (1920-95) (Lutterworth, 1955)
Children’s story where there is a high technology enclave, but the story is mostly intrigue and adventure.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

"Franchise (with apologies to W. S. Gilbert)" - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (If, 1955)
Satire. One individual chosen by computer to vote in any given election.
Rpt. in his Earth Is Room Enough; science fiction tales of our own planet (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1957), 58-73; rpt. (New York: Bantam Books, 1959), 45-59; and in Election Day 2084: A Science Fiction Anthology on the Politics of the Future. Ed. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984), 11-24.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Freedom Charter. Adopted at The Congress of the People. Klipstown, SA, on 26 June 1955" (After Apartheid: Renewal of the South African Economy, 1955)
A political program that is a vision of South Africa after apartheid.
Keywords: South African author

"The Freeway" - Bryce Walton (1918-88) (If, 1955)
The story is set in a future in which some criminals and any nonconformist and condemned to stay in automated cars on freeways constantly traveling.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Girls from Planet 5 - Richard Wilson (1920-1987) (Ballantine Books, 1955)
Satire. Women rule the US and Texas is a man's state. Men take over again because the women had done a bad job.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Gladiator-at-Law - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013); C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Ballantine, 1955)
Capitalist, corporate, machine dominated dystopia with the novel focusing on the struggle to bring down one large, corrupt corporation.
U.K. London: Victor Gollancz, 1964.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“A Glimpse into the Future” - J. Harley (Library Review (New York), 1955)
While a future technological information system is presented as eutopian in that it has radically improved people’s understanding and cultural level, a librarian is wedded to fine books. Set in England

The Golden Promise; A Novel of the Coming Era - Zuber, Stanley (Pageant Press, 1955)
Eutopia of the Global Union, a unification of all races and nations. The equality and empowerment of women, called Fem-Mancipation, is an essential condition for the development of the eutopia. The country of Canarica is presented in which everyone is happy.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"Granny Won't Knit" - Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1955)
Dystopia of extreme privacy. Children raised in crèches and sent to patriarchal, authoritarian families (one boy and one girl each). Some contrast to a eutopia of openness.
Rpt. in All About the Future. Ed. Martin Greenburg (New York: Gnome Press, 1955), 161-214; and in Bright Segment. Volume VIII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Ed. Paul Williams (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2002), 115-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Great Beyond. A.D. 2500. A Trilogy on Progress - Leonard Melling (Torch Pub. Co, 1955)
Occult novel leading to a eutopia in 2500. One religion, one world government with one unified economy, and no prejudice.
Keywords: Male author

"The Happy Clown" - Alice Eleanor Jones (1916-81) (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1955)
Flawed eutopia. The eutopia is consumer oriented and misfits are lobotomized to ensure that everyone fits in.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Hell's Pavement - Damon [Francis] Knight (1922-2002) (Lion Books, 1955)
Dystopia. Attempts to control violence through the implantation of an "analogue", a device that controls supposedly anti-social behavior. Legislation is passed to require such implants, except in the ruling class
Rpt. New York: Avon, 1980. Also entitled Analogue Men. New York: Berkley, 1962. Chapter 1 was published as "The Analogues." Astounding Science Fiction 48.5 (January 1952): 36-45. Parts are based on the story "Turncoat." Thrilling Wonder Stories 42.1 (April 1953): 10-48.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Hood Maker" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Imagination, 1955)
Dystopia in which everyone is surveilled regularly, and a hood is invented that blocks the surveillance.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Two: Second Variety (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 237-48; in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (London: Gollancz, 2017). U. S. ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 117-34 with an “Introduction” by Matthew Graham (114-16).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Image of Splendor" - Lu Kella (Planet Stories, 1955)
Gender-role reversal.
Keywords: Female author

"Inside Straight" - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York), 1955)
A society with an economic system based on gambling proves a match for a society intent on conquest and leads to the abolition of war.
Rpt. in his Seven Conquests (New York: Collier, 1969), 93-116. UK ed. as Conquests (London: Granada, 1981), 105-31; and in The Collected Short Stories of Poul Anderson. Volume 4 Admiralty. Ed. Rick Katze (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2011), 128-45.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Jackson Wong's Story" - Bolsover, John (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
Post-war societies working to rehabilitate the Earth and return damaged areas to livability. Two societies are sketched in. One is controlled with the goal of placing everyone in their appropriate position, with children raised by the state and machines doing most of the productive work. The other is highly organized, but children are raised in families and people do the productive work. Spiritual concerns are important in both societies because the war is thought to have resulted from a lack in this area.
Keywords: Male author

"Life, Incorporated" - Alice Eleanor Jones (1916-81) (Fantastic Universe, 1955)
Eutopia where everyone knows their life span is visited by a thief from Earth who temporarily brings corruption.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Little Orphan Android" - James E[dwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1955)
Dystopia in which androids and robots almost completely control humans and wipe human memories for disobedience. A small group of humans begin to educate themselves so that they can regain power over their lives. One theme is consumer androids developed to keep industrial society consuming goods at the highest possible level, which is similar to 1954 Pohl, "The Midas Plague."
Rpt. in his Future Imperfect (New York: Bantam Books, 1964), 17-45.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Live in Amity" - D. A. Jourdon (Science Fiction Stories, 1955)
Authoritarian religious dystopia.

The Long Tomorrow - Leigh [Douglass] Brackett (1915-78) (Doubleday, 1955)
After an atomic war the New Mennonites become powerful because they know how to survive on the land. They pass the thirtieth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads "No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America." Other religious groups are even more extreme than the New Mennonites. There is a small, threatened enclave that hopes to bring back the old technology.
Rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Long Way Home" - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1955)
Wide-ranging authoritarian dystopia with Anderson’s usual libertarian themes in opposition
Repub. London: Panther, 1975. US ed. New York: Ace Books, 1978. Abridged ed. as No World of Their Own. New York: Ace Books, 1955; and New York: Ace Books, 1955 as an Ace Double bound with Isaac Asimov's The Thousand-Year Plan. Original Title: Foundation, abridged from New York: Gnome, 1951; rpt. as The Long Way Home. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1975 with an "Introduction" (v-vi) by the author. The copyright page says that the book is a reprint of the Ace edition; Anderson's introduction says that it restores the Astounding Science Fiction version. Anderson's version is correct.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Looking Beyond - Lin Yutang (1895-1976) (Prentice-Hall, 1955)
Detailed conservative eutopia based on classical Greek models on an island in the mid-Pacific set in the early 21st century. Stress on traditional gender relations. Outside World War IV has ended, and the Democratic World Commonwealth tries to maintain peace.
UK ed. as The Unexpected Island. London: William Heinemann, 1955.
Keywords: Chinese author; Male author; US author

Love and Lunacy: A Satirical Comedy in Three Acts - Peter Philp (1920-2006) (J. Garnet Miller, 1955)
The three acts take place in Atlantis in the remote past, on an island in the near future, and on Luna and Earth in the remote future. Atlantis is vaguely utopian, but, in the play, it is primarily the setting for a "peace conference" among the major powers of the time, which ends with Zeus's destruction of Atlantis. The second and third acts are dystopian, with another failed peace conference followed by an authoritarian regime on the moon. The play ends with the death of the dictator.
Keywords: Male author; Welsh author

The Man With Only One Head - [Douglas Norton] [Buttrey] (1918-1994) (Rich and Cowan, 1955)
The novel focuses on the fact that after a nuclear catastrophe only one man is fertile, but, in a twist on the usual plot, he is condemned for impregnating a woman.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Mistress of Viridis" - Margaret [Neeley] St. Clair (1911-95) (Universe Science Fiction, 1955)
Class based authoritarian dystopia primarily as background to a science-out-of-control story.
Repub. as The Green Queen. New York: Ace Books, 1956. Ace Double bound with Thomas Calvert McClary, Three Thousand Years (1954).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Mother of Necessity" - [Symmes[ Chad[wick] Oliver (1928-1993) (Another Kind, 1955)
Eutopia. Short story describing a future city called Fullcircle that incorporates the best of all previous city designs. It gradually replaces all previous social organizations.
Rpt. in Great Science Fiction By Scientists. Ed. Groff Conklin, 1962), 243-56 with an editor's note on 242; 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), 27-38; and in his A Star Above It and other stories. volume 1 of selected stories [Dust jacket title is A Star Above It: Selected Short Stories of Chad Oliver. Volume 1]. Ed. Priscilla Olson (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2003), 229-40.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Next Step in Civilization; A Star to Steer By - F[rederick] Creedy (1883-1962) (Truth is Enough, 1955)
Presents a society in the Amazonian jungle in which everyone tries to become more like Christ. This produces a eutopia in which there is fundamental equality. Two day's of labor is required each week where each person has a "chore" that is productive labor. "Work" is what else they do, such as writing, art, and publishing.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author

"No Gun to the Victor" - Theodore [Rose] Cogswell (1918-87) (Imagination, 1955)
Dystopia of conditioning and violence.
Rpt. in Science-Fiction Monthly (Melbourne, VIC, Australia), no. 9 (May 1956): 87-88, 90-92, 94-98; in his Third Eye (New York: Belmont Books, 1968), 7-17; The First Theodore R. Cogswell Megapack®: 16 Classic Science Fiction Stories. Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2014. ebook; and rev as “Consumer’s Report.” Voyages: Scenarios for a Ship Called Earth. Ed. Rob Sauer (New York: Zero Population Growth and Ballantine, 1971), 250-62.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Not This August - C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Doubleday, 1955)
Dystopia of the U.S. under a combined Chinese and Soviet Communism, which is defeated in the last pages.
Garden City, NY Doubleday_
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Panel Game" - Brian W[ilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (New Worlds Science Fiction, 1955)
Dystopia with society organized around a consumption band, which reflects income. Television, which cannot be turned off and is primarily a means of reminding consumers of the products they are required to buy, is organized by these bands.
Rpt. in his Space, Time and Nathaniel (presciences) (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), 187-99.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Point Ultimate - [Gerald Allan] [Sohl] [Sr.] (1913-2002) (Rinehart & Co, 1955)
A future America is conquered by Communists, creating an authoritarian dystopia. Much of the novel is about the revolt against it.
Rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1959.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Preferred Risk - [Frederik George] [Pohl] [Jr.] (1919-2013]; [Leonard] [Knapp] (1915-93) (Simon & Schuster, 1955)
Insurance companies control the world.
Also published in Galaxy Science Fiction (New York) 10.3 - 6 (June - September 1955): 6-54, 104-43, 112-43, 100-43. Rpt. as by Pohl and Lester del Rey. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Private Volcano: A Modern Novel of Science and Imagination - Lance[lot de Giberne] Sieveking (1896-1972) (Ward, Lock, 1955)
An abundance of gold brings misery followed by prosperity and world peace.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Rafferty's Reasons" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Fantastic Universe (New York), 1955)
Dystopia in which people are required to do work that machines could do as well or better and are taught to do that work by the machines.
Rpt. in his Alternating Currents (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956), 83-96.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Reprieve from Paradise - H[arry] Chandler Elliott (1909-78) (Gnome, 1955)
Dystopia set after an atomic war. Extreme overpopulation is produced by an ethos that encourages reproduction, which means that the entire economy is directed at producing food. The majority of the people, called Freemen, are bred for docility and low intelligence. An underground movement with a hidden city at the South Pole aims to re-establish intelligence, and the people of the city are intelligent, revive science and human community, and, at the end of the novel, are in a position to create a better future for the entire world.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"The Right Thing" - William Andrew (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
The story deals with two post-catastrophe dystopias. One is religious with women inferior; the other is non-religious and promiscuous and lives underground.
Keywords: Male author

"The Servant Problem" - [Philip] [Klass] (1920-2010) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1955)
Satiric authoritarian dystopia in which each of a series of people believe that they have absolute power because they have power over the one who is apparently more powerful.
Rpt. in his The Human Angle (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956), 44-75; and in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn. Volume 1 (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2001), 393-413 ("Afterword" 414).
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Short History of the Future - R[eginald] C[harles] Churchill (1916-86) (Werner Laurie, 1955)
Future history of the period 1967-6601 based on the writers of dystopias.
Keywords: Male author

A Sign of the Times - Robert Kee (1919-2013) (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955)
Near future authoritarian dystopia focusing on the Inter-Governmental Regroupment Agency for Maladjusted Persons which decides who is maladjusted and "cures" them. Much humor.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Solar Lottery - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Ace Books, 1955)
Dystopia set in 2203 A.D. with power distributed and changed randomly. Corruption has developed and power is actually going to the few. Domination by industrial combines. The people are poor. Violence and fascination with death and cruelty. Rebellion.
Rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1976. U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 2003. The U.K. ed. World of Chance. London: Rich and Cowan, 1956 is substantially different and some experts say the changes were unauthorized while others say that Dick provided the publisher with what they asked as he had with the Ace Books edition.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Spud Failure Definite" - Noel Peart (A.D. 2500: The Observer Prize Stories 1954, 1955)
The failure of the potato crop leads to a new Irish famine. Famines are very common and are relieved by delivering tons of canned mouse meat. Most of the story is about the bureaucratic bungling in response.
Keywords: Male author

Star Bridge - Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (1908-2006); James E[dwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (Gnome Press, 1955)
Authoritarian dystopia in which a company controls the earth and the rebellion against it.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Star Ship" - E[dwin] C[harles] Tubb (1919-2010) (New Worlds Science Fiction (London), 1955)
Dystopia of a multi-generation spaceship. All must die by age forty. Dueling is used to eliminate the unfit, for room, and so forth.
Repub. as The Space-Born. New York: Ace, 1956. Ace Double bound with Philip K[indred] Dick's The Man Who Japed (1956).
Keywords: English author; Male author

This Fortress World - James E[dwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (Gnome Press, 1955)
Mostly adventure but includes a dystopia with a dominant religion. The society has four classes, the nobility, the church, free-traders, and mercenaries, who are hired killers.
Abr. ed. New York: Ace Books, 1957.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“This Thing Called Love” - [Agnes] Carol[lyn] [Fries] Emshwiller (1921-2019) (Future Science Fiction, 1955)
In a future dominated by television, people are expected to fall in love with TV stars whose programs are designed specific to cater to them. In the story, a man wants love from his wife.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"A Ticket to Tranai" - Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1955)
A dystopia is a supposed eutopia because there are no laws. But all women are kept in stasis, taxation is by robbery, divorce is by murder, and governmental change is by assassination.
Rpt. in his Citizen in Space (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 108-47; in The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley. Book One (Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1991), 241-77; and in his The Masque of Mañana. Ed. Sharon L. Sbarsky (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2005), 251-82.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Tomorrow Revealed - John [Alfred Neville] Atkins (1916-2009) (Neville Spearman, 1955)
Humor about the future based on fiction. Send up of utopians, among others.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Tunnel Under the World" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1955)
Dystopia of pervasive advertising in which a town is taken over by advertisers as a test market for their ads.
Rpt. in his Alternating Currents (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956), 112-43; Tomorrow, Inc. SF Stories About Big Business. Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander (New York: Taplinger, 1976), 36-66; in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Tom Shippey (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1992), 247-77; and in A Science Fiction Omnibus. Ed. Brian Aldiss (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 242-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Twilight Years” - Kirk Drussaï (1919-2001); Garen Drussaï (1916-2009) (If, 1955)
The story takes place in a future where those over sixty are being killed by the young with such killings broadcast on television on a program “sponsored, as a Public Service, by the National Casket Company” (117).
Rpt. in The First World of If. Ed. James L. Quinn and Eva Wulff (Kingston, NY: Quinn Publishing Co., 1957): 102-.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

"Two-Handed Engine" - Henry Kuttner (1914-58); Catherine L[ucille] Moore (1911-87) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1955)
Dystopia of a machine-dominated society with the judicial system and police replaced by almost infallible machines.
Rpt. in their No Boundaries (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 123-49; in Criminal Justice Through Science Fiction. Ed. Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg (New York: New Viewpoints, 1977), 146-67, with an editors’ note on 146; and in Menace of the Machine: The Rise of AI in Classic Science Fiction. Ed. Mike [Michael Raymond Donald] Ashley (London: British Library, 2019), 267-97, with an editor’s note on 265.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

The Urantia® Book (Urantia Foundation, 1955)
Mostly a spiritualist religious book which traces the history of the universe and then of the solar system and life within it and the development of that life. Spiritual beings oversaw human development and taught humans the life skills they needed for survival. A fall from grace of the spiritual beings is described. Then the history of humanity up to the coming of Christ is given. Paper 72 (808-20) by Melchizedek of Nebadon presents “Government on a Neighboring Planet” as a eutopia focusing on one fairly small, isolated continent. Other sections described the governmental and social structures of, among others, the Seraphim. See also William S[amuel Sadler, Jr. (1875-1963), A Study of the Master Universe: A Development of the Urantia Book. Chicago, IL: Second Society Books, 1968.
Keywords: US author

Utopia 1976 - Morris L[eopold] Ernst (1888-1976) (Rinehart & Co, 1955)
A detailed eutopia describing the life of 1976 which, although called a utopia, is written as a prophecy and said to be attainable in only twenty years. There is much on the current situation and change is brought about both by technology, particularly atomic energy, and changes in attitude. Birth control, which he says the Roman Catholic Church will strongly support, is essential. Much more leisure.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Utopia 239 - [Stanley Bennett] [Hough] (1917-1998) (Heinemann, 1955)
The novel begins in the dystopia of the 1950s Cold War and the control of scientific research. During that time, people began to establish small communities called Utopia 1, 2, 3, and so forth. Utopia 239 is a future scientifically advanced flawed utopia of complete freedom, which appears dystopian to travelers from the outside world and some of its own members. The latter establish their version of a better society in New Zealand with government, law, the military, and so forth, creating another flawed utopia.
Keywords: English author

"Vespers" - W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden (1907-73) (Encounter, 1955)
Contrasts an Arcadia and a Utopian.
Rpt. in his The Shield of Achilles (New York: Random House, 1955), 77-80. U.K. ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1955), 74-77; his Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 227-229; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume II 1940-1973. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 439-441, with a Textual Note on 968-969.
Keywords: English author; Male author

When the Moon Died - [Ivan] [Roe] (Ward, Lock, 1955)
Flawed utopia. World Technocracy is a world government that governs through six scientific committees. The belief that it is a utopia meant that little new was approved. There is no central government. Believe only in the useful and live only in the present. Music only for babies and the "unsound". Servants for the upper classes all had genetic defects and were not educated.
Rpt. London: Brown, Watson, [1963].
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Whooping Crane - H[elen] C. Kreisheimer (1897-1972) (Pageant Press, 1955)
Dystopia of communism.
Keywords: Female author; US author

A World of Difference: A Modern Novel of Science and Imagination - [George] Robert [Acworth] Conquest (1917-2015) (Ward, Lock, 1955)
An apparent eutopia is threatened by the government's use of technology to control people psychologically.
Rpt. (although specially labeled "not a reprint") without the subtitle New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Year of the Comet - [Sam] [Youd] (1922-2012) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
A corporate dystopia with the world divided into companies rather than nations.
US ed. as Planet in Peril. New York: Avon, 1959.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“183rd Congress” - Roy H[anden] Millenson (1921-2017) (Science Fiction Adventures, 1954)
Satire on the future of the U.S. political system.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Academy": - Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) (If (Buffalo, NY), 1954)
Dystopia of a society organized around Sanity Meters. The Academy provides drug induced dreams as an alternative to psychosurgery.
Rpt. in The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley. Book Two (Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1991), 143-64.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Another World - James Eugène Even (Meador Pub. Co, 1954)
A rational, scientific, authoritarian eutopia with a world government and one language.
Keywords: Male author

Australianism: A New Way of Life Through Co-operation - A[rthur] J[ohn] Fisher (John Fisher, 1954)
Eutopia brought about through the creation of cooperative communities. Rejects socialism. Home ownership essential. No taxation. Get rid of middlemen. Stress on leisure. Irrigation schemes. The author says that Australia is best placed to begin the changes needed and to lead in reforming the world.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

The Big Ball of Wax; A Story of Tomorrow's Happy World - [Edward] Shepherd Mead (1914-94) (Simon & Schuster, 1954)
An advertising dystopia. A satire on corporate power in which an invention that can broadcast sensations directly to the brain is used to enhance sales after its use initially caused them to drop.
UK ed. London: T.V. Boardman, 1955. Rpt. London: Mayflower Books, 1962.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Big Trip Up Yonder" - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1954)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Rpt. in Assignment for Tomorrow: An Anthology. Ed. Frederik Pohl (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1954), 123-46; in his Canary in a Cat House (Greenwich, CT: Gold Medal Books, 1962); and rev. as "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow." In his Welcome to the Monkey House. A Collection of Short Works (New York: Seymour Lawrence/Delacorte Press, 1968), 284-98. Rpt. (New York: Dell, 1970), 293-308.  Rpt. in Eco-Fiction. Ed. John Stadler (New York: Washington Square Press/Pocket Books, 1971), 119-33; in Looking Ahead: The Vision of Science Fiction. Ed. Dick Allen and Lori Allen (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 267-79, with an editor’s note on 267 and “Questions” on 278-79; in Novels & Stories 1950-1962 Player Piano The Sirens of Titan Mother Night Stories. Ed. Sidney Offit (New York: The Library of America, 2012), 748-62, with a Note on the Text (822) and Notes (833); and in his Complete Stories. Ed. Jerome Klinkowitz & Dan Wakefield (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017), 884-94. PSt, Public
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Conquered Place - Robert Shafer (b. 1920) (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1954)
An authoritarian dystopia in which the US is occupied by an enemy.
Rpt. as The Naked and the Damned. New York: Popular, 1955.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Crusoe Warburton - Victor Wallace Germains (b. 1888) (Coward-McCann, 1954)
The first section of the novel is a Robinsonade in which a shipwrecked sailor uses the material from the ship (rather more extensive and luxurious than in the 1719 Defoe original) to create a home for himself on an isolated island. He then rescues a small group of people of a lost race who, in the classic lost race scenario, had been expelled from their island by an evil prince. Then he conquers the island they had come from, is established as a god-king, and plans to create an empire.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Down to Earth - [Harry] Paul Capon (1911/12-69) (Heinemann, 1954)
Last volume of a trilogy. See 1950 and 1952 Capon. This volume focuses on the struggle to return to Earth and attempts by people on Earth to exploit the planet. The author wrote another utopian novel; see 1956 Capon.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"DP" - Arthur Dekker Savage (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
Dystopia. Flaws of government-provided perfection.
Keywords: Male author

An Earth Gone Mad - [Roger Dee] [Aycock] (1914-2004) (Ace Books, 1954)
Dystopia of mental submission to an authoritarian cult.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Enterprise 2115 - [Edwin Charles] [Tubb] (1919-2010) (Merit Books, 1954)
Computer dystopia in which civilization has become too rigid from relying too much on the computers.
US ed. under the author's name as The Mechanical Monarch. New York: Ace Books, 1958. Ace Double bound with Charles L. Fontenay, Twice Upon a Time.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Fabulous Journey of Hieronymous Meeker - [Willy Johns] [Meeker] (Little, Brown, 1954)
Gulliver type on an unknown planet. There is one dystopian country of humanoid plants and one dystopian country of vicious, warlike giants. Another country is a satire on the United States in the early 1950s with specific reference to Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57) and his anti-Communist crusade. The novel ends with an inegalitarian eutopia in which each person takes on the physical characteristics of their position in society. The society recognizes no absolutes. Its aims to practice freedom from religion, from vegetarians, from temperance, from feminism, and from progress as well as freedom of difference and freedom of laughter. Its chief ideal is increasing awareness. Includes a discussion and rejection of the concept of utopia (304-07). The beginning of the novel and the Epilogue are set on a post-World War 4 physically devastated but overpopulated Earth dominated by the American Empire.
Keywords: Male author; US author

False Night - Algis [Algirdas Jonas] Budrys (1931-2008) (Lion Books, 1954)
Post-catastrophe (plague) survivalist dystopia as seen through different protagonists over a half century, with much of it concerned with conflicts among the protagonists.
A longer version published as Some Will Not Die, Here is Tomorrow. Evanston, IL: Regency Books, 1961. Further revised without the subtitle. Illus. Frank Kelley Freas. Norfolk, VA: Starblaze/Donning, 1978. Rpt. New York: Dell, 1979. Chapter 6 was originally published as “Ironclad.” Galaxy Science Fiction (New York) 7.6 (March 1954): 76-101.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Foster, You're Dead" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Star Science Fiction Stories, 1954)
Dystopia in which people are chosen for access to fallout shelters based on their ability to contribute to society.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Three: The Father-Thing (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 221-37; in The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Three: Upon the Dull Earth [1953-1954] (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2012), 265-84; in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (London: Gollancz, 2017). U. S. ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 138-62 with an “Introduction” by Kalen Egan and Travis Sentell (135-37).
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Foundling on Venus” - Dorothy de Courcy; John de Courcy (Fantastic Universe, 1954)
The story is set on a Venus that is divided into four sections, one of “Negroes,” one of Asians, one a Martian prison camp, and one of people from Earth trying, and usually failing, to strike in rich from Venus’s minerals. Everyone is miserable, everything is filthy, and most people are violent and short-lived.
Rpt. in Born of the Sun: Adventures in Our Solar System. Ed. Mike Ashley (London: British Library, 2020), 97-107, with an introduction to Venus on 88-95.
Keywords: Female author; Male author

From a Christian Ghetto: Letters of Ghostly Wit, Written A.D. 2453 - [John] Geddes MacGregor (Longmans, Green, 1954)
Dystopia. Authoritarian with a heavy use of drugs. It is anti-religious and anti-intellectual with a limit of twenty minutes on any single subject in universities. Christianity is considered a disease, and Christians are limited to ghettos, tortured, and always liable to punishment. Presented through the letters from a Christian professor to his student. The teacher is martyred at the end.
Keywords: Male author; UK author; US author

“Frozen Foods 2000 AD” - Edwin William Williams (1908-1997) (Quick Frozen Foods, 1954)
A version of the sleeper wakes in which a man is accidentally knocked out in the 1950s and appears to awake in a 2000 quite different from that in Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888). In the ‘50s all the frozen food businesses are going broke from undermining each other. In 2000, they have combined through what is called an Impartial Industrial Authority, as have other industries. Essentially, each industry controls everything related to the industry, such as, for example, food is only available frozen and it is available everywhere. All work industries in tandem to create a society where cities are air conditioned, “the function of government is to serve industry, not run it” (104), minimum prices are set by law, and supply and demand was equalized. For analysis and context, see Justin Nordstrom, “A Frozen Fantasy for Cold War America.” Utopian Studies 34.2 (2023): 174-192.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Hail to the Chief" - Sam Sackett (Future Science Fiction, 1954)
Authoritarian dystopia as seen through the eyes of a man who intends to kill its head so that democracy can be reestablished.
Keywords: Male author

"Half a World" - Curt Merrick (ONE: The Homosexual Magazine, 1954)
Brief dream of a future eutopia where heterosexuals and homosexuals cooperate.
Keywords: Male author

"Invasion from the Stratosphere" - Aileen [Lucia] Fisher (1906-2002); Olive Rabe (United Nations Plays and Programs, 1954)
Brief eutopia. An invading force of aliens, who were counting on the propensity of Earth's population for fighting each other, discovers a unified Earth starting to fight Earth's problems.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"It's Such a Beautiful Day" - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (Star Science Fiction Stories, 1954)
Future where people have cut themselves off from the natural world.
Rpt. in his Through a Glass, Clearly (London: New English Library, 1967), 7-27; and in Eco-Fiction. Ed. John Stadler (New York: Washington Square Press/Pocket Books, 1971), 178-201.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Kurrajong. Sit-Look-See - [William] Hardy Wilson (1881-1955) (Author, 1954)
Eutopia. A new capital city of Australia designed to amalgamate the best of the Eastern and Western cultures. Sit-Look-See is the translation of the Aboriginal word Kurrajong, which is the site for his proposed city. He describes the city by referring to plates that are not in the book; a note says that they were given to the Commonwealth National Library, except for four which he kept.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author

"The Laminated Woman" - Evelyn E. Smith (1927-2000) (Fantastic Universe, 1954)
Satire in which women regularly change their skin and hair color and body shape.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Last of the Masters" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Orbit Science Fiction, 1954)
Conflict between the last of the robots that had dominated an authoritarian system and the anarchist league that overthrew them.
Rpt. in Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick. Ed. Patricia Warrick and Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 103-28; in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 3 The Father-Thing (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 75-99. The paperback edition has it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 3 Second Variety (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1991), 75-99; in The Early Work of Philip K. Dick. Volume Two: Breakfast at Twilight & Other Stories. Series ed. Gregg Rickman ([Rockville, MD]: Prime Books, 2009), 97-131, with a note on the story on 283; in The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Three: Upon the Dull Earth [1953-1954]. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2012), 93-122; and illus. Blair Gauntt in AnarchoSF: Science Fiction and the Stateless Society [Cover adds Volume 1]. Ed. Dana Rich (Victor, IA: Obsolete Press, 2014), 93-124.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Long Way Back - Margot M. Bennett (1912-80) (The Bodley Head, 1954)
Future authoritarian dystopia of science in Africa whose explorers discover primitive life in Britain.
US ed. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Female author; Scottish author

Lord of the Flies - William Golding (1911-93) (Faber & Faber, 1954)
Dystopia. Children left alone on a island revert to a violent, primitive existence showing that civilization is only a veneer.
U.S. ed. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955. Rpt. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1999. 50th anniversary ed. New York: Berkley, 2004. Rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 2016 with a “Foreword” by Lois Lowry (xi-xv), an “Introduction” by Stephen King (xvii-xxii) rpt. from the London: Faber & Faber, 2011 edition, “On Reading and Teaching Lord of the Flies” by Jennifer Buehler (263-76), “Suggestions for Further Exploration” by Jennifer Buehler (277-93), “Introduction to the 1962 Edition” by E.M. Forster (295-300), and “Notes on Lord of the Flies from the 1959 Edition” by E[dmund] L. Epstein (301-07). Films in 1963 directed and with a screenplay by Peter Brook (b. 1925) and in 1990 directed by Harry Hook with the screenplay by Jay [Jacqueline] Presson Allen (1932-2006) writing as Sara Schiff [pseud.]. A TV takeoff on the book appeared as on “Das Bus.” The Simpsons. Season 9, Episode 14 (February 15, 1998), written by David S. Cohen in which Bart, Lisa and other children from Springfield Elementary School are stranded on an island and are forced to work together.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Lovers in Mars - Lucile Palmer (Sargent House Publishers, 1954)
A eutopian Mars that is extremely wealthy due to very advanced technology, an elaborate eugenic program, and a limited population. The focus of the novel is on the group marriage system, which is unappealing to the young lovers from earth.
Keywords: Female author

Messiah - Gore Vidal (1925-2012) (E. P. Dutton, 1954)
Religious dystopia in which the religion, which has no belief in god or an afterlife, preaches that life is not worth living. The Messiah, a mortician, says that it is good to die and gains millions of followers. The history of the movement is told by one of its first supporters.
Rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1954. U.K. ed. London: William Heinemann, 1955. 256 pp. Rpt. London: Panther, 1977. Rev. ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1965. Rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979; which is rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1980 with an “Introduction” by Elizabeth A. Lynn (v-xvi).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Midas Plague" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1954)
Dystopia. The development of effective fusion power means that anything can be produced cheaply and the human race goes on a production and consumption binge. Over time consumption does not keep up with production, and laws are passed to require consumption. This results in a status system in which the poor must consume at a higher rate than the rich. The story is about a poor man who solves the problem by creating robots that can both produce and consume.
Rpt. in All About the Future. Ed. Martin Greenburg (New York: Gnome Press, 1955), 27-80; in Spectrum: A Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961), 13-67; in American Utopias: Selected Short Fiction. Ed. Arthur O. Lewis, Jr. New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1971. All items separately paged. In this case the text has been reset, there are no page numbers, and the illustrations in the original are not included; and in his Midas World (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 5-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Once Upon a Space - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1954)
Authoritarian dystopia where people degenerate. There are some rebels.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Peace" - Norman Arkawy; Stanley Henig (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
Brief dystopia following a war with Venus. The apparently peaceful Venusians impose a military organization, negative eugenics, and euthanasia as a means of population control.
Keywords: Male author

"Peace Agent" - M. C. Pease (Science Fiction Stories, 1954)
Dystopia. A conflict is developing between a new social form, the clan, which hires itself out to businesses with guarantees of performance and the old lower classes who are losing their jobs. In one town the conflict is being fostered by one man who runs the town and encourages attacks on the clans. In this town an independent man helps bring peace, but the same pattern is said to be common throughout the US.

"Peace On Earth" - Irving E[ngland] Cox Jr. (1917-2001) (Future Science Fiction, 1954)
Dystopia of a false utopia as a mechanism of social control.
Keywords: Male author

"Progeny" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (If (Buffalo, NY), 1954)
Dystopia of children raised by robots.
Rpt. in his A Handful of Darkness (London: Rich and Cowan, 1955), 158-76; rpt. London: Panther, 1966), 127-43; and in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 Second Variety (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 93-107. The paperback edition has it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1992), 93-107.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Quickie" - Milton [S.] Lesser (1928-2008) (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
Satire. Future eutopia of multiple, short-term marriages.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Rations of Tantalus" - Margaret [Neeley] St. Clair (1911-95) (Fantastic Universe, 1954)
An apparently eutopian society of near immortals that is controlled through the pills everyone takes daily, one of which controls their moods.
Rpt. as “The Rages.” In her Three Worlds of Futurity (New York: Ace, 1964), 76-113. Ace Double bound with her Message from the Eocene (1964).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Rite of Passage" - [Symmes[ Chad[wick] Oliver (1928-1993) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1954)
Two societies, both eutopias, although it is said that they are real and thus not utopias. One is technological and the other rejects technology and appears primitive but is in fact the more advanced.
Rpt. in his Another Kind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 15-60; and in his Far From This Earth and other stories. Volume 2 of selected stories [Dust jacket title is Far From This Earth: Selected Short Stories of Chad Oliver. Volume 2]. Ed. Priscilla Olson (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2003), 249-84.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sales Pitch" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Future Science Fiction (US), 1954)
Inescapable automated sales pitches create a dystopia.
Rpt. in his The Golden Man. Ed. Mark Hurst (New York: Berkley, 1980), 254-269; in Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick. Ed. Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 90-102; in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 3 The Father-Thing (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 175-87 with the paperback edition having it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 3 Second Variety (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1991), 175-87; in The Early Work of Philip K. Dick. Volume Two: Breakfast at Twilight & Other Stories. Series ed. Gregg Rickman ([Rockville, MD]: Prime Books, 2009), 190-207, with a note on the story on 286; in The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Three: Upon the Dull Earth [1953-1954]. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2012), 211-25; and in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (London: Gollancz, 2017). U. S. ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 77-95, with an “Introduction” by Tony Grisoni (74-76).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Search the Sky - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013); C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Ballantine, 1954)
Dystopia. Although humans have colonized space, they have degenerated and are in danger of dying out and few people care. One person is searching for the answer and by the end of the novel it becomes possible to rebuild a vigorous humanity.
UK ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1970. Rev. ed. New York: Baen Books, 1985. According to a note on the copyright page, this edition is substantially different from the earlier one.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Servant Problem" - T[helma] D. Hamm (1905-94) (Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, 1954)
Humorous dystopian story about a robot servant.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Skulking Permit" - Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1954)
Satire. An agrarian eutopia wants to be civilized so they appoint a criminal. He fails.
Rpt. in his Citizen in Space (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 154-80; in The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley. Book One (Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1991), 285-310; and in his The Masque of Mañana. Ed. Sharon L. Sbarsky (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2005), 181-202.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Small Town" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1954)
A man creates an ideal small town for his basement train set, which becomes the reality in the town where he lives.
Rpt. in Amazing Stories 41.1 (April 1967): 130-45. Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 Second Variety (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 341-53. The paperback edition has it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1992), 341-53.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Souvenir" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Fantastic Universe (New York), 1954)
Dystopia of conformity.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 Second Variety (Los Angeles, CA/Columbia, PA: Underwood/Miller, 1987), 355-65. The paperback edition has it in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Vol. 2 We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (New York: Citadel Twilight, 1992), 355-65; and in The Early Work of Philip K. Dick. Volume One: The Variable Man & Other Stories. Series ed. Gregg Rickman ([Rockville, MD]: Prime Books, 2009), 378-92, with a note on the story on 409.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Stand Fast Beloved City - [Martha Edith von] Almedingen (1898-1971) (Hutchinson, 1954)
Authoritarian dystopia set in a small, isolated city. A small group of people, fourteen men and fourteen women, who are known as the Centre, control everything.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Russian author

The Story of Sourwegia A Newly Discovered Continent-Island in the Pacific - Harold C[live] Kimball Sr. (Author, 1954)
Satire set on an imaginary Pacific island. There is a description of the islanders, their custom of every wife having three husbands (connubial, domestic, and business manager), their improved sense of smell, their food, and their manufactured goods. The animals of the island are also presented.
Keywords: Male author

"Subsistence Level" - [Robert] [Sheckley] (1928-2005) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1954)
Satirical story about the colonization of space depicted as hard work for the colonizers, but technology does almost all the work.
Rpt. in The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley. Book Three (Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1991), 304-18.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Test" - Richard [Burton] Matheson (1926-2013) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1954)
Dystopia in which older people are required to take a test that checks intellectual, physical, and psychological competence. Those who fail must die.
Rpt. in If This Goes On. Ed. Charles Nuetzel (Beverly Hills, CA: Book Company of America, [1965]), 19-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"They'd Rather Be Right" - Mark [Irvin] Clifton (1906-63); [Frank Wilbert] [Ryhlick] (1915-1996) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1954)
A computer makes human beings telepathic and immortal, and the novel is concerned with the reactions of people to the new possibilities.
Repub. New York: Gnome Press, 1957. Rpt. Ed. Hank Stine. Illus. M. W. Carroll, Norfolk, VA: Starblaze Editions/Donning, 1981. Also published as The Forever Machine. New York: Galaxy, [1958]. Rpt. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Thirty Years to Win - Paul E[dmond] Bacas (Richard R. Smith, 1954)
Detailed nationalist, pro-business eutopia of the America the Substantial Movement set in 1983. It was ". . . formed to improve the standing of the United States among the nations of the earth" (100). Much of the book is concerned first with life in 1953, then with the established of the movement and the very eclectic principles that should govern it, and then with the history of the U.S. from 1953 to 1983.
Keywords: Male author

"A Word for Freedom" - James E[dwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
Dystopia of stratification and technological control. Contrast is provided by a practical joker.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Work-Out Planet" - R[aymond] E[ugene] Banks (1918-96) (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
A future earth totally dedicated to work, learning, and culture is a dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"World Without War" - E.G. von Wald (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1954)
Dystopian world where everyone constantly fights each other.

Year of Consent - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Dell Publishing Co, 1954)
Dystopia in which public relations experts have taken over the government and used their position to create a population that consents to anything. The few people who still maintain their individuality are surgically cured. The novel is concerned with a man who fights back.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Zahatopolk" - Bertrand [Arthur William] Russell (1872-1970) (Nightmares of Eminent Persons, 1954)
Religious dystopia.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Bertrand Russell. Comp and ed. Barry Feinberg (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972), 2-110.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

Against the Fall of Night - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008) (Gnome Press, 1953)
Flawed utopia. A city that has stagnated regains contact with a rural, telepathic utopia that has also stagnated. Cross-fertilization helps both. See also 1990 Clarke and Benford, where Against the Fall of Night is rpt. as Part I (14-145) and 2004 Benford where the relationship among the three volumes is explained in an “Afterword.”
Rpt. as Part I (14-145) in Clarke and Gregory [Albert] Benford (b. 1941). Beyond the Fall of Night. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990; and New York: iBooks, 2005. Both the advertising and the back cover say that the book includes the added short story “Jupiter Five,” which was first published in If Worlds of Science Fiction (Buffalo, NY) 2.2 (May 1953): 4-28, 75 and has nothing to do with the novel, but there is no such story in the book. Exp. version of “Against the Fall of Night.” Startling Stories (Kokomo, IN) 18 (November 1948): 11-70. Rev. version entitled The City and The Stars. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956; rpt. New York: Signet Books, 1957.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Another Space--Another Time - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia that limits scientific activity through the SS (Science Security), which oversees all scientific work and decides on its usefulness. But in the novel, the science goes wrong and opens Earth to the possibility of an alien invasion, and the SS agents are the good guys.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Big Holiday" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Eutopian holiday. There is one holiday each year lasting three days and stressing friendship, love, laziness, fun, and joy. No one can be concerned with money, success, hurry, worry, and glamour. Instituted because holidays had become profit centers and were no longer holidays.
Rpt. in The Best of Fritz Leiber (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), 179-202; and in The Best of Fritz Leiber (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1974), 165-72.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Boy With Five Fingers” - James [Edwin] Gunn (1923-2020) (Startling Stories, 1953)
Short story set in a future where the people are all mutants brought about by past atomic wars told from the perspective of a boy who is normal by past standards, sees his future world as clearly better than the past, and is glad that their Basic Rule is that everyone has the right to be different.
Rpt. in Microcosmic Tales: 100 Wondrous Science Fiction Short-Short Stories. Ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1980); rpt. (New York: DAW Books, 1992), 271-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Brain Ultimate - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia. An interplanetary union is controlled by an Interplanetary Dictator and its rules are enforced ruthlessly. In the novel scientific advances in brain power enable contact with others in the universe and the dictatorship ends in cooperation with others.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“The Calibrated People” - W[illiam] T[reval] Powers (1926-2013) (Universe Science Fiction, 1953)
The story is set in a highly structured future in which everyone becomes an adult at ten, and, at that point, if they meet its educational, physical, and psychological standards, chooses their future education and career.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Captive Audience" - Ann Warren Griffith (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Dystopia in which commercials are broadcast by the products that are available for purchase and earplugs are illegal.
Keywords: Female author

The Cave and the Rock - Raoul C[ohen] Faure (b. 1909) (William Morrow, 1953)
Similar to George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) but uses peaceful and warlike lizards to represent human tendencies.
Keywords: Male author

"The Caves of Steel" - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Overpopulation dystopia as background to a murder mystery solved by a robot and a human. The "caves of steel" are the cities of the future. A related novel in 1956 Asimov, “The Naked Sun.”
Repub. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954. Rpt. New York: New American Library, 1955. U.K. ed. London: T.V. Boardman, 1954; rpt. London: Panther, 1971. Also rpt. in his The Robot Novels: The Caves of Steel The Naked Sun. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957), 1-202.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Childhood's End - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008) (Ballantine, 1953)
Eutopia brought about by aliens at the end of the existence of homo sapiens and the beginning of the emergence of a higher being.
1953 Clarke, Arthur C[harles] (1917-2008). Childhood’s End. New York: Ballantine. Exp. version of “Guardian Angel.” Famous Fantastic Mysteries (Chicago, IL) 1.4 (April 1950): 98-112, 127-29. The London: Pan, 1990 edition has a revised first chapter and a new “Foreword” (i-iv) by Clarke. DLC, HRC, L Eutopia brought about by aliens at the end of the existence of homo sapiens and the beginning of the emergence of a higher being.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The City" - [John Stephen] [Glasby] (1928-2011) (Tales of Tomorrow, 1953)
Dystopia of a domed city with an upper and an underclass and strict controls on knowledge. The protagonist discovers a way out.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Crisis in Utopia" - Norman L[ouis] Knight (1895-1972) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1953)
Flawed utopia set in an overpopulated world that has generally dealt well with that problem facing the probability of an asteroid impact.
Rpt. in The Crucible of Power: Three Science Fiction Novels. Comp. Martin Greenberg (London: The Bodley Head, 1953), 155-236.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Dark Boundaries - [William Henry Fleming] [Bird] (1896-1971) (Curtis Warren, 1953)
Dystopia of a world divided into Normals and Intelligentsia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Defenders" - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1953)
In a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both sides retreat underground and allow their androids with artificial intelligence to conduct the war while working to send them more and more devastating weapons. An apparent anomaly leads to the discovery that the androids had been destroying the weapons and that there was no war and no devastation. In the end, the two sides agree to cooperate and hold out hope for a eutopian future.
Rpt. without the illus. in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 367-72 with an editor’s note on 367.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Drovers Road - Joyce [Tarleton] West (1908-85) (J.M. Dent & Sons, 1953)
Young adult novel presenting a back country New Zealand farm as a eutopia. Sequels include Cape Lost with three different descriptions of the publisher. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1963; Auckland, New Zealand: Paul's Book Arcade, 1963; and Auckland, New Zealand: Paul's Book Arcade/London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1963; rpt. in The Drovers Road Collection (161-280); and The Golden Country. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1965; and Hamilton, New Zealand: Janet and Blackwood Paul, 1965; rpt. in The Drovers Road Collection (283-416).
Rpt. in The Drovers Road Collection (Bathgate, ND: Bethlehem Books/San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2002), 1-59 with a "Glossary" (417-18).
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Female author

“Election Campaign” - William Campbell Gault (1910-95) (Universe Science Fiction, 1953)
The story is set in a post-war world where most of the population died as a result of power struggles, with the story about a small group of survivors and the reemergence of the struggle for power.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (Ballantine, 1953)
Authoritarian, anti-intellectual dystopia. Fahrenheit 451 is the burning point of paper. See 2007 Bradbury, “The Library” and 2010 Bradbury, “Long After Midnight” for related stories.
Serialized in Playboy 1.4 - 6 (March - May 1953): 6-9, 18, 24-25, 28, 35, 41-42, 44, 46-48, 50; 22-23, 28-329, 32-33, 36, 38, 43-44, 49; 19-20, 24, 32, 35-38,43-46, 48-50. A special 200 copy limited edition was bound in Johns-Manville Quintera (asbestos). New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Rpt. without the asbestos binding New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967, with an “Introduction” by Bradbury (9-15); illus. Joseph Mugnaini. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1982. 40th Anniversary Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. [50th anniversary ed.] New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003 includes Bradbury’s introduction to the 1967 edition (23-30), “Burning Bright,” his Foreword to the 1993 edition (11-21), and “A New Introduction” (5-9). Collector’s Edition illus. Joseph Mugnaini with an “Introduction” by Eric S. Rabkin (3-8). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1991. The [60th Anniversary Edition]. with the subtitle Fahrenheit 451--The temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013 has an ”Introduction” by Neil Gaiman (xi-xvi). Critical ed. in Novels & Story Cycles. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller (New York: Library of America, 2021), 231-361, with a Chronology of Bradbury’s life (843-61); a notes on the text (866-68); and textual notes (876-79), Bradbury’s “Day After Tomorrow: Why Science Fiction” (811-817), rpt. from The Nation 176 (May 2, 1953): 364-367; rpt. in The Nation, 150th anniversary edition (April 6, 2015): 101; and his “No Man Is an Island” (818-824), rpt. from his No Man Is an Island. Los Angeles, CA: National Women’s Commission of Brandeis University, 1952. An early version was published as “The Fireman.” Galaxy Science Fiction (New York) 1.5 (February 1951): 4-61; rpt. in Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006), 415-84; and in his A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010), 203-71. Some other stories in this volume, many of which were originally or previously published in his Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006, are related, some quite loosely, to Fahrenheit 451. See Tim Hamilton, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. The Authorized Adaptation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009 for a graphic novel version.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Flight into Yesterday - Charles Leonard Harness (1915-2005) (Bouregy and Curl, 1953)
An authoritarian dystopia set in Imperial America, which has an aristocracy, guilds, and an opposition movement, all with advanced technology.
U.K. The Paradox Men. London: Faber and Faber, 1954. U.S. ed. as The Paradox Men. New York: Ace Books, 1955. Rpt. New York: Crown, 1984. Collector’s Edition illus. Kent Bash with an “Introduction” by George Zebrowski (v-xi). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1992. An earlier version was published as “Flight into Yesterday.” Startling Stories (Springfield, MA) 19.2 (May 1949): 9-79.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Flight to Utopia" - Jan Tourneau (Science Stories, 1953)
Changing fashions in utopias; one generation's utopia is rejected by the next generation in favor of a new one.
Keywords: Male author

Full Moon at Sweatenham. A Nightmare - J[ohn] K[eith] Stanford (1892-1971) (Faber & Faber, 1953)
Humorous dystopia. A Bookmakers' government was elected because they were the only ones in all of the U.K. with money after the previous governments collapsed.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Good-bye White Man; A Novel of A.D. 2711 - Frederic Vernon Bouic (Exposition Press, 1953)
Eutopia in which the Chinese are the dominant race through their adoption of Christianity. World empire. Marriage between races is illegal.
Keywords: Male author

The Green Millennium - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Abelard Press, 1953)
Dystopian satire in which the U.S. is ruled by the Federal Bureau of Loyalty, which has replaced most of the government bureaucracy, loosely cooperating, but also competing, with Fun, Inc., which controls the drug trade, gambling, and so forth. There is also a Federal Bureau of Morality.
Rpt. New York: Ace Science Fiction Books, 1953; and New York: Lion Books, 1954. U.K. ed. London: Abelard-Shuman, 1959, which is rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1980 with an “Introduction” by Deborah L. Notkin (v-xi).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Grim Tomorrow - [Kathleen] [Lindsay] (1903-73) (Wright & Brown, 1953)
Future war from the perspective of a briefly described eutopia created by the survivors after the war. An author's note says that while fiction it is intended as a warning of what will happen unless people come together to oppose war.
Keywords: English author; Female author; South African author

"Halos, Inc." - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Startling Stories, 1953)
Satire on advertising.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Homo Inferior" - Mari Wolf (b. 1927) (If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1953)
Flawed utopia. A telepathic future race and the remnant of the older race told from the point of view of a boy of the older race. The telepathic race has created a static utopia, and the boy wants the stars.
Rpt. in Women Resurrected: Stories from Women Science Fiction Writers of the 50's. Ed, Greg Fowlkes (Np: Resurrected Press, 2010), 341-87 with an editor’s note on 342.
Keywords: Female author

House of Entropy - [Herbert James] [Campbell] (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia in which an entire planet's population is controlled by a gigantic "brain" or computer.
Keywords: English author; Male author

In the Wet - Nevil Shute [Norway] (1899-1960) (William Heinemann, 1953)
Anti-socialist eutopia. Future of the British Commonwealth. In a note the author says that he tried to imagine the Commonwealth in thirty years. Following an economic crash in the 1970s, in the 1980s Britain is poor, becoming depopulated, and socialist. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are rich, growing, and capitalist. Socialism is described as appropriate to British conditions, but conservatives had left the country in large numbers and added to the growth of the Commonwealth countries.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

“The Indigenous Revolt” - T[homas] W. Wade (Futuristic Science Stories (London), 1953)
Invasion of Earth that is initially accepted and, partially as a result of mass hypnosis, seen as no threat. Then, thousands of years in the future, all previous dissidents, having been eliminated, one man, Paul 35, begins to wonder if the tales of humans being in control of the own lives might be true. In that future, people lived in sex-segregated dormitories and, as slaves, worked at jobs that benefitted the invaders. He then meets a young girl, Ida 23, who had also escaped elimination by keeping her thoughts to herself, and they identified others. Paul discovers an antidote (how is unexplained) to the drug that kept them enslaved, and they then worked out a way of administering it to others. Some then escape from the city, and then, through a series of unlikely events, they managed to force the invaders to leave Earth.
Keywords: Male author; UK author

"Lady With a Past" - Irving E[ngland] Cox Jr. (1917-2001) (Astounding Science-Fiction, 1953)
Earth a rational eutopia based on More's Utopia.
Keywords: Male author

"Land of the Matriarchs" - E. Bruce Yachen (Fantastic Adventures, 1953)
Standard sexist gender-role reversal satire.
Keywords: Male author

"Limbo" - William F[rederick] Temple (1914-89) (Nebula (Glasgow, Scot.), 1953)
Dystopia of National Socialists ruling Earth.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Lost Valley - Hector Hawton (1901-1975) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1953)
Adventure novel with elements similar to 1933 Hilton.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Love Among the Ruins; A Romance of the Near Future. With decorations by varying eminent hands including the author's - Evelyn [Arthur St. John] Waugh (1903-66) (Chapman and Hall, 1953)
Dystopia of a dreary dingy life in the welfare state. Reformatories are the best place to live and within them the best places go to murderers followed by sex offenders.
Very slightly shorter version illustrated by Mervyn Peake published in Lilliput 32.6 (May-June 1953): 73-96.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"My Imaginary Journey" - A[rthur] R[ex] D[ugard] Fairburn (1904-1957) (Recorded reading by the author, 1953)
Poem. Wide-ranging satire of the imaginary voyage and utopian genres.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Male author

"My Old Venusian Home" - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Startling Stories, 1953)
Satire on slavery.
Rpt. in Startling Stories (British Edition), no. 13 ([1953]): 57-63, 66; and in Science Fiction Yearbook, no. 3 (1969): 66-71, 86.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Nightsong" - W[illiam] T[reval] Powers (1926-2013) (Universe Science Fiction, 1953)
The story is set on a dystopian Venus after it has been settled from Earth with the first settlers enslaved by it came under the control of later settlers exploiting Venus’s resources.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Null-ABC" - H[enry] Beam Piper (1917-81); John J[oseph] McGuire (1917-1981) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Dystopia. Future society where illiterates dominate a small group of literates.
Rpt. as Null-ABC. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2006. Repub. in a different version as an Ace Double as Crisis in 2140. New York: Ace Books, 1957. Bound with an abbreviated edition of 1952 Kornbluth and Merril.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Occupation" - Edward William Ludwig (1920-90) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Humans are invading a planet to colonize it. The inhabitants completely confuse the invaders by destroying their weapons and refusing to fight and finally agreeing to teach them how to live together peacefully.
Rpt. in New Worlds Science Fiction (London) 10.28 (October 1954): 61-68; and in his The 7 Shapes of Solomon Bean and 14 Other Marvelous Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Los Gatos, CA: Polaris Press, 1983), 1-10.
Keywords: Male author; US author

One - David Karp (1922-99) (Vanguard, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia that is very similar to 1949 Blair in that the bulk of the book is about the destruction and reconstruction of a personality to fit the ideology. Church of State; no use of "me," "my," "mine."
Also entitled Escape to Nowhere. New York: Lion Books, 1955.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Populism (U & I) - John Melville (W.P. Van Stockhum & Zoon, 1953)
Eutopia. Majority rule on all questions. World government.
Keywords: Male author

"Potemkin Village" - [Murray] Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956) (Startling Stories, 1953)
Totalitarian dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Professor Mmaa’s Lecture - Stefan Themerson (1910-88) (Gaberbocchus Press, 1953)
Satire on human relations through the depiction of relations in a termite hill and the senses of the termites as they try to understand humans through exploring a dead body and literally digesting written works.
Rpt. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1984 with the "Preface" unpaged.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Polish author

"Sam Hall" - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia with control by computers. The story focuses on the successful attempt to regain freedom.
Rpt. in The Liberated Future [cover adds the subtitle Voyages into Tomorrow]. Ed. Robert Hoskins (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1974), 13-51; and in The Saturn Game. Volume Three. The Collected Stories of Poul Anderson (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2010), 117-40.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sinister Journey" - Conrad [Michael] Richter (1890-1968) (The Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia, PA), 1953)
Equality as dystopia. Dull, controlled, and boring.
Rpt. in The Post Reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 83-102; in The Saturday Evening Post Stories 1953 (New York: Random House, 1953), 213-28; and in Fantasy Voyages: Great Science Fiction from The Saturday Evening Post. Ed. Vincent Miranda (Indianapolis, IN: Curtis, 1979), 83-102 with an editor’s note on 84.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Space-Time Task Force - [Harold Ernest] [Kelly] (1899-1969) (Hector Kelly Ltd, 1953)
The novel is primarily concerned with an invasion from space aliens. It is set on an Earth that is divided into two societies, the Primitives (humans) and one based on specialized, synthetic beings. Cooperation between the two societies defeats the aliens, and the possibility of more far-reaching cooperation in the future is suggested.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Syndic - C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Doubleday, 1953)
Dystopia. Militaristic government from the U.S. is relocated in Ireland. The Western U.S. is mob controlled while the Eastern U.S. is permissive.
Also published in Science Fiction Adventures 2.1 - 2 (December 1953 - March 1954): 6-60, 82-156. Rpt. London: Sphere, 1968; and New York: Tor, 1982, with an “Introduction to THE SYNDIC, by C.M. KORNBLUTH” by Frederik Pohl (7-10) and “A Personal Note” by H.L. Gold (248-56)..
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Temptress of Planet Delight" - Betsy [Elizabeth M.] Curtis (1918-2002) (Planet Stories, 1953)
Bureaucratic dystopia in the process of being overthrown with the potential of becoming a eutopia. Permits required for everything; rationing for everything even though the planet produces enough for all. Eugenic experiment designed to produce the perfect bureaucrat. Anyone who forgets a permit loses their job; these people revolt with the assistance of beings of pure energy, who can choose to become material, who are never explained.
Rpt. with the author as B. Curtis in Planet Stories (British Edition), no. 7 (nd): 4-31.
Keywords: Female author

"Threshold" - Robert Donald Locke (Startling Stories, 1953)
Machine dystopia.
Keywords: Male author

"The Touch of Your Hand" - Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1953)
Simple, small-town eutopia.
Rpt. in his A Touch of Strange (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958), 84-127; in his Alien Cargo (New York: Bluejay, 1984); 191-226; and in A Saucer of Loneliness. Volume VII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Ed. Paul Williams (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2000), 15-60.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Transposed Man" - Dwight V[reeland] Swain (1913-92) (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1953)
Flawed utopia. Human beings are the flaw in robot-like perfection.
Repub. New York: Ace Books, 1955. UK ed. London: Panther, 1957.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Ultimate City" - Richard [Presley] Tooker (1902-88) (Science Fiction Plus, 1953)
Anti-utopian story. Perfection brought about by using atomic power solely for its benefits is so boring that there is a plague of suicides. Some choose to start over with a primitive life.
Rpt. in Science Fiction Monthly (Melbourne, VIC, Australia), no. 1 ([September 1955]): 12-27.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Unborn Tomorrow. A Last Story - Gilbert Frankau (1884-1952) (MacDonald, 1953)
Presented as a eutopia. The world in the 50th century has become Roman Catholic and monarchical. Jews have converted and Protestants and Orthodox Christians have returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Very few separate nations remain. Monopolies. Chivalry. Hierarchy. No democracy. No trial by jury. Eugenics. Capitalist.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Unites" - [Jessie] Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-90) (Fables, 1953)
Dull dystopia of equality with a revolution being prepared.
U.S. ed. of the book as A Woman As Great as the World and Other Fables (New York: Random House, 1953), 97-179.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The University of Utopia - Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977) (University of Chicago Press, 1953)
Lectures presented at the University of Chicago in 1953 which both criticize contemporary university education in the U.S. and compare it to university education in what he calls Utopia.
2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Keywords: Male author; US author