"The Incorporated" - John [Patrick] Shirley (b. 1954) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1985)
Corporate dystopia.
Rpt. in Future Crime: An Anthology of the Shape of Crime to Come. Ed. Cynthia Manson and Charles Ardai (New York: Donald I. Fine, 1992), 11-26; and in his The Exploded Heart (Asheville, NC: Eyeball Books, 1996), 155-76, with an author's note on 155.
Keywords: Male author; US author

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

"Instructions for Exiting This Building in Case of Fire" - Pamela [Lifton] Zoline (b. 1941) (Interzone, 1985)
Non-voluntary exchange of children to ensure peace. Children are selected by computer.
Rpt. in Despatches From the Frontiers of the Female Mind. Ed. Jen Green and Sarah Lefanu (London: Women's Press, 1985), 93-110. Rpt. in her Busy About the Tree of Life and Other Stories (London: The Women's Press, 1988), 107-23; U.S. ed. as The Heat Death of the Universe and other stories (Kingston, NY: McPherson & Co., 1988), 71-88.
Keywords: Female author; UK author; US author

Jerusalem Fire - R[ebecca] M. Meluch (b. 1956) (Signet, 1985)
Includes an intentional community that can be considered eutopian.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Knight Moves - Walter Jon Williams (b. 1953) (Tor, 1985)
Eutopia becomes boring.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Knives" - Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-99) (Free Amazons of Darkover: An Anthology, 1985)
A story about an abused woman finding refuge with the Free Amazons.
Rpt. in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover (New York: DAW Books, 1993), 70-85.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Masters of the Board. A Novel - Christopher Abani (b. 1966) (Delta of Nigeria, 1985)
Dystopia. Neo-Nazis take over Nigeria to use as a base to re-establish the Third Reich.
Keywords: Male author; Nigerian author; US author

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

"News from Nowhere, 1984" - B[urrhus] F[rederick] Skinner (1904-90) (The Behavior Analyst, 1985)
Addition to his 1948 Walden Two in which George Orwell joins the community, and most of the story is in the form of conversations between Frazier, the main character in Walden Two, and Orwell.
Rpt. in his Upon Further Reflection (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 33-50.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Night of Power - Spider Robinson (b. 1948) (Baen, 1985)
Dystopia of a race war in New York City.
Rpt. New York: Berkley Books, 1986.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Nowhere - Thomas [Louis] Berger (1924-2014) (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1985)
Satire using the trope of a spy novel set in Sebastian, a dysfunctional country between Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany that has spawned the terrorist group the Sebastiani Liberation Front.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"O Happy Day!" - Geoff[rey Charles] Ryman (b. 1951) (Interzone. The First Anthology: New Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, 1985)
Dystopia very similar to the concentration camps in Germany under National Socialism. Heterosexual men are in the camp and systematically killed. Gay men run the camp under the direction of women who give electronically.
U.S. ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 1-35. Rpt. in his Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 153-90. U.K. ed. (London: HarperCollins, 1999), 153-90; and in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 69-95; 2nd ed. ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 69-95; and in Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Ed. Seanan McGuire. Lightspeed, no. 61 (June 2015): 228-57. Not in his The Unconquered Country: A Life History. London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; UK author; US author

The Postman - [Glen] David Brin (b. 1950) (Bantam Books, 1985)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which a man assumes the role of a postman and, in that role, helps to knit together the communities that are struggling to survive.
Rpt. illus. Kent Bash and with an “Introduction” by James Gunn [Rpt. in Gunn, Paratexts: Introductions to Science Fiction and Fantasy (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013), 76-78]. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1993. Parts originally published in different form in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine as “The Postman” 6.11 (58) (November 1982): 120-69; rpt. in Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse. Ed. John Joseph Adams (London: Titan Books, 2015), 236-305 and “Cyclops” 8.3 (76) (March 1984): 112-67.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Preserver - M[ichael] A[nthony] Foster (b. 1939) (DAW Books, 1985)
Third volume of the Morphodite trilogy that includes 1981 The Morphodite and 1983 Transformer. In this volume the Morphodite, again a man, wins.
Rpt. in his The Transformer Trilogy (New York: DAW Books, 2006), 461-618.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Privateers - Ben[jamin William] Bova (1932-2020) (Tor, 1985)
Begins with a mild dystopia of Soviet domination of the world through domination of space. The emphasis is on the struggle for freedom which, of course, succeeds. Empire Builders. New York: Tor, 1993 is a sequel.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Radio Free Albemuth - Philip K[indred] Dick (1928-82) (Arbor House, 1985)
Dystopia in which anti-Communists rule the U.S.
Rpt. New York: Avon, 1987.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Robot Romance - Ellen W. Leroe (b. 1949) (Harper & Row, 1985)
Mostly humor but includes a satire on future mechanized education.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Schismatrix - [Michael] Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) (Arbor House, 1985)
Cyberpunk that presents two groups of future posthumans, one of which, the Shapers, develop themselves with genetic engineering and the other, the Mechanists, who use cybernetic enhancements. These groups are regularly in conflict and the presentation is essentially dystopian.
Rpt. New York: Ace 1986; and in Schismatrix Plus: Includes Schismatrix and Selected Stories from Crystal Express (New York: Ace, 1996), 1-236. Developed from a series of stories, including "Swarm." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 62.4 (April 1982): 4-24; rpt. in his Crystal Express (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989), 3-26; rpt. (New York: Ace Books, 1990), 3-28; in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Tom Shippey (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1992), 472-95; and in Schismatrix Plus (239-57); "Spider Rose." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 63.2 (375) (August 1982): 4-19; rpt. in his Crystal Express (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989), 27-44; rpt. (New York: Ace Books, 1990), 29-46; and in Schismatrix Plus (258-71); "Cicada Queen." Universe 13. Ed. Terry Carr. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 145-81; rpt. in his Crystal Express (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989), 45-79; rpt. (New York: Ace Books, 1990), 47-84; and in Schismatrix Plus (272-300); "Sunken Gardens." Omni 6.9 (June 1984): 58-, 62, 64, 67, 136, 138; rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: Bluejay Books, 1985), 351-64 with an editor's note on 350; in his Crystal Express (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989), 80-96; rpt. in (New York: Ace Books, 1990), 85-101;and in Schismatrix Plus (301-12); and "Life in the Mechanist/Shaper Era: 20 Evocations." Interzone, no. 7 (Spring 1984): 24-26; rpt. as "Twenty Evocations." In his Crystal Express (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989), 97-104; rpt. (New York: Ace Books, 1990), 102-09; as "20 Evocations." Mississippi Review, no. 47/48 (16.2/3) (1988): 122-29; and in Schismatrix Plus (313-19).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Sudanna, Sudanna - Brian [Patrick] Herbert (b. 1947) (Arbor House, 1985)
Humorous dystopia in which music, which is outlawed, is the weapon to defeat the dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Terrarium - Scott Russell Sanders (b. 1945) (Tor, 1985)
Two future societies with both good and bad elements.
Rpt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Time-Keeper - Barbara Bartholomew (b. 1941) (New American Library, 1985)
The first volume of a young adult trilogy in which two teenagers are transported to various dystopian futures. The second volume Child of Tomorrow. New York: New American Library, 1985. U.K. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1986 is mostly adventure. The third volume When Dreamers Cease to Dream. New York: New American Library, 1985. U.K. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1986 with the subtitle Book 3 of The Time Keeper Trilogy continues the adventures in the dystopian futures and brings the various themes to a resolution.
U.K. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1986.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Trojan Orbit - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83); Dean Ing (1931-2020) (Baen Books, 1985)
Continues the Lagrange series.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Ungoverned" - Vernor [Steffen] Vinge (1944-2024) (Far Frontiers, 1985)
Libertarian eutopia. Mostly about war. Discusses protective associations like those found in 1974 Nozick. Vinge says that his The Peace War (1984) can be thought of as a prequel and his Marooned in Realtime. New York: Bluejay, 1986 as a sequel.
Rpt. in his True Names . . . and Other Dangers (New York: Baen Books, 1987), 200-54; in his Across Realtime (New York: Baen, 1991), 257-300; in The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (New York: Tor, 2001), 91-127 [This ed. has notes by the author]; in Give Me Liberty. Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Mark Tier (New York: Baen, 2003), 85-139; and in Freedom! Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Mark Tier (New York: Baen, 2006), 71-113.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The War of the Roses" - Karen Joy Fowler (b. 1950) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1985)
Two societies are described, an anarchist eutopia and an authoritarian dystopia. The latter destroys the former.
Rpt. in her Artificial Things (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), 71-96.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Wild Country - Dean Ing (1931-2020) (Tor, 1985)
Post-catastrophe religious dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The World Ends in Hickory Hollow - Ardath [Frances Hurst] Mayhar (1930-2012) (Doubleday, 1985)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which an East Texas family must choose between killing others or being killed.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"2020 and Beyond" - Sterling E. Alam (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of radically increased longevity (700 years) and life in space habitats. These changes will produce a general slower pace in life, and a lower population growth. Education and re-education will be life-long, and the pattern of life will change a number of times. Children are likely to be raised in child-care communities by adults who, at that stage of their life, are particularly attuned to children.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Branch - Mike [Michael Diamond] Resnick (1942-2020) (New American Library, 1984)
Authoritarian, corporate dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Camp 38 - Jill von Konen (Sovereign Press, 1984)
Eutopia in which the basic position is that of individualist anarchism.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Chaos in Lagrangia - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83) (Tor, 1984)
Continuation of his Lagrangia series. See also 1979, 1983, and 1985 Reynolds.
Keywords: Male author; US author

City of Sorcery - Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-99) (DAW Books, 1984)
Sequel to 1983 Bradley concerned with relations between Terrans and the Free Amazons.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Conscience Place. A Novel - Joyce [Marie] Thompson (b. 1948) (Doubleday, 1984)
A hidden community where the mutant children of those damaged by a nuclear accident live with no awareness of the outside world. For the children the community is eutopian, but the so-called Fathers who fund and control the community decide to use the children in experiments and turn the community into a dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Continent of Lies - James [Kenneth] Morrow (b. 1947) (Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1984)
Dystopia of a drug obsessed future.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Courage of Sisters" - Cris Newport (Test-Tube Women: What future for Motherhood?, 1984)
Dystopia set after a limited nuclear war. No explanation is given but many more girls are being born than boys and the state requires that girls be aborted. The story focuses on a woman pregnant with a girl who chooses to leave to find women who live in the Barrens so that they can have their children.
Keywords: US author

Daughters of a Coral Dawn - Katherine [V.] Forrest (b. 1939) (Naiad Press, 1984)
Lesbian eutopia on another planet, called Maternas, with a women-only society. See also 2002 and 2005 Forrest.
U.K. ed. London: Women's Press, 1993. 10th anniversary ed. [Tallahassee, FL]: Naiad Press, 1994.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; US author

The Dawnwatchers - Hiram Anthony Bingham (1935-2008) (Triune Books, 1984)
A behaviorist, secular humanist dystopia rules in 2004, but the Dawnwatchers, a group of spiritually aware individuals, is beginning to provide an alternative. The author was influenced by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the Austrian founder of Anthroposophy.
2nd ed. Greenwich, CT: Triune Books, 1999. 342 pp.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Doomsday Plus Twelve - James D[ouglas] Forman (b. 1932) (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984)
Young adult post-catastrophe novel in which teenagers living where a simple, peaceful life has been created cooperate to defeat a new group of militarists.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Dr. Adder - K[evin] W[ayne] Jeter (b. 1950) (Bluejay Books, 1984)
Dystopia of violence.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Elleander Morning - Jerry (Jerome] Yulsman (1924-99) (St. Martin's Press, 1984)
Eutopia and dystopia. Alternative history in which World War 2 did not happen because Hitler was killed by a time traveler. But National Socialism develops anyway, and the future that develops has both good and not so good elements. Technologically advanced. Eleanor Roosevelt is Vice President of the U.S.
U.K. ed. London: Macdonald, 1985
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Evolution of Sex Roles: The Transformation of Masculine and Feminine Values" - Warren Farrell (b. 1943) (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of changing sex roles that brings about greater gender equality.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Exile on Vlahil - Ardath [Frances Hurst] Mayhar (1930-2012) (Doubleday & Co, 1984)
Dystopia of mental conditioning on earth contrasted with a disintegrating golden age of an alien culture.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Extra(ordinary) People - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) (St. Martin's Press, 1984)
Primarily dystopian with the five stories moving from medieval Scandinavia to the future with some set versions of the nineteenth century. Two themes suggest the possibility of a better world, telepathic people, and the end of sexual differentiation. But the connecting material both supports and undercuts the eutopian interpretation.
Rpt. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. U.K. ed. London: The Women’s Press, 1985. The reprinted stories are: “Souls” (1-59). Rpt. from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 62.1 (368) (January 1982): 7-46; and as part of a Tor Double with [Alice Bradley Sheldon], Houston, Houston, Do You Read? By James Tiptree, Jr. [pseud.]. New York: Tor, 1989; 14002204330021210423140032403333 [pseud.]; “The Mystery of the Young Gentlemen” (63-92). Rpt. from Speculations. Ed. Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurence (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1982), 245-75; and “What Did You Do During the Revolution, Grandma?” (117-44). Rpt. from The Seattle Review 6.1 (Spring 1983): 5-24.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Family Life in the Twenty-First Century” - Clanton, Gordon (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Plural forms of marriage and the family, all of which are considered acceptable. Having children is considered a choice that some will not make, and children born later in life. Emphasizes the pluralistic nature of the future with many options open to all.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Family Options, Governments, and the Social Milieu: Viewed from the Twenty-First Century" - Lester A. Kirkendall (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of government involvement in improving health, education, and living standards designed to enhance personal and family life, together with improved environment, population control, the end of war, and greater cross-cultural contact.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Fears" - Pamela Sargent (b. 1948) (Light Years and Dark; Science Fiction and Fantasy Of and For Our Time, 1984)
Dystopia of extreme male chauvinism in which very few girls are born, and all women are treated as inferior.
Rpt. in The Best of Pamela Sargent. Ed. Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1987), 306-22; in New Eves: Science Fiction About Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow. Ed. Janrae Frank, Jean Stine, and Forrest J. Ackerman (Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press, 1994), 281-90 with an editors’ note on 280; in Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, 1995), 141-51; in her The Mountain Cage and Other Stories (Atlanta, GA: Meisha Merlin, 2002), 189-201 with an “Afterword to ‘Fears’” (202); in Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. Ed. Judith A. Little (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), 277-88, which gives the wrong date of the original publication; and in Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology. Ed. Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2015), 299-309.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Golden People - Fred [Thomas] Saberhagen (1930-2007) (Baen, 1984)
Genetically superior people in conflict with humanity.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Greenhouse: It Will Happen in 1997 - [Bernard] [John] James (b. 1922) (Donald I. Fine, 1984)
Satire/dystopia about the greenhouse effect in a high-tech world of the future and on postmodernism and higher education.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Growing Up Slowly: Another Century of Childhood" - Larry L. Constantine (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses childhood in the future with an emphasis on the variety that will be available and the technology that will help make that variety possible.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Home Sweet Home: 2010 A.D - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83); Dean Ing (1931-2020) (Dell/Emerald, 1984)
The novel is set in a version of Reynold’s future U.S. where corrupt politicians are trying to revise the Constitution to their own benefit, a future version of the F.B.I (the Inter-American Bureau of Investigations), has a Division of Clandestine Services that supports the dominant parties and sends out a hitman to kill the theoretician of a group challenging that dominance, and American Indians are mounting a revolt. Many people in the now almost entirely automated country live on what is here called GAS or the Guaranteed Annual Stipend and some life in unrelated extended families. This is called the Ultra-Welfare State or Peoples’ Capitalism. While much of the novel is satirical or dystopian, the extended family that is one focus of the novel is eutopian, but with much satire also.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Homecoming - [John Robert] [Jones] (b. 1926) (Tor, 1984)
A eutopian agrarian, cooperative colony faces a future barbaric earth.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"In the Olden Days" - Spider Robinson (b. 1948) (Melancholy Elephants, 1984)
Future energy depleted America. Some see it as a eutopia, and some see it as a dystopia.
U.S. ed. (New York: Tor, 1985), 101-08.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Jitterbug - Mike [Michael Dennis] McQuay (1949-95) (Bantam Books, 1984)
Authoritarian dystopia presenting an Arab dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Kindly Isle" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1984)
A man visits a Caribbean island where all the people seem to be particularly nice and discovers that a scientist has developed a virus which he is intent on spreading around the world, creating a eutopia.
Rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: Bluejay Books, 1985), 320-40 with an editor's note on 318.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Ladies - Doris Grumbach (1918-2022) (E. P. Dutton, 1984)
Three women live an isolated life on an estate in Wales with that life presented as idyllic. Based on a real group called the Ladies of Llangollan, on which see May Gordon, Chase the Wild Goose. London: Hogarth Press, 1937.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Land of Ordinary People. For John Lennon" - Eleanor [Atwood] Arnason (b. 1942) (Women in Search of Utopia; Mavericks and Mythmakers, 1984)
Poem that gives the sense of an anarchist eutopia.
Rpt. in her Ordinary People: A Collection (Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2005), 3-5.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Last Patriot - James N[orbert] Frey (b. 1943) (Zebra Books/Kensington Publications, 1984)
Dystopia with one man trying to save the U.S.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Man Who Melted - Jack [Mayo] Dann (b. 1945) (Bluejay Books, 1984)
Dystopia of psychic collapse.
Rpt. Sydney, NSW, Australia: HarperCollins, 1998.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Marriage and Family: Styles and Forms” - Lester A. Kirkendall; Arthur E. Gravatt (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
One section, “Bonding Styles in 2020” (53-56) discusses the effects of changed attitudes to the institutional character of marriage. People will live together before or as an alternative to marriage. Technologically sophisticated people. The rest of the essays discusses the history and future of the family and the forces that affect it. Treats parenting as a phase in family life and says that late in life people will cohabit with one or more partners. Few will be buried with most being cremated after usable body parts are removed.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"'Mate' Selection in the Year 2020" - Bernard I. Murstein II (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of changed attitudes toward love including the effect of cloning.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Merchants' War - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (St. Martin's Press, 1984)
Satire on an Earth that is run by ad agencies. See 1952 Pohl and Kornbluth.
Rpt. in Venus, Inc. (New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1985), 159-346.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Mists of Time - Margaret J[ean] Anderson (b. 1931) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1984)
Third volume of a young adult trilogy following 1977 and 1979 Anderson. In this volume the children help an enslaved people to meet violence with nonviolence. . The female author was born in Scotland and lives in the U.S.
Keywords: Scottish author; US author

"Moral Concepts in the Year 2020: The Individual, the Family, and Society" - Robert T[homas] Francoeur (1931-2012) (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of longevity, including euthanasia or "rational suicide," radically improved sex education, which eliminates abortion, and improved moral education. The changed moral climate includes decriminalizing certain behaviors, sex outside marriage, reduced gender role separation, the separation of sex and reproduction, and greater physical and emotional contact with others.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Mutants are Coming - Isidore Haiblum (1935-2012) (del Rey, 1984)
Technological eutopia that turns out to be a dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Native Speech - Eric [Ellis] Overmyer (b. 1951) (Broadway Play Publishing, 1984)
Post-catastrophe dystopia set in the ruins of a city.
Rpt. New York: Broadway Play Publishing, 1984; and in Word Plays 3: An Anthology of New American Drama. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1984. Rev. version in his Collected Plays ([Newbury, VT]: Smith and Kraus, 1993), 1-53.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Native Tongue - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (DAW Books, 1984)
The first volume of a trilogy that traces the development of a women’s language that will allow them to function in a dystopia of male domination. This volume depicts the dystopia in which women are barely considered to be human. Women no longer have the vote, and the 25th amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes all civil rights away from women. See also her “An Update on Láaden.” Aurora Speculative Feminism, no. 23 (8.3) (Winter 1983-84): 10-13. 23-Vol-8-No-3.pdf (sf3.org), 1987 and 1994 Elgin and her A First Dictionary and Grammar of Láadan. Madison, WI: Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1985. Rev. as A First Dictionary and Grammar of Láadan. 2nd ed. Ed. Diane Martin. Madison, WI: Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1988.
Rpt. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 2000 with an “Afterword: Encoding a Woman’s Language” by Susan M. Squier and Julie Vedder on 305-37. 2nd. ed. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 2019 with a “Foreword: Giving Name to the Nameless” by Leni Zumas on v-ix, an Appendix From A First Dictionary and Grammar of Láadan” on 332-35, and an “Afterword: Encoding a Woman’s Language” by Susan M. Squier and Julie Vedder on 337-62.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Neuromancer - William [Ford] Gibson (b. 1948) (Ace Books, 1984)
An early cyberpunk dystopia in which corporations, governments, individuals, and artificial intelligences struggle to control and use each other and what comes to be called virtual reality.
U.K. ed. London: Victor Gollancz, 1984. Illus. ed. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1990. The 10th anniversary ed. London: HarperCollins, 1994 has a short afterword by the author. The 20th anniversary ed. New York: Ace Books, 2004 has a new introduction (vii-xi) by the author and an afterword (355-71) by Jack Womack.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Ora:Cle - Kevin O'Donnell Jr. (1950-2012) (Berkley Books, 1984)
A computer dystopia is one theme in a novel about a future world being attacked by aliens. Much satire.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead” - Sharon N. Farber (Universe, 1984)
Dystopia in which those with incurable or infectious diseases are exiled to a space habitat.
Rpt. as by S.N. Dyer [pseud.] in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 783-93 with an editors’ note on 782.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Paz - [Marian] [Grace] (b. 1941) (Blazon Books, 1984)
A lesbian adventure story with dystopian and eutopian elements. In the story, a woman, living an ordinary life in the contemporary world that is dystopian for women, can suddenly implant ideas into people minds, which ultimately produces something like a lesbian eutopia.
Rpt. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press, 1986
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Peace War" - Vernor [Steffen] Vinge (1944-2024) (Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, 1984)
Dystopia in which advanced technology is used to take over the world and control it. The Peace Authority was supposed to create a better world, but it simply maintained its own power by suppressing all opposition. Individuals successfully resist, and an area of northern Mexico called Aztlán has maintained a degree of independence. Vinge writes that The Peace War can be thought of as a prequel to his 1985 “The Ungoverned,” which describes a libertarian eutopia.
Rpt. [New York]: Bluejay. Rpt. with his non-utopian “Marooned in Realtime.” Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact 106.5 -8 (May - August 1986): 10-14, 16-18, 20-22, 24-26, 28-30, 32-34, 36-38, 40-42, 44-46, 48-54, 56-62; 128-80; 130-76; 108-59 with a “Correction” to pages 52-53 in the May issue. Rpt. New York: Bluejay, 1986 in his Across Realtime: The Peace War Marooned in Realtime. [Book Club ed.] (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, [1986]), 1-277. This material plus “The Ungoverned” rpt. in Across Realtime (New York: Baen Books, 1991), with The Peace War 1-255; “The Ungoverned” 257-300; and Marooned in Realtime 301-545.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Personal and Social Attitudes Toward Parenting" - Marcia [E.] Lasswell (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of changed attitudes toward parenting and child-care. Gender equality in parenting. Children will stay home longer.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Physical Settings for Families in 2020 In Space, On Earth" - Ann Sloan Devlin (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of space colonies, underground housing, and underwater living and gives details about the flexible interiors of the new housing as well as discussing some alternative family arrangements. Stress on technology and the variety of living arrangements that will be available, including communal living.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Rem the Rememberer" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Pohlstars, 1984)
The story begins in a eutopian future of low technology and ecological balance, but this is the recurring dream of a boy living in the badly polluted present.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Scapescope - John E[dward] Stith (b. 1947) (Ace Science Fiction Books, 1984)
Future authoritarian dystopia set in 2150 in which most people are employed by the government. The "Scapescope" is a device through which it is possible to see the future and much of the novel is a quest story finding a way to change a future.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"School Days" - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (Light Years and Dark; Science Fiction and Fantasy Of and For Our Time, 1984)
Eutopian computer-based education of the future compared to the failed education of our day.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Sonic Boom of 1994" - Melvin D. Garretsen (Another Handful of Stories: Thirty-Seven Stories by Deaf Storytellers Transliterated from the Deaf Storytellers Video Tape Series, 1984)
A brief story in which the United States develops a supersonic passenger plane that can fly between the US and Europe in an hour that produces a sonic boom that deafens the entire country and advantaging those who known sign language.
Keywords: Deaf author; Male author; US author

"Till Human Voices Wake Us" - Lewis [Gordon] Shiner (b. 1950) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1984)
A corporation is modifying humans and animals to produce eutopia with the eutopian ends justifying the dystopian means.
Rpt. in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. Ed. [Michael] Bruce Sterling (New York: Arbor House, 1986), 125-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Toynbee Convector” - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (Playboy, 1984)
In a U.S. with all the problems of inequality, international political conflicts, a damaged environment, and so forth, a man fakes a trip to the future and on his return he announces that the human race has solved all its problems, which gives people the will to actually do so.
Rpt. in his The Toynbee Convector. Stories (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 3-15. Rpt. (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 1-11
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Transformations in Human Reproduction" - Robert T[homas] Francoeur (1931-2012) (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of new reproductive technologies, which includes a new eroticism.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Transition (1996-2020)" - Gordon Clanton (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of lower population growth and the development of neighborhood associations. Emphasizes the pluralistic nature of the future with many options open to all. Four-day work week. Government the employer of last resort but pays only 75% of the minimum wage. National Health Insurance in exchange for two years of national service.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Transition from Sex to Sensuality and Intimacy" - Lester A. Kirkendall; Michael E. Perry (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
Discusses the effects of changed attitudes towards sex and sexuality, with the title making the point.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Twilight Time" - Lewis [Gordon] Shiner (b. 1950) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1984)
A time travel story with dystopias both in the present and the past. In the past, aliens are taking control; in the present, the U.S. has voted to give complete power to a group promising security. Actions in the past change the dystopian present.
Rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: Bluejay Books, 1985), 421-39 with an editor's note on 420.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Utopia - Bernadette [Francis Catherine] Mayer (1945-2022) (United Artists Books, 1984)
Detailed eutopia with no profit or exploitation, no fences, money, rent, or useless work, and no military. From 18 to 25 people travel rather than go to university. All the older people are active and involved.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Utopia Hunters: Chronicles of the High Inquest - Somtow [Papinian] Sucharitkul (b. 1952) (Bantam, 1984)
Third volume in a series with this volume focusing on a young woman artist struggling for understanding within the dystopia. See also 1982, 1983, and 1985 Sucharitkul.
Parts were originally published in slightly different form in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine as "Rainbow King." 5.2 (February 16, 1981): 136-66; "The Web Dancer." 3.12 (December 1979): 56-80; "The Dust." 5.8 (August 3, 1981): 110-35; "Remembrances." 6.4 (March 15, 1982): 54-80; and "Scarlet Snow." 6.5 (May 1982): 80-99; and as "The Comet That Cried for Its Mother." Amazing Stories 58.3 (September 1984): 30-49. A story that is an early version of part of this volume is "Darktouch." Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 4.1(23) (January 1980): 18-41. Rpt. in his Fire from the Wine Dark Sea (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning, 1983), 221-44.
Keywords: Male author; Thai author; US author

Warday and the Journey Onward - [Louis] Whitley Strieber (b. 1945); James W[illiam] Kunetka (b. 1944) (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984)
Post-nuclear war dystopia with a largely ruined U.S., an authoritarian dystopia in California, and a Hispanic/Native American state called Atzlán in what was Texas and New Mexico that presents itself as independent but is a vassal state of Japan. The U.S.S.R. was also destroyed, and Japan and the U.K. now dominate the world.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Way It Was" - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Pohlstars, 1984)
Overpopulation dystopia in which most people are on welfare, which means just barely able to get by living in large dormitories. The story focuses on the sale of body parts to be able to live better, at least briefly.
Keywords: Male author; US author

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

Wild Shore - Kim Stanley Robinson (b. 1952) (Ace Science Fiction Books/Berkley Publishing Co., 1984)
Post-atomic war dystopia set in 2047 in which people are trying to survive and maintain what knowledge of the past they can. First in a series variously called the Orange County trilogy and the Three Californias trilogy, with the latter being Robinson’s name for it. See also 1988, The Gold Coast, and 1990 Robinson, Pacific Edge, which are reprinted in Three Californias. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2020, with an introduction “Triptych, with Softball” by Francis Spufford (7-12), The Wild Shore (13-292), The Gold Coast (293-653), and Pacific Edge (655-895). The three volumes have the same physical location, but the futures presented are different.
Rpt. New York: Orb/Tom Doherty Associates, 1995; and in Three Californias (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2020), 13-292 with an introduction “Triptych, with Softball” by Francis Spufford (7-12). U.K. ed. London: Futura, 1985.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Work/Family Connection in the Year 2020" - Joyce Portner; Larry Etkin (Marriage and the Family in the Year 2020, 1984)
See the note at 1984 Alam. Discusses the effects of changed work patterns based on revolutions in computing, robotics, increased life expectancy, and the colonization of space.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

The Years of the City - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Simon & Schuster, 1984)
Five pictures of a future New York beginning with a dystopia (but with a depiction of some techniques for reform including a Universal Town Meeting) and ending with two near eutopias. The second and third futures are presented as transitional.
Rpt. New York: Pocket Books, 1985.
Keywords: Male author; US author

2084 - Davida Gaida (Ringa Press, 1983)
Feminist novel depicting a future dystopia in which men are dominant and women are enslaved.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Alliance - Gerald N[iels] Lund (b. 1939) (Deseret Book Co, 1983)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which the Alliance presents itself as reviving the social order and creating a utopia, but it does so through planting a computer chip into its citizens and forcing outsiders to join.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Anvil of the Heart - Bruce T[odd] Holmes (b. 1946) (The Haven Corporation, 1983)
Dystopia. Geneticly engineered people become the norm and parents are no longer able to have children who are not modified. Complete automation means that most of the people who are not modified are unemployed, in overcrowded housing, taking drugs, and watching TV. The novel focuses on one unmodified man and how he makes a relatively good life in these circumstances.
Evanston, IL The Haven Corporation_
Keywords: US author

“An Artist of Hunger” - Scott Russell Sanders (b. 1945) (Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, 1983)
Dystopia in which life is centered on corporate-controlled malls.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica - John Calvin Batchelor (b. 1948) (Dial Press, 1983)
Complex dystopia that originates in the U.S. draft resistance community in Sweden. The original protagonists, together with various friends and relatives and others picked up along the way, travel to the Falkland Islands with some going further south to an island off Antarctica. At every point there is conflict and the attempt, sometimes successful, to impose a particular, though varying, view of the good life on others, thus creating a series of dystopias.
Keywords: US author

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

A Century of Progress - Fred [Thomas] Saberhagen (1930-2007) (Tom Doherty Associates, 1983)
Dystopia of the Third Reich in the future.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The City of Hermits. A Novel - Gina Covina (b. 1952) (Barn Owl Books, 1983)
The novel begins with the stories of a number of women who end up in the same area of California and includes a lesbian intentional community. Following each of the women, it then leads up to a coming great earthquake that effects all of California. In the aftermath of the earthquake, which is seen as the revolt of the Earth to how it has been treated, the women and their female and male partners begins to establish of a good society.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Computerworld - A[lfred] E[lton] van Vogt (1912-2000) (DAW Books, 1983)
Dystopia controlled by computers and the revolt designed to change the computer system from ruler to servant.
Rpt. as Computer Eye. New York: DAW Books, [1985]. U.K. ed. under the original title London: New English Library, 1986.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"Course Notes" - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (Aurora Speculative Feminism, 1983)
The future of computer-based learning through the description of a clearly biased course on its history.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Dear God" - Gayle N. Netzer (Aurora Speculative Feminism, 1983)
Satire on and critique of religious homeschooling.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Duluth - Gore Vidal (1925-2012) (Random House, 1983)
Humorous, rather surrealistic dystopia, which ends with an insect writing a new story of Duluth. None of the stories have any relation to the real Duluth, Minnesota, which is described on the back endpaper. Vidal's Duluth is a corrupt city with a deep division between the rich and the poor, which includes a large Spanish-speaking barrio.
Rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Gifts from Eykis - Dr. Wayne [Walter] Dyer (b. 1940) (Simon and Schuster, 1983)
New age eutopia. While Uranus and its the inhabitants appear to be identical to Earth and its inhabitants, they differ profoundly. Uranians have no concepts of danger or harm, are incapable of lying, and while they know a future exists, they live entirely in the present. Anxiety is a phenomenon caused by airborne particles, the arrival of which can be forecast, and neuroses and guilt also have known physical causes and treatments. The book described many other similar differences from Earth.
Keywords: US author

"Hunting Season" - Edward William Ludwig (1920-90) (The 7 Shapes of Solomon Bean and 14 Other Marvelous Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1983)
Dystopia of population control through controlled killing.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Hyacinths - Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (b. 1942) (Doubleday, 1983)
Authoritarian dystopia ruling through the control of dreams.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Islandia Revisited - Richard N. Farmer (d. 1987) (Cedarwood Press, 1983)
Presented as a sequel to 1942 Wright. In this novel, set mostly during World War II, a man who had become fascinated by Islandia after reading Wright is sent to Islandia as the U.S. military attaché, and while he gets involved in a plot to fake a German invasion to force Islandia to drop its neutrality, he remains in Islandia as a professor of economics. At the end he and his Islandia wife are leaving on a spaceship developed by and Islandia that has become a world industrial power. See also 1969, 1979, and 1982 Saxton.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Lagrangists - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83) (Tom Doherty Associates, 1983)
The Space/colony station described in 1979 is threatened by various forces from Earth. See also 1984 Reynolds and 1985 Reynolds with Ing.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish - Jack [Andrew] Cady (1932-2004) (Arbor House, 1983)
Near future technological dystopia and those who fight against it.
Keywords: US author

Manna - [George Harry] [Stine] (1928-97) (DAW Books, 1983)
Eutopia designed to be a free state neither communist nor capitalist. Mostly adventure.
Keywords: US author

Midas World - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (St. Martin's Press, 1983)
Series of loosely connected stories stemming from his 1954 "The Midas Plague." The only previously unpublished story, "The Fire-Bringer" (1-4), serves as an introduction This is followed by 1954 Pohl, "The Midas Plague" (5-74). The other stories then depict aspects of the future of the world created in that story. "The Servant of the People" (75-97) is about a Congressman (Congress hold interactive electronic meetings with no one physically present) running against a robot. "The Man Who Ate the World" (98-137) is about a compulsive consumer when the need to consume is long past. "The Farmer on the Dole" (138-75) is about giving redundant robots new jobs, in this case as a mugger who can only mug other robots. "The Lord of the Skies" (176-244) is about life in orbital habitats that draw their power from Earth, whose ecology has been destroyed by the need to send power to the habitats. "The New Neighbors" (245-76) is about the future destroyed world now inhabited almost entirely by robots.
Parts published previously as 1954 Pohl, "The Midas Plague"; "The Servant of the People." Analog Science Fiction--Science Fact 103.2 (February 1983): 90-105; "The Man Who Ate the World." Galaxy Science Fiction 13.1 (November 1956): 6-35; "The Farmer on the Dole." Omni 5.1 (1982): 118-22, 124, 126-27, 164-68; "The Lord of the Skies." Amazing Science Fiction 57.2 (July 1983): 114-62; and "The New Neighbors." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 64.5 (May 1983): 137-58.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Navigator's Sindrome - [Margery (known as Marj) A.] [Krueger] (1941-2006) (Doubleday, 1983)
Authoritarian, violent, cruel dystopia on the planet Rabelais that is based on contracts that are manipulated for the personal benefit of the rulers. Her Rabelaisian Reprise. By Jayge Carr [pseud.]. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1988 is a sequel set in the same planet and with many of the same characters. Her The Treasure in the Heart of the Maze. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1985 is described as a companion piece. Female author.
Keywords: Female author; US author

New America - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Tom Doherty Associates, 1983)
Eutopia depicting the settlement and development of a planet by a group of individualists who make laissez-faire capitalism work. "A Fair Exchange" is the story most concerned with economic questions.
A linked series of stories. Four of them were originally published in the Continuum series ed. Roger [Paul] Elwood as “My Own, My Native Land.” Continuum 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), 42-75; “Passing the Love of Women.” Continuum 2 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), 51-81; “A Fair Exchange.” Continuum 3 (New York: Berkley, 1974), 29-53; and “To Promote the General Welfare.” Continuum 4 (New York: Berkley, 1975), 31-62. U.K. editions published as Continuum I, II, III, IV. First two vols. published London: W.H. Allen, 1975, 1976 with the Anderson stories on 38-62 and 43-65 respectively. Second two vols. published London: Star, 1977 with the same pagination as the U.S. ed. The others are “The Queen of Air and Darkness.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 40.4 (239) (April 1971): 5-45; “Home,” which was originally published as “The Disinherited.” Orbit 1: A Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Damon Knight (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1966), 65-81; and the essay “Our Many Roads to the Stars.” Galaxy 36.8 (September 1975): 73-87.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The October Suit" - Edward William Ludwig (1920-90) (The 7 Shapes of Solomon Bean and 14 Other Marvelous Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1983)
Flawed utopia in which there is no war, and everyone is well fed, clothed, and housed but which requires absolute conformity.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Orion Shall Rise - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Timescape Books, 1983)
Variety of future societies with Anderson's usual emphasis on libertarianism versus authoritarianism.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Out of the Ashes - William W[allace] Johnstone (1938-2004) (Zebra Books, 1983)
The first volume of a of dystopian post-nuclear/biological war survivalist series with war between the survivalist faction, who are the good guys, and the remnants of the U.S. government.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Peacemaker" - Gardner R[aymond] Dozois (1947-2018) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1983)
Post-catastrophe religious dystopia in which a child is sacrificed to ensure a good harvest.
Rpt. in Writers for Relief: An Anthology to Benefit the Survivors of Katrina. Ed. Davey Beauchamp (Wilmington, NC: Davey Beauchamp, 2005), 7-52; in his When the Great Days Come ([Canton, OH]: Prime Books, 2011), 68-82; and in Asimov’s Science Fiction 43.3/4 (March/April 2019): 26-35.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Place of Dead Roads - William S[eward] Burroughs (1914-97) (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983)
The middle volume of a trilogy that includes his 1981 Cities of the Red Night and his 1987 The Western Lands. This novel is concerned with a gay gunfighter in the western U. S. in the nineteenth century and is typical of the dystopian themes in Burroughs’s works.
U. K. ed. London: John Calder, 1984.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Rainbow Cadenza; A Novel in Logosata Form - J[oseph] Neil Schulman (1953-2019) (Simon and Schuster, 1983)
Dystopia. After various wars that destroyed New York (rebuilt as Newer York), cheap power supports a luxury lifestyle for some and what might appear to be a technological eutopia. But there are "touchables", an underclass who can be hunted, technology allows gender choice in children and there is a seven to one male unbalance, rape is common, and women are required to serve sexually in the military, among other aspects of a dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Single Combat - Dean Ing (1931-2020) (Tom Doherty Associates, 1983)
Post-catastrophe Mormon dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Steps of the Sun - Walter [Stone] Tevis (1928-84) (Doubleday & Co, 1983)
Dystopian setting with a future U.S. without energy sources. China is the dominant world power.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Street Meat" - Norman [Richard] Spinrad (b. 1940) (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1983)
Dystopia. A future of extreme poverty versus great wealth. The poor are fed "people kibble" and can buy cooked rats on the street for meat.
Rpt. in his Other Americas (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 1-43.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Suffern’ Succotash” - Rudy [Rudolf von Bitter] Rucker (b. 1946) (The 57th Franz Kafka, 1983)
The story is set in a future that as a result of environmental collapse is completely vegetarian and no animals survive.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Thendara House - Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-99) (DAW Books, 1983)
Novel of the Free Amazons of Darkover. An egalitarian eutopia versus a patriarchal society. 1984 Bradley is set about seven years later.
Rpt. in Oath of the Renunciates (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1983), 213-593.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Throne of Madness: Volume II of the Inquestor Trilogy - Somtow [Papinian] Sucharitkul (b. 1952) (Timescape, 1983)
Second volume in a series with this volume focusing on one man's struggle for meaning within the dystopia. See 1982, 1984, and 1985 Sucharitkul.
Repub. as The Dawning Shadow: The Throne of Madness. New York: Bantam Books, 1986.
Keywords: Male author; Thai author; US author

Transformer - M[ichael] A[nthony] Foster (b. 1939) (DAW Books, 1983)
Second volume of his Morphodite trilogy. See also 1981 Foster and 1985 Foster, Preserver. In this volume the Morphodite seems to have defeated the dystopia, but it returns from space and attacks. The Morphodite, now a woman, must find and defeat it in space.
Rpt. in his The Transformer Trilogy (New York: DAW Books, 2006), 211-459.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Worlds Apart - Joe [Joseph William] Haldeman (b. 1943) (Viking, 1983)
Middle volume of a trilogy (sequel to 1981 Haldeman and followed by 1992 Haldeman) set a year after the first volume. Earth has been largely destroyed after a fourth nuclear war and the asteroid Worlds hold the hope of a future for humanity. The novel concerns a woman's visits back to Earth and then into space.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Avoiding 1984: Moving Toward Interdependence - Robert Theobald (1929-99) (Swallow Press--Ohio University Press, 1982)
The book includes a number of scenarios of the future with the emphasis on the positive. The book begins with brief life histories of five people with one of them Teg from 1969 Theobald. It then presents five scenarios from different perspectives set in 2000. The future is politically and economically troubled but moving in the right direction, but the emphasis of the book is on ecology and improvements in interpersonal relations and life patterns, with an emphasis of variety and significant changes in lifestyle throughout life. See also 1968 Theobald and 1969 Theobald and Scott. In addition, Theobald published many other books outlining his proposals. See, in particular, his Free Men and Free Markets. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1963; Beyond Despair: Directions for America’s Third Century. Washington, DC: The New Republic Book Co., 1976; rev. as Beyond Despair: A Policy Guide to the Communications Era. Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1981; An Alternative Future for America’s Third Century. Chicago, IL: Swallow Press, 1976; and Reworking Success: New Communities at the Millennium. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1997.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Ayes of Texas - Daniel da Cruz [Jr.] (1921-1991) (Ballantine Books, 1982)
Anti-Communist dystopia in which the United States overrun by Russians. First in a series. See 1986 and 1987 da Cruz.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Be Fruitful and Multiply" - F[rancis] Paul Wilson (b. 1946) (Perpetual Light, 1982)
Satirical religious dystopia centered on the only church, the Church of the Divine Imperative, which is the title of the story.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Birthright: The Book of Man - Mike [Michael Diamond] Resnick (1942-2020) (New American Library, 1982)
Future history of the next 18,000 years in which the human race goes through many permutations, many eutopias and dystopias, until finally destroyed. The ending has the whole process starting over again.
Rpt. Alexander, NC: Farthest Star, 1997.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Boylan Briggs Salutes the New Cause" - Lesley [Willis] Choyce (b. 1951) (The Lunatic Gazette, 1982)
Reduced sperm count as a result of pollution leads to constantly required orgies to try to raise the birth rate. Fails.
Rpt. in his Dream Auditor (Charlottetown, PE, Canada: Indivisible Books, 1986), 63-72.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

The Byrdwhistle Option - Robert H[enry] Rimmer (1917-2001) (Prometheus Books, 1982)
Another of Rimmer's depiction of the good life through sex, although here, as in some of his other works, he includes economic equality. In this novel a corporation only employs married couples, with each person paid the same salary, but it encourages them to explore all the sexual options available. Refers to the Oneida Community, but it is not a reflection of its practices. See also 1966, 1968, 1975, 1978, 1982, and 2000 Rimmer.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Carnifex Mardi Gras - John F[rancis] Carr (b. 1944) (Pequod Press, 1982)
Dystopia where wealth and power has produced a corrupt society.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Dogsworld" - Felix C[harles] Gotschalk [Jr.] (1929-2002) (Pig Iron (Youngstown, OH), 1982)
The story is told from the point of a dog, with much of it satire aimed at human behavior. But then aliens arrive and ask it about humans, and, in response, they apparently improve the behavior of some of the people and provide a massive infusion of material goods, which initially produces a eutopia but then corrupts them.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Dreamrider - Sandra [Louise] Miesel (b. 1941) (Ace Books, 1982)
Eutopia and dystopia. The dystopia is a future authoritarian United States in which those found violating any of the many rules have their minds wiped. The eutopia is a fantasy world where humans and animals like otters have a complex society in which some of the inhabitants find people on various timelines capable of using their mental powers for good. The novel includes quite a bit on life in both the eutopia and the dystopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Dreams in a Wasteland - Franklin Camuti (Dorrance & Co, 1982)
Future feudal world ruled by a man using science from the past.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Duncan's Colony - Natalie L[evin] M[aines] Petesch (b.1924) (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1982)
Dystopian future set in a small intentional community where four people come together in hopes of surviving an expected nuclear war.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Elf Hill" - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1982)
Overpopulation dystopia depicting the Sunset Estates retirement home that has twenty million retirees who each get a huge apartment with all the amenities, but there is only one apartment that is shared by all twenty million. This is achieved through the manipulation of space and time, and the home is actually run down and dirty. Other retirement homes, like Happihomes, only provide a bunk. Another is named Endfun, which makes the point. Female author.
Rpt. in her The Hidden Side of the Moon. Stories (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 112-23.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Elysium - William K. Carlson (b. 1937) (Doubleday & Co, 1982)
Flawed utopia in which a eutopian seeming world is revealed as an authoritarian dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Fast Fiddling; The Comic Adventures of 3 Radical Collectives in New England - Robert [Molise Boyer] Nichols (1919-2010) (Penny Each Press, 1982)
Four issues each about three communal eutopias: Bottom Luck Farm--homesteaders in Northern Vermont, El Bohio--urban activist collective in Hartford, and Nickelodeon--folk rock band in Wendell, Mass. In each case the issues follow the community from the first days through troubled times to either a degree of success, failure, or simply moving on to something else.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (Doubleday & Co, 1982)
Fourth vol. of the famous series. While the focus of the novel is on the sweep of historical change that was the focus of the trilogy, none of which were eutopian and are best characterized as early social science fiction, this volume includes a eutopia called Gaia, where the world is itself sentient. The entire planet including flora and fauna as well as the people have a group consciousness. Everything does what is needed for itself and the planet and no more. See also 1986 and 1988 Asimov.
Excerpts published as “Foundation’s Edge.” Omni 5.1 (October 1982): 64-68, 70, 156-58; and, under the same title, in Asimov’s Science Fiction 6.12 (59) (December 1982): 44-49, 50-52, 54-61, 63-65, 67-71, 73-74, 76-77, 79, 81-82, 84-85, 87, with comments on the Foundation series by various authors on the intervening pages.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Friday - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982)
Dystopia in which North America has disintegrated into numerous independent countries.
Rpt. as vol. 24 of The Virginia Edition of his works. Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2010. Excerpt published in Science Fiction Digest 1.4 (September-October 1982): 28-51 with "On Heinlein's Friday" by Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (26-27).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Golden Space - Pamela Sargent (b. 1948) (Timescape, 1982)
Dystopia that develops as a result of the discovery of immortality.
Parts published earlier as "The Summer's Dust." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 61.1 (362) (July 1981): 68-97; Rpt. in The Best of Pamela Sargent. Ed. Martin H[arry] Greenberg (Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago, 1987), 148-96; and in her The Mountain Cage and Other Stories (Atlanta, GA: Meisha Merlin, 2002), 283-322. "Afterword to 'The Summer's Dust'" (323); and "The Renewal" which was originally published in slightly different form in Immortal: Short Novels of the Transhuman Future. Ed. Jack Dann (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 13-147.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Great Divide - Frank M[alcolm] Robinson (1926-2014); John Levin (Rawson, Wade, 1982)
Dystopia. Near future U.S. divided into rich and poor based on access to energy resources.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Green City" - D. J. L. Neruda (Veridian, 1982)
Bloomington, Indiana turned into an ecological eutopia five years after a worldwide economic collapse. Much of the story concerns a controversy between those wanting more centralization, described as "old-time leftists", and those wanting continued decentralization.
Keywords: US author

"A Green Hill Far Away" - [Michael Paul] [McDowell] (b. 1954) (Perpetual Light, 1982)
Whether it is eutopian or dystopian is an open question. A new religious order, the Rule of St. Abbenew the Galactic, designed for life enforces morality and act as both police (the Benedictine Infantry) and the judicial system. The story is about a monk whose faith is tested.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Havoc in Islandia - Mark Saxton (1914-88) (Houghton Mifflin, 1982)
A novel of romance and adventure set in the history of Islandia from 1942 Wright. See also 1969 and 1979 Saxton.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Helen, Whose Face Launched Twenty-eight Conestoga Hovercraft" - Leigh Kennedy (b. 1951) (Universe, 1982)
Conflicts in a small space station with two communities that were trying to create better lives for their people and how the conflicts were solved.
Keywords: Female author; US author

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

Lady of Light - Diana L. Paxson (b. 1943) (Timescape, 1982)
Mostly fantasy but includes a future post-catastrophe eutopian kingdom.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Light on the Sound - Somtow [Papinian] Sucharitkul (b. 1952) (Timescape, 1982)
Religious dystopia that destroys all utopias because of its belief that due to the Fall all utopias are necessarily false. But after the destruction of the twelfth utopia, a thirteenth is discovered that causes those assigned to destroy it to try to save it. The book discusses the nature of utopia. First volume in a series; see also 1983, 1984 and 1985 Sucharitkul.
Rev. as The Dawning Shadow: The Light On the Sound. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. Part previously published as "The Thirteenth Utopia." Analog Science Fiction--Science Fact [99].4 (April 1979): 144-60, 162-64; which was rpt. in The Annual World's Best SF 1980. Ed. Donald A. Wollheim (New York: DAW Books, 1980), 20-42; and in his Fire from the Wine Dark Sea (Norfolk, VA: Donning, 1983), 17-38; and "Light on the Sound." Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 4.8 (August 1980): 84-169. Described as the first volume of a trilogy, the series was later extended to four volumes.
Keywords: Male author; Thai author; US author

Maurai & Kith - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Tor, 1982)
Post-catastrophe eutopia of sea people based on conservation contrasted with a technological space faring civilization and the problems when they meet. The Maurai are based on the New Zealand/Aotearoa Maori.
Parts originally published as "The Sky People." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 16.3 (March 1959): 85-124; "Progress." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 22.1 (January 1962): 90-129; "Windmill" [See 1973 Anderson]; "Ghetto." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 6.5 (May 1954): 94-119; and "The Horn of Time the Hunter" as "Homo Aquaticus." Amazing Stories 37.9 (September 1963): 6-22.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mindkiller: A Novel of the Near Future - Spider Robinson (b. 1948) (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982)
​Technological dystopia in which Wireheads are addicted to stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain. The first volume of what comes to be called the Lifehouse Trilogy, which includes his 1987 Time Pressure and 1997 Life House.
Rpt. in The Lifehouse Trilogy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 1-229.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

The Mosquito Coast. A Novel - Paul [Edward] Theroux (b. 1941) (Houghton Mifflin, 1982)
The novel begins in the dystopia of migrant labor in the U.S. and follows a Yankee family to Honduras, where they attempt to create as eutopia in the jungle.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Prometheus Man; a nrobook - Ray [Radell] Faraday Nelson (1931-2022) (Donning, 1982)
Dystopia. Anyone who fails academically becomes permanently a member of the unemployables living in camps. The men are sterilized. A second plot line concerns a man who intends to create a world eutopia using people of high intelligence. The two lines converge around a man, one of the unemployables, and his divorced wife, one of the super intelligent. Separately they lead changes in the two groups and end up back together. Some of the characters, plot, and text are repeated from 1978 Nelson.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Puzzling amendment approved" - Tony White (Veridian, 1982)
Short future authoritarian dystopia. New York is the capitol of the U.S. Capitalism has brought worldwide poverty, and the U.S. President says that starvation is simply normal economic adjustment. The amendment prohibits any words in English or Spanish that suggests that there are any "political prisoners" in the Western Hemisphere.
Rpt. in Veridian 4.1 (February 1984): 2.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Root... and Branch" - Michael [Robert] Collings (b. 1947) (LDSF: Science Fiction by Mormons, 1982)
Dystopia based on genetic testing that judges the worth of a person on the sorts of descendents they will have. People are mated to produce the best results. People who believe in such outmoded ideas as love and family are ostracized.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Rose for Armageddon - Hilbert [Van Nydeck] Schenck [Jr.] (1926-2014) (Timescape, 1982)
Collapsing Western civilization and an attempt to create a eutopia by developing a huge new computing system.
U.K. ed. London: Allison & Busby, 1984. Rpt. London: Sphere, 1984.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Running Man - [Stephen Edwin] [King] (b. 1947) (New American Library, 1982)
Dystopia in which a TV contest called "The Running Man" promises rich rewards for a man who can elude those hunting him and who will kill him if they find him.
Rpt. in The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King. Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man (New York: New American Library, 1985), 521- 692 with "Why I Was Bachman" (v-x). U.K. ed. London: New English Library, 1983.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Shaving of Karl Marx; An Instant Novel of Ideas, After the Manner of Thomas Love Peacock, in which Lenin and H.G. Wells talk about the Political Meaning of the Scientific Romances - Leon [Eugene] Stover (1929-2006) (The Chiron Press, 1982)
Novel presenting perceived similarities between H.G. Wells (1866-1946) and Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924). Discusses Wells's dystopias The Time Machine (1895) and The First Men in the Moon (1901) among others.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Starburst - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Ballantine Books, 1982)
The novel presents a dystopia of the near future in a U. S. that is marked by violent protests and widespread disorder. It also presents a eutopia brought about on another planet through the unexplained development of new powers by a group of people sent on a supposedly meaningless trip to a nonexistent planet. They bring a degree of healing to the Earth. Some satire.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Stroka Prospekt - Richard [Allen] Lupoff (1935-2020) (The Toothpaste Press, 1982)
A somewhat dystopian future with Russia leading in space exploration and mining and on Earth Russia and other "progressive" countries like the U.S. are opposed by an expansive China. The story takes places on a vacation planetoid where miners go to relax and involves alien contact.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sybil" - Elizabeth Petty Bentley (LDSF: Science Fiction by Mormons, 1982)
Life after the Second Coming from a Mormon perspective. Mortals work at their temples assisting those who are to be resurrected, while the resurrected do all the work needed.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Twofold Vibration - Raymond Federman (1928-2009) (Indiana University Press/Harvester Press, 1982)
The novel is set on New Year's Eve 1999 on an overpopulated Earth that annually sends its undesirables, including artists who do not conform to the current style, to colonies in space.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Utopia. A Tale - Phoebe Carlile ([Penumbra Press], 1982)
Includes a two page, very general eutopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

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

War of Omission - Kevin O'Donnell Jr. (1950-2012) (Bantam Books, 1982)
A bureaucratic dystopia and a revolution of the middle class.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The White Plague - Frank [Patrick] Herbert (1920-86) (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1982)
Dystopian set in a near future Ireland using Irish myth to explore the conflicts.
U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 1983.
Keywords: Male author; US author

2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future - Gerard K[itchen] O'Neill (1927-92) (Simon and Schuster, 1981)
Technological eutopia presented as a non-fictional prediction but the description of life in 2081 combines fiction and non-fiction. Space colonies and some colonies much further out in space.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Aventine - [Karen] Lee Killough (b. 1942) (Ballantine Books, 1981)
A linked set of short stories set in a flawed utopia for the very rich.
Parts were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as “The Siren Garden.” 46.3 (March 1974): 62-78; “Tropic of Eden.” 53.2 (August 1977): 141-56; “A House Divided.” 54.6 (June 1978): 82-99; “Broken Stairways, Walls of Time.” 56.3 (March 1979): 8-21; and “Ménage Outré.” 60.2 (February 1981): 5-18. “Bête et Noir” was originally published in Universe 10. Ed. Terry Carr (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 49-78.
Keywords: Female author; US author

But We Are Not of Earth - Jean E[dna] Karl (1927-2000) (E. P. Dutton, 1981)
Companion to 1976 Karl. In this volume four teenagers who are in a school for discovers, are led to a planet that is Earth normal and appears to be uninhabited. But there is a small settlement that had hoped to add the teenagers to its population. After the teenagers escape, Earth, which had no colonies, decided to try to establish a few for people looking for such a life.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Century's End - Russell M[organ] Griffin (1943-86) (Bantam Books, 1981)
Wide-ranging dystopia with a collapsing economy in which brokers consult witches, a TV evangelist is running for President of the U.S., and riots and political violence are common.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"A Ceremony of Discontent" - Eleanor [Atwood] Arnason (b. 1942) (A Room of One's Own, 1981)
Feminist eutopia set in a society where each woman had to make an irrevocable choice between motherhood and independent creativity and trading. Men would marry at least one of each. The story is about an independent woman, who is discontented but does not want to be a mother either.
Rpt. in her Ordinary People: A Collection (Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2005), 21-33.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Cities of the Red Night - William S[eward] Burroughs (1914-97) (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981)
Unusually for Burroughs, this novel includes a eutopia as well as a dystopia. The eutopia is based on the Libertalia community possibly founded by the pirate Captain Misson (ca 1660-ca 1690s) on Madagascar and is set in the eighteenth century. The dystopian material is typical Burroughs and is set in the twentieth century. Similar to 1991 Burroughs, which also uses the settlement. First volume of a trilogy that includes his 1983 The Place of Dead Roads and his 1987 The Western Lands.
U.K. ed. London: John Calder, 1981.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Cool War - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013) (Ballantine Books, 1981)
Humorous dystopia set in the 2020s. The "Cool War" has replaced the Cold War and consists of world-wide sabotage.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Doors of the Universe - Sylvia [Louise] Engdahl (b. 1933) (Atheneum, 1981)
Third volume of a trilogy following 1972 and 1973 Engdahl. In this volume, the protagonist of the first two still doubts his ability to solve the problems his culture faces, but he ultimately succeeds.
Rpt. with minor revisions in Children of the Star (Atlanta, GA: Meisha Merlin, 2000), 423-717 together with 1972 and 1973 Engdahl, with an “Afterword” to the Collection (719-21), in which she notes that this volume was intended for adults, and “Sylvia Engdahl Biography” ([723-24]).
Keywords: Female author; US author

Ecotopia Emerging - Ernest [William] Callenbach [Jr.] (1929-2012) (Banyan Tree Books, 1981)
Early development of Ecotopia as described in 1975 Callenbach. Callenbach's political ideas are developed in Callenbach and Michael Phillips, A Citizen Legislature. Berkeley/Bodega, CA: Banyan Tree Books/Clear Glass, 1985. Rpt. Exeter, England: Imprint Academic, 2008 with an "Introduction" by Peter Stone (9-16).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Entertainment" - M[ichael] A[nthony] Foster (b. 1939) (New Voices 4. The John W. Campbell Award Nominees, 1981)
Flawed in which the human race is cut off from reality.
Rpt. in his Owl Time; A Collection of Fictions (New York: DAW Books, 1985), 151-251.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Firebird - Charles L[eonard] Harness (1915-2005) (Pocket Books, 1981)
Dystopia of telepathic computers, known collectively as Control, that rule the galaxy and plans to give itself immortality by destroying all life.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Forever" - Damon [Francis] Knight (1922-2002) (Omni, 1981)
Scientists in the nineteenth century invent an elixir for a very long life, which is followed by a cure for all diseases. This leads to a eutopia of peace and prosperity, and, later, a fall in the birth rate and the end of the human race.
Rpt. In The Second Omni Book of Science Fiction. Ed. Ellen [Sue] Datlow (New York: Zebra Books, nd), 345-53.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Green Futures of Tycho - William [Warner] Sleator [III] (1945-2011) (E. P. Dutton, 1981)
Children's time travel book that includes a future authoritarian dystopia.
Rpt. New York: Puffin, 1991; and New York: Starscape, 2005. This ed. includes a "Reader's Guide" (115-21). U.K. ed. London: Macdonald, 1988.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Home Ground - Cecelia [Anastasia Holland (b. 1943) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981)
An intentional community in California in the seventies where some people are trying to create a eutopia, others are simply living, and others are primarily concerned with sex and drugs.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Johnny Mnemonic" - William [Ford] Gibson (b. 1948) (Omni, 1981)
Early cyberpunk dystopia. See 1995 Bisson for a novel based on the story.
Rpt. in The Best of Omni No. 6 (New York: Omni Publications, 1983), 16-22; The Second Omni Book of Science Fiction. Ed. Ellen [Sue] Datlow (New York: Zebra Books, nd), 355-79; in his Burning Chrome (London: Victor Gollancz, 1986), 6-27. Rpt. London: Grafton, 1988), 14-36. U.S. ed. (New York: Arbor House, 1987), 6-27; and in Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Revolution and Evolution. Ed. Victoria Blake (Portland, OR: Underhand Press, 2013), 015-032.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"Journey's End" - Paul Fussell (1924-2012) (Harper's, 1981)
Short article on the author's ideal city (food, culture, courtesies, etc.) inspired by a bout of illness in Israel.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mallworld - Somtow [Papinian] Sucharitkul (b. 1952) (Donning, 1981)
A collection of related stories about Mallworld, which is a mall thirty kilometers long with some 20,000 shops that was sent into an alternate universe by aliens who are studying the human race.
Rev. ed. without the illus. [New York]: Tor, 1984. Later editions were published as The Ultimate Mallworld. Atlanta, GA: Meisha Merlin Press, 2000; and The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld. Illus. Karl Kofoed. Bangkok, Thailand/Los Angeles, CA: Diplodocus Press, 2013 with “Ultimate, Ultimate, Ultimate” by Somtow (unpaged). Parts were originally published as “A Day in Mallworld.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 3.10 (20) (October 1979): 74-95 (1-22). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (15-44); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (15-42); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (15-41); “Sing a Song of Mallworld.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 4.7 (29) (July 1980): 28-53 (23-50). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (46-81); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (43-78); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (43-74); “The Vampire of Mallworld.” Amazing Science Fiction Stories Combined with Fantastic 27.12 (May 1981): 22-? (51-77). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (83-118); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (79-113); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (79-110); “Rabid in Mallworld.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 4.6 (29) (June 1980): 20-44 (78-102). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (119-51); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (115-45); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (115-43); “Mallworld Graffiti.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 5.9 (43) (August 31, 1981): 130-65 (103-36). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (153-204); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (147-91); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (147-89); “The Dark Side of Mallworld.” Illus Stephen Fabian. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 5.11 (45) (October 26, 1981): 138-68 (139-71). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (205-48); rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (193-230); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (193-30). “The Jaws of Mallworld” is original to the first version (172-94). Rpt. in the 1984 Mallworld (249-84); in The Ultimate Mallworld (235-64 with pages 281-84/rev. on 263-64); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (235-64). The Ultimate Mall World adds “A Mall and the Gneiss Visitors.” Rpt. in The Ultimate Mallworld (269-92); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (269-92); “Bug-eyed in Mallworld” (297-330); rpt. in The Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld (297-330). See also “The Mallworld Falcon.” In The Ultimate Alien. Ed. Byron Preiss, John Betancourt, and Keith R. A. DeCandido (New York: Dell/A Byron Preiss Book, 1995), 41-73.
Keywords: Male author; Thai author; US author

The Morphodite - M[ichael] A[nthony] Foster (b. 1939) (DAW Books, 1981)
Authoritarian dystopia that designs a human being to be able to detect conspiracies, but the Morphodite was able to think for himself. Two sequels follow the Morphodite's further adventures; see 1983 Foster, Transformer and 1985 Foster, Preserver.
Rpt. in his The Transformer Trilogy (New York: DAW Books, 2006), 1-209.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Musical Utopia: A dream? Not entirely . . ." - Paul Fromm (1906-87) (High Fidelity, 1981)
Brief discussion of Hector Berlioz's (1803-69) Euphonia together the author's own musical eutopia, which he also calls Euphonia, which stresses composers and performers working together.
Keywords: German author; Male author; US author

“No Exit” - Paul Mavrides (b. 1952); Jay Kinney (b. 1950) (Anarchy Comics, 1981)
Satire on both punk rock and the anarchist eutopia. A punk rocker is frozen and revived thousands of years in the future in an anarchist eutopia, where his violence gets him sent back to the past, where he arrives at the corner of Haight and Ashbury during the “summer of love.” The eutopia is also satirized in that everyone lives on a commune; there is only healthy food, clothes and most other things are made from worms; Dolphins run an L 5 space colony and communicate with Earth by telepathy; and so forth.
Rpt. in Anarchy Comics. The Complete Collection. Ed. Jay Kinney (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2013), 97-104.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Not Responsible! Park and Lock It" - John [Joseph Vincent] Kessel (b. 1950) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1981)
Dystopia in which all people live on a westbound highway with support services from, and it becomes clear, control by robots. Men are the drivers; women appear to be almost entirely in traditional roles. The story follows one boy from birth to getting his own car. Although the family has been travelling all the years in between, both events take place at the same mile marker. The Eastbound lanes appear to be a religious myth enforced by robots.
Rpt. in his The Pure Product. Stories (New York: Tor, 1997), 303-328; and in his The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2022), 11-33, with a note on the story on 563-565.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Notes In Passing" - Freundlich, Paul (Communities: Journal of Cooperative Living, 1981)
An odd story where the Second Coming requires everyone to examine their consciences, which leads to mass suicide. Ultimately the entire human race disappears and the planet and its flora and fauna flourish.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Oath of Fealty - Larry [Lawrence van Cott] Niven (b. 1938); Jerry [Eugene] Pournelle (1933-2017) (Phantasia Press, 1981)
Dystopia and eutopia presenting the ideas of the Italian architect Paolo Soleri (b. 1919).  An arcology is built in the middle of Los Angeles that is home to 250,000 people and provides for all their needs with security of high priority. Conflict with the rest of the city develops, and the strengths and weaknesses of the arcology as a way of life are revealed. For Soleri's ideas, see, for example, his Arcology: The City in the Image of Man. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1969. The community Arcosanti in Arizona was built using his ideas.
Also published New York: Timescape, 1981. An excerpt was published in Niven’s Playgrounds of the Mind (New York: Tor, 1991), 436-48.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Once Upon a Future: the name gathering" - Pirtle, Sara (Communities: Journal of Cooperative Living, 1981)
A story and a story about telling the story to different groups of children with the children’s reactions determining the direction of the story. The story is an eco-feminist one in which a girl from an ecologically sensitive community meets a girl from a technological community. Name gathering is a rite of passage in which at puberty everyone goes on a solo journey during which they choose their own name.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Orange Blossom Time" - Pat[rice Anne] Murphy (b. 1955) (Chrysalis, 1981)
Future dystopia of urban crime and pollution.
Rpt. (New York: Zebra, [1981]), 87-100.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Pilgrimage - Drew Mendelson (b. 1945) (DAW Books, 1981)
Dystopia. An immense moving society is decaying and the social systems that have been in place for generations are breaking down.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Planet of No Return - Harry [Max] Harrison (1925-2012) (Simon & Schuster, 1981)
Dystopia of violence and constant war.
U.K. ed. London: Severn House, 1983.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Resurrection Days - [Arthur] Wilson Tucker (1914-2006) (Timescape, 1981)
Dystopia of a world of women with one man from the past who disrupts the women's world.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Revolution from Rosinante - Alexis [Arnaldus] Gilliland (b. 1931) (Ballantine Books, 1981)
Dystopia in which a failing Earth affects the attempts of those building a space colony to survive. Non-utopian sequels include Long Shot for Rosinante. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981; and The Pirates of Rosinante. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Sardonyx Net - Elizabeth A[nne] Lynn (b. 1946) (G.P. Putnam's Son, 1981)
Dystopia in which convicted felons serve their terms as drugged slaves working for a large corporation run by a sadist.
Rpt. New York: Berkley Books, 1982.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Schrödinger's Cat Two: The Trick Top Hat - Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) (Pocket Books, 1981)
Dystopia and eutopia. Various alternative histories of past, present, and future. The dystopian future describes a future United States called Unistat, which is authoritarian. But there is also a period in which Unistad is a eutopia in which all poverty is ended through automation and awards both for all those who invented better machines and those replaced by the new machines. All prisons abolished and crime almost eliminated. Middle volume of a trilogy. The trilogy is a sequel to another trilogy, Robert [Joseph] Shea (1933-94) and Robert Anton Wilson. The Illuminatus! New York: Dell, 1975; Rpt. as The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan. New York: Dell, [1984] [All three originally published separately New York: Dell, 1975]. See also, Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati. Berkeley, CA: And/Or Press, 1977; rpt. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon, 1993; The Illuminati Papers. Berkeley, California: And/Or, 1980; Masks of the Illuminati. New York: Timescape Pocket Books, 1981; and Right Where You Are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: Ronin Publishing, 1992. All this material could be described as dystopian, but except for the explicit eutopia and the vague dystopia, there is little social detail.
Rpt. in Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy: The Universe Next Door, The Trick Top Hat, The Homing Pigeons (New York: Dell, 1988), 190-347. The other volumes were originally published as Schrödinger's Cat: The Universe Next Door. New York: Pocket Books, 1979; and Schrödinger's Cat III: The Homing Pigeons. New York: Pocket Books, 1981.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Shiloh Project - David C[harles] Poyer (b. 1949) (Avon, 1981)
Alternative history in which the Confederacy won the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, but all that was achieved was a century-long standoff between the North and the South, which is a police state. In the novel, the North has developed the atomic bomb, and it dropped it on Japan. The South is desperate to get its own, and, at the end of the novel, uses it.
Keywords: Male author; US author