"Getting to Know You" - David Marusek (b. 1951) (Future Histories: Award-Winning Science Fiction Writers Predict Twenty Tomorrows for Communications, 1997)
Dystopia of division between the rich and poor with immortality and cloning eliminating both jobs and pre-clone humans. Set in the same world as his 2005 Counting Heads.
Rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 267-87 with an Editor’s note on 267; and in Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Revolution and Evolution. Ed. Victoria Blake (Portland, OR: Underhand Press, 2013), 109-134. Substantially revised in Asimov’s Science Fiction 22.3 (267) (March 1998): 120-141. Rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Utopias. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois and Sheila Williams (New York: Ace Books, 2000), 62-96 with a note on 62; and in his Getting to Know You (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2007), 255-287.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Glimmering: A Novel - Elizabeth [Francis] Hand (b. 1957) (HarperPrism, 1997)
Near future (1999) ecological dystopia. The new edition is revised throughout but does not change the fundamentals.
Rev. ed. Portland, OR: Underland Press, 2012 with "Author's Notes to This Revised Edition" (xiii-xiv) and Kim Stanley Robinson, "Introduction" (xvii-xviii).
Keywords: Female author; US author

How Few Remain [Cover adds A Novel of The Second War Between the States] - Harry [Norman] Turtledove (b. 1949) (Del Rey/Ballantine, 1997)
The first volume of a long alternative history series set after the Confederacy wins the American Civil War in 1862 with the help of the United Kingdom and France and is still an independent nation in the 20th century. There are two sub-series, The Great War and Settling Accounts. This volume is set in 1881 when the North attacks the South after it annexes parts of Mexico and gets a Pacific port. A Socialist Party emerges in the North led by Lincoln. The Great War sub-series includes The Great War: American Front. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 1998, which is set during World War I when the North again invades South; The Great War: Walk in Hell. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 1999, which is on the war; The Great War: Breakthroughs. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2000, which is set in 1917 with the North fighting two wars, one on its Northern border against Canada and Great Britain and in the South with the Confederate States of America. The South is dealing with an Insurgency of African Americans trying to establish an independent socialist republic. The Settling Accounts sub-series includes Settling Accounts: Return Engagement. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2004, in which South, under a dictatorship, invades North but is defeated; Settling Accounts: Drive to the East. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2005, which is on war; Settling Accounts: The Grapple. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2006, in which both sides are trying to create a nuclear weapon, the South is murdering African Americans, and the North has a socialist Vice-President; Settling Accounts: In at the Death. New York: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2007 in which the South is defeated.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth - Max McCoy (b. 1958) (Bantam Books, 1997)
Primarily adventure, but the hollow earth is a Nazi dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Lethe" - Walter Jon Williams (b. 1953) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1997)
Eutopia of cloning. See also 2003 Williams.
Rpt. in his The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2010), 29-59 with an "Afterword" on 59-61.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Life House - Spider Robinson (b. 1948) (Baen, 1997)
Dystopia in which it is possible for others to edit a person’s memories. The third volume of what comes to be called the Lifehouse Trilogy, which includes his 1982 Mindkiller and 1992 Time Pressure.
Rpt. in The Lifehouse Trilogy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 439-632.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Lightpaths - Howard V[incent] Hendrix (b. 1959) (Ace Books, 1997)
Orbital habitat that is supposed to be a eutopia undermined by the usual human foibles. His Standing Wave. New York: Ace Books, 1998 uses the same setting.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Like the Gentle Rain" - Lewis [Gordon] Shiner (b. 1950) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1997)
Dystopia in which science appears to dominate everything with human considerations considered irrelevant. In fact, extremely wealthy humans control the robotic scientists in order to make even more money. An author’s note on 167 says that the story “was presented at an academic conference on J.D. Bernal’s essay ‘The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Inquiry into the future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul’.”
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Misconceiver - Lucy Ferriss (b. 1954) (Simon & Schuster, 1997)
The dystopia of a future  United States  with abortion outlawed.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Mississippi Blues - Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952-2021) (Tor, 1997)
Sequel to 1994 Goonan. In this novel the protagonist continues her trip down the Ohio and into the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. Loosely related to 2000 and 2002 Goonan with the four volumes together called her “Nanotech Quartet.”
Keywords: Female author; US author

Mother Grimm - [Catherine Jean Wells] [Dimenstein] (b. 1952) (Roc, 1997)
Dystopia contrasting the sterile world of the Biodome with the vicious world outside.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse - James Wesley Rawles (b. 1960) (Ulysses Press, 1997)
Dystopia of economic and social collapse in the U.S. The novel focuses on a group struggling to get to a safe enclave in northern Idaho and then try to recreate constitutional government. His Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse. New York: Atria Books, 2011 is described as a companion volume. Sequels include Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse. New York: Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2012, a dystopia set in a collapsing U.S. being rescued by survivalists; Expatriates: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse. New York: Dutton, 2013; and Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse. New York: Dutton, 2014.
3rd exp. ed. as Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse. A Novel of the Turbulent Near Future. [Bloomington, IN]: Xlibris, 2006. [4th ed.] as Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse. Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2009. 1st ed. The novel was originally self-published as TEOTWAWKI: The End of the World as We Know It (1997). Before that parts of the novel were distributed as shareware with the title The Gray Nineties and Triple Ought.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Physiognomy - Jeffrey Ford (b. 1955) (Avon Books, 1997)
The first volume in a series. This volume depicts a corrupt, authoritarian dystopia based on the detailed study of the shapes of the parts the human body with people being disfigured or condemned based on those shapes. After the dystopia collapses, a primitive eutopia is briefly presented in the last chapter. His Memoranda. New York: Avon Eos, 1999 is a sequel in which the primitive eutopia is attacked by the leader of the failed dystopia. In the third volume, The Beyond. New York: Tor, 2001 the protagonist of the first two searches “the Beyond,” which appears to be a version of Hell, hoping for forgiveness for his actions in the first volume.
Rpt. New York: AvonEos, 1998.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Polymorph - Scott [David] Westerfeld (b. 1963) (Roc, 1997)
Biological science fiction set against a dystopian background of social collapse.
Keywords: Australian author; Male author; US author

Private Nation - N[ikolas] A[nthony] Diaman (b. 1936) (Persona Press, 1997)
Begins with a future dystopia of extreme privatization from a gay perspective. Ends with at least the outlines of a gay eutopia. Mostly from the male point of view.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Prologue: A Glimpse of Things to Come” and “Epilogue: Human Destiny?” - Lee M. Silver (b. 1952) (In his Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World, 1997)
An imaginative projection into the future of genetic engineering, with, in the “Prologue,” stops in 2010, 2050, and 2350, and, in the “Epilogue,” in 2350, 2997, and the far future designated as ???? Projects a deep division between the “Naturals” and the “GenRich” or genetically enriched with, ultimately, divisions within the human species and the development of what later came to be called the Posthuman. Due to the division into Natural and Gen-Rich, by 2350 ethnic and racial differences are no longer important. Within the Gen-Rich, significant subtypes have emerged, with fundamental differences among, for example, athletes, scientists, businessmen, musicians, artists. “and even GenRich intellectual generalists” (5). Natural children are only taught basic skills to fit them for low-paid service jobs. Natural and GenRich come to live segregated lives and are biologically separate species. Later GenRich reshape themselves to fit the environments on different planets and finally evolve into what is now called Posthumans.
U.K. ed. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Pyrexia (A sapiens-fiction novel) - Michel Méry (III Publishing, 1997)
In a future where people can travel to alternative realities through a machine interface, a man, Abelard, tries to re-find Pyrexia, a sex goddess, but keeps ending up in the past (our present). Both his future and our present are depicted in dystopian terms.
Keywords: French author; Male author; US author

"Quin's Shanghai Circus" - Jeff[rey Scott] VanderMeer (b. 1968) (Interzone, 1997)
Dystopia brought about by free enterprise.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman - Walter M[ichael] Miller Jr. (1923-96) (Bantam Books, 1997)
Sequel of sorts to 1960 Miller set after events of most of the first novel but before the conclusion. Most of the novel is concerned with relations among the various peoples of what remains of the U.S. and conflicts within the Church.
U.K. ed. London: Orbit, 1997.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy - Matt[hew Theron] Theron] Ruff (b. 1965) (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997)
Humorous dystopia with much fantasy set in 2023. One sub-theme is that a new Tower of Babel is being built in Manhattan. While the book is dedicated to Ayn Rand (see 1938 and 1957 Rand), the presentation of Rand in the novel is almost entirely negative.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Silicon Karma - Thomas A[twood] Easton (b. 1944) (White Wolf Publishing, 1997)
Dystopia in a virtual world where those who had been criminals and so forth when in bodies continue their activities.
Keywords: Male author; US author

/ [Slant] - Greg[ory Dale] Bear (1951-2022) (Tor, 1997)
The novel is something of a sequel to 1990 Bear in that it includes some of the same characters and issues.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Toward the End of Time - John [Hoyer] Updike (1932-2009) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)
The background of the novel is a dystopia following a Sino-American war, but the dystopian institutions play only a minor role in the novel.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Transmetropolitan - Warren G[irard] Ellis (b. 1968); Darick W. Robertson (b. 1967) (DC Comics, 1997)
Graphic novel set in a violent, corrupt dystopia and the fight against it.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Tropic of Orange. A Novel - Karen Tei Yamashita (b. 1951) (Coffee House, 1997)
Magical realist dystopia set in Los Angeles.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Tyranny." - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Free Space, 1997)
Revolt against a libertarian eutopia that has become bureaucratized.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Undesirables - Mary C. Smith (b. 1936) (Black Heron Press, 1997)
An apparent eutopia (no war, no gender or racial discrimination) is in fact an authoritarian dystopia. The bureaucracy manipulates the apparent direct democracy, mates people to produce the “right” offspring, and uses drugs as a means of social control. Those who don’t fit in are brainwashed or sterilized. The novel focuses on the struggle to reform it.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Adiamante - L[eland] E[xton] Modesitt Jr. (b. 1943) (Tor, 1996)
Background of a decentralized eutopia threatened by a militaristic, authoritarian regime.
Keywords: Male author; US author

American Solutions Without Sacrifice: An End to Special Interests A Return to American Middle-Class Interests - Ronald A. Drum (Pitbull Press, 1996)
Mostly a diatribe against the then-current U. S. economic and political system with a special focus on health care. At the end of the book the author proposes a series of changes to the system that are designed to produce a much better life. The most important of these are a National Health Insurance Program, a radical downsizing of government at all levels, national and state referenda, recall, elimination of seniority in legislatures, eliminating the electoral college, a single progressive tax, greater regulation of the economy, changes in the way judges are chosen, eliminating donations to candidates for office from “special interest groups, legalizing drugs, eliminating coeducation, changes in social security.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Amnesiascope - Steve [Stephen Michael] Erickson (b. 1950) (Henry Holt, 1996)
A satirical, magical-realist, post-catastrophe dystopia set in Los Angeles.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Bicycle Repairman" - [Michael] Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) (Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology, 1996)
Dystopia set in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2037. The background to the story is the NAFTA Government, a new country that has abolished the U.S. Constitution. The story focuses on an independent bicycle repairman working in a shop in part of a building that was burned out in a riot in an area where people are leading independent lives free from the authoritarian system that surrounds them. The ending suggests that the area will regenerate, and the rich will move back.
Rpt. in Asimov’s Science Fiction 20.10&11 (250-51) (October/November 1996): 156-85; in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Fourteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 254-78; in Isaac Asimov’s Utopias. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois and Sheila Williams (New York: Ace Books, 2000), 234-78 without the added material and with a note on 234-35; in his A Good Old-Fashioned Future. Stories New York: Bantam Books, 1999, 188-228; U.K. ed. as A Good Old-Fashioned Future (London: Gollancz, 2001), 188-228; and in Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Ed. James P. Kelley and John Kessel (San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2007), 3-35; and in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 790-807 with an editor’s note on 790.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson (b. 1952) (HarperCollins, 1996)
Third volume in a trilogy describing the terraforming of Mars and the growth of societies there. Sequel to 1992 Robinson, Red Mars.  and 1994 Robinson, Green Mars. This volume describes the terraformed Mars, the continuing conflicts over what should be done to change Mars, and the eutopian society that develops there contrasted with the dystopia that Earth has become. The eutopian is one in which a variety of societies coexist peacefully with an emphasis on community. A story set further into the future of Mars is his “A Martian Romance.” Asimov’s Science Fiction. 23.10 (285) (October/November 1999): 14-28; rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Seventeenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 434-47 with an editor’s note on 433. Materials related to the trilogy were published as The Martians. New York: Bantam Books, 1999. U.K. edition. London: HarperCollins, 1999, which reprints his “Exploring Fossil Canyon.” Universe 12. Ed. Terry Carr (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 26-47; “Sexual Dimorphism.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 23.6 (281) (June 1999): 28-39; and “A Martian Romance.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 23.10[/11] (285) (October-November 1999): 14-28. In addition, The Martians includes poems “Six Poems from If Wang Wei Lived on Mars rpt. in his Stan’s Kitchen: A Robinson Reader. Ed. David C. Grubbs (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 125-143 [“Crossing Mather Pass” (311-11/127-28), “Invisible Owls” (315-16/129-30), “Tenzing” (317-19/131-33), “The Red’s Lament” (322/23/135-136), “A Report on the First Recorded Case of Areophagy” (320-21/137-39)], and “Two Years” (324/27/141-43), and the story “Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars” (179-88/171-79).
U.S. ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1997. Rpt. illus. Ron Miller with an “Introduction” by James Gunn (v-viii). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Bones of Time - Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952-2021) (Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, 1996)
Eutopian and dystopian aspects of genetic engineering set mostly in Hawaii at different times from the late nineteenth century to into the future.
Originated in her novella “Kamehameha’s Bones.” Illus. Laurie Harden. Asimov’s Science Fiction 17.10 (205) (September 1993): 132-74.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Community" - Gardner R[aymond] Dozois (1947-2018) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1996)
Religious dystopia in which whatever, in the church's view, stands in the way of a person's "redemption" by destroying it. The two examples are a woman with too many cats, which are killed, and a woman whose husband and son are the problem, and both of them are killed.
Rpt. in his When the Great Days Come ([Canton, OH]: Prime Books, 2011), 315-22.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Community Service" - Molly [Doris Mary] Brown (Interzone (Brighton, Eng.), 1996)
Dystopia focusing on conflict between police and an underclass.
Keywords: Female author; UK author; US author

“The Cost to Be Wise” - Maureen F. McHugh (b. 1959) (Starlight 1, 1996)
Dystopia on a planet that was a colony of Earth, forgotten by Earth and having forgotten Earth, which is rediscovered but remains a generally primitive, ignorant, and violent society. The novella describes the conflict that takes place during a visit by people from Earth. Female author.
Rpt. in Lightspeed: Women Destroy Science Fiction. Ed. Christie Yant. No 49 of Lightspeed (June 2014): 206-48.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Designated Mourner - William Shawn (b. 1943) (Faber and Faber, 1996)
Dystopia set in the near future with a regime supressing all dissent. Play directed by David Hare (b. 1947) first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London April 18, 1996.
U.S. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Faraday's Orphans - N[ancy] Lee Wood (b. 1955) (Victor Gollancz, 1996)
Dystopia after an environmental catastrophe in which the lucky live in domed cities. Largely adventure novel in the horrible conditions outside the domes.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Fight Club - Chuck [Charles Michael] Palahniuk (b. 1962) (W.W. Norton, 1996)
Dystopia best known in the 1999 film version directed by David Fincher and with a screenplay by Jim Uhis.
U.K. ed. London: Vintage, 1997. A comic book series Fight Club 2, nos. 1-10 and Fight Club 2 Free Comic Book Day 2015 are collected in Fight Club 2: The Tranquility Gambit. Art by Cameron Stewart, Colors by Dave Stewart, Letters and logo by Nate Piekos of Blambot®, and Cover and chapter break by David Mack. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2016.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Flying Dreams” - Raven Kaldera (b. 1966) (The New Worlds of Women, 1996)
One character in this erotic lesbian story is from a religious planet that clothes its people in underwear that constantly monitors them from a young age and sends its results back to the leadership.
Rpt. in The Circlet Treasury of Lesbian Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Cecilia Tan (New York: Riverdale Avenue Books, 2013), 168-81.
Keywords: Transgender author; US author

The Fortunate Fall - Raphael Carter (Tor, 1996)
Set in a future authoritarian dystopia with a vague image of a eutopia in Africa. Dystopia ultimately overthrown, apparently peacefully.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Fourth Millennium: The Sequel - Paul [D.] Meier (b. 1947); Robert [L.] Wise (b. 1939) (A Janet Thoma Book/Thomas Nelson Publisher, 1996)
Sequel to 1993 Meier with this novel set in 997 N.E. (New Era) near the end of Christ’s millennial rule. Earth is an environmentally renewed eutopia with greatly improved technology that has been at peace since the Tribulation and people live hundreds of years. But those who did not experience the Tribulation have grown cynical, and preparations are being made for the final battle between good and evil with the outcome as described in the Book of Revelation.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Fraternity Reigns" - Richard [McKay] Rorty (1931-2007) (The New York Times Magazine, 1996)
Written as the article on "Fraternity" in the 7th ed. of A Companion to American Thought, published in 2095 and edited by Cynthia J. Rodriguez, S.J. and Youzheng Patel. It looks at the collapse of the U.S. under capitalism and its slow rebirth based on fraternity. In his Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (xvi), Rorty discusses his utopia, and in Philosophy and Social Hope (xiii-xiv), he argues for the importance of utopias.
Rpt. as "Looking Backwards from the Year 2096." In his Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 243-51.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Fremder - Russell [Conwell] Hoban (1925-2011) (Jonathan Cape, 1996)
Complex novel of personal identity with a dystopian background.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Gibbon's Decline and Fall - Sheri [Shirley] S[tewart] Tepper (1929-2016) (Bantam Books, 1996)
Dystopia of a future that is becoming increasingly anti-woman. There is cooperation between the Vatican, Islamic leaders, and right-wing Christians to force women to be subservient to men.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Higher Education. A Jupiter™ Novel - Jerry [Eugene] Pournelle (1933-2017); Charles [A.] Sheffield (1935-2002) (Tor, 1996)
World divided into the very rich and the very poor. Right wing take on problems of U.S.
Includes material first published in Future Quartet. Earth in the Year 2042: A Four-Part Invention (New York: William Morrow, 1994), 227-94. Rpt. rev. in How To Save the World. Ed. Charles Sheffield (New York: Tor, 1995), 275-346; and as “Higher Education.” Illus. George H. Krauter. Analog Science Fiction and Fact 116.3 - 6 (February - May 1996): 12-16, 18-20, 22-24, 26-28, 30-32, 34-36, 38-40, 42-44, 46-48, 50-60; 108-144, 104-144, 102-122.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Holy Fire - [Michael] Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) (Bantam Books, 1996)
Complex future world based on ability to extend life. Gerontocrats rule.
U.K. ed. London: Millennium, 1999.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"How We Got in Town and out Again" - Jonathan [Allen] Lethem (b. 1964) (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 1996)
Post-catastrophe dystopia where towns try to keep all strangers out.
Rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Fourteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 457-74; and in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2008), 67-85.
Keywords: Male author; US author

In Heaven As On Earth: A Vision of the Afterlife - M[organ] Scott Peck M.D. (1936-2005) (Hyperion, 1996)
Self-help book presented as a story of heaven. Some eutopian elements.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Infinite Jest. A Novel - David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) (Little, Brown, 1996)
Dystopia. Near future stress on gratification in which a film called "Infinite Jest" is so appealing that all anyone wants to do is to see it repeatedly.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Javier, Dying in the Land of Flowers” - [Deborah Jean] [Ross] (b. 1947) (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1996)
A dystopia set in the same future as 1992 Ross focusing on some of the secondary characters from that story. This story emphasizes the deep division between the rich and the poor and the extreme pollution that makes the poor sick but for there are treatments for the rich, if ever contaminated.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Last Glypt on Demeter - Henry M. Greenwald (Vantage Press, 1996)
The history of a planet from its peak to its destruction by aliens as told by the last man. Demeter was a flawed utopia with a world government, a single language, no disease, and with all weapons and weapon delivery systems outlawed. The people lived over 350 years, which required population control. The family had been abolished, couples or singles got an apartment with a garden and aquarium where they produced their own food. But few people ever had jobs, and most people spent their time as spectators at a wide range of games (cards, computer games, and sports).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Last Homosexual" - Paul [Claiborne] Park (b. 1954) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1996)
Dystopia in which the U.S. has broken up into individual states, and the story focuses on Louisiana under the New Baptists.
Rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Fourteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 167-77.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Missing Time" - Allen M[ulherin] Steele [Jr.] (b. 1958) (Worcester Magazine, 1996)
Alternative eutopian and dystopian futures for Worcester, Massachusetts based on current policies. The first is based on reduced investment and produces a violent dystopia. The second is based on innovative, environmentally friendly investment and produces a vibrant eutopian future. The third continues current policies and produces a mildly dystopian run-down future.
Rpt. in his American Beauty (Waterville, ME: Five Star, 2003), 106-20.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Moonhare - Kirk Hampton (b. 1948) (York Press, 1996)
The planet Wemm has been deprived of its technology and must live in a pastoral setting.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Passion, Digitally” - David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) (The New York Times Magazine, 1996)
A future dictionary entry on the word date and the way had been used earlier provides a comparative perspective on and some social history of sexual relations and gender norms from the early twentieth century to 2096. Both can be read as dystopian.
Rpt. as “Datum Centurio.” In his Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (New York: Little, Brown/Hachette, 1999), 106-10. 978-0-316-92541-9
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Patches" - Lesley [Willis] Choyce (b. 1951) (Trapdoor to Heaven: New Fiction, 1996)
Computer controlled dystopia in which children are given knowledge through implants, which also removes their memories. As a result, everyone is rational and equal. The story is about a group of students who remove their patches and their conversation with an android who, linked to the computer, cannot understand their choice.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Paths to Otherwhere - James P[atrick] Hogan (1941-2010) (Baen, 1996)
Dystopia of totalitarian states with a wide variety of alternative futures available.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author; US author

Pirates of the Universe - Terry [Ballantine] Bisson (1942-2024) (Tor, 1996)
The future Earth is a violent and depleted dystopia. One Refuge is a utopian theme park called “Pirates of the Universe”. Much adventure.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"A Plan for Wellington until the Destruction: Utopic Excavations at the Palisade" - Donald James Dunham (b. 1962) (Victoria University of Wellington, 1996)
Plans for a future Wellington, New Zealand. The thesis is divided into two parts, the first surveying the history of utopian planning, the second (101-23) describing fictionally a future Wellington that has arisen after an earthquake. In this section, there are two main flawed utopias. The City is a technological eutopia with an extremely harsh criminal code. The Island is completely non-technological, with no electricity. On the Island nine leaders are chosen by lot to serve for 27 days only. There are communal meals every day. Most of the inhabitants of the Island are people who broke one of the many City laws and chose to live permanently on the Island rather than undergoing The Penalty (being blinded and crippled), which is the only other punishment in the City. Another island which serves as a refuge for women and animals is briefly mentioned.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Prisoner's Son: Homage to Anthony Burgess - Jerome Gold (b. 1943) (Black Heron Press, 1996)
Dystopia that takes place some years after 1991 Gold, The Inquisitor which is a sequel showing the further impoverishment, disintegration, and degradation of the US. The Southwest and Pacific states have been sold to México. The novel focuses on Seattle, which has no effective government or even social rules.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Protektor - Charles Platt (b. 1945) (Avon Books, 1996)
Future computer controlled eutopia that develops flaws.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Pussy, King of the Pirates - Kathy [Karen Lehmann] Acker (1948-97) (Grove Atlantic Press, 1996)
Complex dystopia. As with many of Acker's novels, this has connections with works of others, in this case Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850-94) Treasure Island (1883) and Pauline Réage's [pseud.] [Anne Declos (1907-98)] Histoire d'O (1954).
Rpt. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Picador, 1996.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Rebel Moon - Bruce [Raymond] Bethke (b. 1955); [Theodore] [Beale] {b. 1968) (Pocket Books, 1996)
By 2069 the United Nations had brought about peace and order on Earth, but the inhabitants of the Moon rebelled. While the Moon was defeated, its leaders hoped to continue the war, suggesting a sequel.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Second Infinity - Michael D[avid] Weaver (1961-98) (Avon Books, 1996)
The novel is about efforts to save a fragile future eutopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Silicon Embrace - John [Patrick] Shirley (b. 1954) (Mark V. Ziesing Books, 1996)
Various dystopias in a post-catastrophe future in which the United States has broken up into warring factions.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Space on Earth: The Story of Urban Mountain - Joel H. Rosenblatt P.E. (Vantage Press, 1996)
Non-fictional description of a future eutopia which stresses huge buildings that contain all the activities of a city. The internal arrangements are said to be on a human scale.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Telos: The Call Goes Out from the Hollow Earth and the Underground Cities - Dianne Robbins (b. 1939) (Author, 1996)
Detailed, although vague on some points, eutopia presented through communications received telepathically from the hollow center of the sun and the planets of the solar system. The focus is on the cities in the hollow Earth, particularly Telos which is under Mount Shasta, California. All those living in these hollows are connected into one cooperating eutopia under the rule of Ascended Masters, as is each hollow, and the people living in them are spiritually advanced. See also 2000 and 2003 Robbins.
Rev. & exp. ed. Mt. Shasta, CA: Mt. Shasta Light Pub, 2000.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Time Famine: A Novel - Lance Olsen (b. 1956) (Permeable Press, 1996)
Complex dystopia set in a corporate dominated future with massive environmental damage. For example, the novel begins in a post-"shimmer" (earthquake) Los Angeles that had experience the rupture of nuclear power plants (and immediately has another) and with a concentration camp theme park. The latest nuclear power plant rupture sends some people into different time periods.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Truth Machine: A Speculative Novel - James L. Halperin (b. 1952) (Ivy Press, 1996)
An infallible machine that detects the truth and its effects. See also 1998 Halperin.
Rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Ultimate Philosophy: A Man To Utopia - Jon Will (Utopian Pathway Fund, 1996)
Very general depiction of the principles on which a eutopia depends.
Keywords: Male author; US author

U.S.A. 2012: After the Middle-Class Revolution - Kenneth M. Dolbeare (b. 1930); Janette Kay Hubbell (Chatham House Publishers, 1996)
Mostly non-fiction on the problems of the present with two brief fictional sections written as if from 2012 that frame the book. “A New Declaration of Independence” (21-24) and four amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The first amendment (118-19) establishes the procedures national initiatives and referenda; the second amendment (120) puts severe restrictions on political campaigning and campaign finance; the third amendment (127-28) mandates proportional representation in the electoral college and state legislatures, easing the voting process, and adding “None of the Above” to all ballots; the fourth amendment (134) mandates that federal and state courts must take economic and social considerations into account in their decisions, permits the review of “excessive” awards by juries and fees charged by lawyers, and other devices designed to discourage litigation.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

Virtual Zen - Ray [Radell Faraday] Nelson (1931-2022) (Avon Books, 1996)
Quite general dystopia of apathy and disillusionment with a musician providing a more positive image.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Voices of Hope - David Feintuch (1944-2006) (Warner Books, 1996)
Dystopia of extreme rich versus poor divisions.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Washington Transformed: The Radical Future of the Northwest" - Greg[ory Dale] Bear (1951-2022) (Paradoxa, 1996)
High tech eutopian projection but with clear indications of problems.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Welcome, Kid, to the Real World" - L[inda] Timmel Duchamp (b. 1950) (Tales of the Unanticipated, 1996)
Dystopia in which children are required to choose their future physical and mental shape.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Whiteout - Sage Walker (Tor, 1996)
Very near future U.S. dystopia as background. In this overpopulated future government is controlled by multinational corporations and people are poverty-stricken and going hungry.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Zeitgeist - Todd Wiggins (Victor Gollancz, 1996)
A road novel set in 1999 U.S. Elements of an authoritarian dystopia with various rebels.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"And Baby Makes Five" - Daniel [David] Pearlman (1935-2013) (The Final Dream and Other Fictions, 1995)
Overpopulation dystopia in which one has to pay penalties for each child.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Animal Planet - Scott [Michael] Bradfield (b. 1955) (Picador, 1995)
Satire. Animals revolt but are turned into workers. Some animals cooperate and do well.
Parts previously published as “Animals Behind Bars.” Conjunctions 21 (Fall 1993): 144-65; and “Penguins for Lunch.” Triquarterly 93 (Spring/Summer 1995): 21-43.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"A Birthday" - Esther M[ona] Friesner (b. 1951) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1995)
Dystopia in which anyone having an abortion is required to see images of a growing child for six years.
Rpt. in The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: The Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Edward L. Ferman and George Van Gelder (New York: Tor, 1999), 183-99.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human - K[evin] W[ayne] Jeter (b. 1950) (Bantam Books, 1995)
Novel stemming from Ridley Scott's movie Blade Runner (1982), which was based on Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1969). Sequels include Blade Runner: Replicant Night. New York Bantam Books, 1996 (PSt); and Blade Runner 4: Eye & Talon. London: Victor Gollancz, 2000 (L).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Bohr Maker - Linda Nagata (b. 1960) (Bantam Books, 1995)
Conflict over access to nanotechnology in a fairly standard authoritarian dystopia. First volume in her The Nanotech Succession series. While all of the volumes share the influence of nanotechnology and are what is called hard science fiction, they all have different foci. The other volumes are volumes are Tech-Heaven. New York: Bantam Books, 1995; Deception Well. New York: Bantam Books, 1997; Vast. New York: Bantam Books, 1998; and Edges. Kula, HI: Mythic Island Press, 2019, which is the first volume of her Inverted Frontier sub-series.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Bounty: A Novella In Which a Genetically Flawed Hero Flees Through an American Dystopia, Evading Slave Traders and Regaining His Liberty" - George Saunders (b. 1958) (Harper's Magazine, 1995)
Dystopia as reflected in the title.
Rpt. without the subtitle in his Civilwarland in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996), 88-179.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The City of God" - Gardner R[aymond] Dozois (1947-2018); Michael [Jürgen] Swanwick (b. 1950) (Omni Online, 1995)
An exploration of the nature of utopianism and the way that the desire for power can corrupt it. Includes both an authoritarian dystopia of grinding poverty and violence and a now deserted eutopia.
Rpt. in Asimov's Science Fiction 20.10& 11 (250-51) (October/November 1996): 208-74; and in Michael [Jürgen] Swanwick with Jack [Mayo] Dann, Avram Davidson, and Gardner [Raymond] Dozois. Moon Dogs. Ed. Ann A. Broomhead & Timothy P. Szczesuil (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2000), 155-231.
Keywords: Male author; US author

City of God - Tom Grimes (W. W. Norton, 1995)
Near future dystopia of violence and rich/poor division.
U.K. ed. London: Picador, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Coming of Age in Karhide By Sov Thade Tage em Ereb, of Rer, in Karhide, on Gethen" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (New Legends, 1995)
Short sequel to 1969 Le Guin. The rites of passage of and emotional responses to going into kemmer (taking on sexual characteristics) for the first time.
U.S. ed. without subtitle after the first Karhide (New York: Tor, 1995), 90-105; and with the subtitle in her The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 1-22. U.K. ed. (London: Gollancz, 2002), 1-22; and in Hainish Novels & Stories Volume One. Rocannon’s World Planet of Exile City of Illusions The Left Hand of Darkness The Dispossessed Stories. Ed. Brian Attebery (New York: Library of America, 2017), 990-1008 with a “Note on the Text” (1084).
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - Neal [Town] Stephenson (b. 1959) (Bantam Books, 1995)
Technological Victorian age of the future and some alternatives.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The End of the Age. A Novel - Pat [Marion Gordon] Robertson (1930-2023) (Word Publishing, 1995)
Christian novel focusing on the dystopia on the period before the Second Coming of Christ.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture" - Rem[ment Lucas] Koolhaas (b. 1944) (Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, 1995)
Design for London with both dystopian and eutopian elements.
Keywords: Dutch author; Male author; US author

Femini Island - Godfrey Otiri (b. 1942) (Vantage Press, 1995)
Anti-feminist novel in which a man is shipwrecked on an isolated island populated only by beautiful women. Other sailors followed, boys were born, and conflicts developed among the women on a wide range of issues.
Keywords: Danish author; Male author; Nigerian author; US author

Four Ways to Forgiveness - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (HarperPrisim, 1995)
Four linked stories set on the planets of Werel and Yeowe as they struggle toward freedom from their oppressive pasts, including slavery and purdah for women. Some obvious satire but includes descriptions of the dystopias of the early histories of the two planets as well as material on the Hainish eutopias that she describes in many of her other stories and novels.
Rpt. as part of Five Ways to Forgiveness and in Hainish Novels & Stories Volume Two. The World for Word Is Forest Stories Five Ways to Forgiveness The Telling. Ed. Brian Attebery (New York: Library of America, 2017), 319-517, 570-88 with a “Note on the Text” (781) and “Notes (786-87). First published as four novellas--“Betrayals.” Blue Motel. Narrow Houses Volume 3. Ed. Peter Crowther (London: Little, Brown, 1994), 195-229; rpt. in her The Real and the Unreal. Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Volume Two Outer Space, Inner Lands (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2012), 99-131; “Forgiveness Day.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 18.12 & 13 (November 1994): 262-304; rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Twelfth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 1-47;  in Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Exploration in Science Fiction & Fantasy. Ed. Debbie Notkin & The Secret Feminist Cabal (Cambridge, MA: Edgewood Press, 1998), 68-118; and in The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 241-302; “A Man of the People.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 19.4 & 5 (229-30) (April 1995): 22-40, 42-46, 48-65; and in The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 303-58; and “A Woman’s Liberation.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 19.8 (July 1995): 116-63; rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 1-42; in A Woman’s Liberation: A Choice of Futures By and About Women. Ed. Connie Willis and Sheila Williams (New York: Warner Books, 2001), 227-94; and in The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 359-428.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Fragments From: LINDA SUSAN" - Mac Wellman (b. 1945) (Theater, 1995)
Brief eutopian play in fragments.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Gaia's Toys - [Rebecca Bard] [Brown] (b. 1948) (Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, 1995)
Genetic engineering dystopia where genetic manipulation is standard practice. Deep rich-poor division, those without a job have no option but to become a drone for the military, and saving endangered species is a fad for the rich. Eco-terrorists are trying to stop the government’s plan for a new genetic mutation that will take away the last vestiges of personal freedom.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Headcrash - Bruce [Raymond] Bethke (b. 1955) (Warner Aspect, 1995)
Cyberpunk dystopia.
U.K. edition London: Orbit, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Home" - Geoff[rey Charles] Ryman (b. 1951) (Interzone, 1995)
Dystopia in which people prey on the elderly.
Rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 495-99; and in his Paradise Tales (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2011), 123-29.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; UK author; US author

Johnny Mnemonic - Terry [Ballantine] Bisson (1942-2024) (Pocket Books, 1995)
Based on the story and screenplay by Gibson. See 1981 Gibson for the story and 1995 Gibson for the screenplay.
Keywords: Male author; US author

K-PAX - Gene Brewer (b. 1937) (St. Martin's Press, 1995)
Anarchist eutopia. Sequels are On a Beam of Light. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001 and K-PAX III: The Worlds of Prot. London: Bloomsbury, 2002.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Left Behind: A Novel of Earth's Last Days - Tim[othy Framcis] LaHaye (1926-2016); Jerry B[ruce] Jenkins (b. 1949) (Tyndale House Publishers, 1995)
The first volume of the Left Behind series, which describes those left on earth after the Rapture, a premillennialist belief based on 1 Corinthians 15:52 and 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-17 developed initially in England in the 1830s and included in the Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, American Branch/London: H. Frowde, 1909. Mostly dystopian, but the last volume, Kingdom Come: The Final Victory (2007), includes the Second Coming of Christ, and there is a eutopia of the community of believers struggling to survive. Other volumes are Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama of Those Left Behind (1996); Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist (1997); Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides (1998); Apollyon: The Destroyer is Unleashed (1999); Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist (1999); The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession (2000); The Mark: The Beast Rules the World (2000); Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne (2001); The Remnant: On the Brink of Armageddon (2002); Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages (2003); and Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (2004), and Kingdom Come: The Final Victory (2007). Three volumes of prequel include The Rising: Antichrist is Born. Before They Were Left Behind (2005); Regime: Evil Advances. Before They Were Left Behind (2005); and The Rapture: In a Twinkling of an Eye. Before They Were Left Behind (2005). See also Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Are We Living in the End Times. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999. There are also graphic novels, films, videos, video games, forty books for children, and related products. See http:www.leftbehind.com for all the books and related materials. LaHaye gives what he calls the Biblical basis of the series in Revelation illustrated and Made Plain. rev. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderaven Publishing House, 1975. Rev. as Revelation Unveiled: A revised and updated edition of Revelation Illustrated and Made Plain. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderaven Publishing House, 1999. See also LaHaye, Jenkins, and Norman B. Rohrer, These Will Not Be Left Behind: Incredible Stories of Lives Transformed After Reading the Left Behind Novels. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2003. Utopian spinoffs include 2003 Hart and 2003, 2004, 2005 Jenkins, and 2010 LaHaye and Parshall.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Living in Paradox: A Utopian Soap Opera" - John Frederick Heider (1936-2010) (Communities: Journal of Cooperative Living, 1995)
The story depicts a new eutopian college located in Paradox, Kansas based on “human potential theory”. Excerpt from a work in progress, and this excerpt focuses on an initial encounter group among the faculty and their partners and an explanation of the purpose of the education, which is to raise awareness.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Living Theatre's Utopia" - Judith Malina (1926-2015); Hanon Reznikov (1950-2008) (Theater, 1995)
Notes for a play called Utopia by Malina with sketches by Reznikov.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

Metropolitan - Walter Jon Williams (b. 1953) (HarperPrism, 1995)
Complex future dystopian society of a world under a globe encompassing shield. The novel concerns various struggles for power focusing on a substance called "plasm" that called used to create almost any substance. A sequel that does continues the various power struggles is City of Fire. New York: HarperPrism, 1997. A third volume is planned but has not been written.
Rpt. as "Signed First Edition" illus. Pat Morrissey and with an "Introduction" by James Gunn (v-ix). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Montezuma Strip - Alan Dean Foster (b. 1946) (Warner Books, 1995)
Dystopia of poverty and corription.
Parts originally published as by James Lawson [pseud.] as “Sanctuary.” Amazing Stories 63.4 (November 1988): 118-60; “Heartwired.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 82.2 (February 1992): 81-104; “Gagrito.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 84.4 (April 1993): 80-114; “Hellado.” Amazing 68.6 (September 1993): 22-32; and by Foster as “Our Lady of the Machine.” Amazing Stories 69.1 (Spring 1994): 119-59.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Non-Money: that “other money” you didn’t know you had - Olaf Egeberg (b. 1937) (McGee Street Foundation, 1995)
“Non-money is everything you have (besides money) that you can use to get what you want, and to do what you want to do” (12). Begins with trading skills, work for services, paying bills, and so forth and expands into community-based systems including LETS. . See also 1992 Egeberg and his Coming Home: A Crossover Bible for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and members of other religious faiths, as well as thoroughly non-religious persons. Np.: Lulu Press, 2006. http://changesahead.net/files/TheBook.pdf
Keywords: Male author; US author

Other Nature - Stephanie A[nn] Smith (b. 1959) (Tor, 1995)
Keywords: Female author; US author

Profiteer. Hostile Takeover # 1 - [Steven A.] [Swiniarski] (b. 1966) (DAW Books, 1995)
Planet Bakunin (an anarchist society that would be unrecognizable by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-76) fights off control by others. Sequels include his Partisan. Hostile Takeover # 2. By S. Andrew Swann [pseud.].  New York : DAW Books, 1995; and Hostile Takeover #3: Revolutionary. By S. Andrew Swann [pseud.].  New York : DAW Books, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Psalms of Herod - Esther M[ona] Friesner (b. 1951) (White Wolf Publishing, 1995)
Post-catastrophe primitive dystopia focusing on gender relations. A sequel is The Sword of Mary.  Clarkston ,  GA : White Wolf Publishing, 1996.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Quasar - Jamil Nasir (b. 1955) (Bantam Books, 1995)
Dystopia of extreme wealth and poverty set against a deteriorating earth.
Keywords: Israeli author; Male author; US author

The Ravengers - Stephen Billias (b. 1949) (Warner Books, 1995)
Cyberpunk dystopia. See also his HoloMen.  New York : Warner Books, 1996 (Cover title Cyberpunk® 2.0.2.0.: HoloMen), which uses the same future.
New York Warner Books_
Keywords: Male author; US author

Shadow Man - Melissa [Elaine] Scott (b. 1960) (Tor, 1995)
The novel is set in a future where most of the human worlds recognize five sexual identities and nine sexual preferences, but on one world individuals must choose to be either a man or a woman. The novel focuses on a person on that planet who chose to be male but is a hermaphrodite.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Silent City - Erez Yakin (Kitchen Sink Press, 1995)
Dystopia of violent, robotic men entirely in illustrations.
Rpt. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, 1997.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Slow River - Nicola [Jane] Griffith (b. 1960) (Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 1995)
The novel is set in a future with a deep rich-poor divide and focuses on a woman from the top who is stripped of her identity and her adjustment to living at the bottom.
U.K. ed. London: HarperCollins, 1995
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

"A System of Lights" - Anna Deavere Smith (b. 1950) (Theater, 1995)
The piece describes what plays should be like in Utopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Theater of Utopia” - Tony Kushner (b. 1956) (Theater, 1995)
The piece describes what plays will be like in Utopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Traffic" - Robert Onopa (b. 1943) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1995)
Dystopia with a background of rigid rich-poor division and many people living permanently in moving vehicles.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Translations and Fragments from the New Panic Compound in Damascus, Kansas. 15 Plays for the New Utopian Theater Symposium (N.U.T.S.)" - Ehn, Erik (Theater, 1995)
Play fragments, some of which are eutopian and some of which are dystopian.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Utopia Parable" - Mark Lord (Theater, 1995)
Poem about a theater in a eutopian society.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Venus Project: The Redesign of a Culture - Jacque Fresco (1916-2017) (Global Cyber-Visions, 1995)
Detailed technological urban eutopia with proposals, drawings, and illustrations of buildings, vehicles, ships, planes, and transportation systems. Some of the buildings have been constructed in Florida. PSt holds a folder that contains: Venus Project brochure (4 pp); 2 copies of highlights of an interview with Jacque Fresco (6 pp); photocopy of an article by the author entitled “Designing the Future: A Cybernetic City for the Next Century” published in The Futurist 28.3 (May-June 1994): 29-33; promotional materials including a color sheet with images of the model home and a color sheet with various conceptual renderings. At the University of Pennsylvania, the Daniels Millennium Collection, Box 329, includes a copy of the book, “Introduction to the Venus Project” (http://www.nas.com/venus/intro.shtml), “The Venus Project Mission Statement: (http://www.nas.com/venus/ms01.shtml), and other material. See also 1969 Keyes and Fresco, 2002 and 2007 Fresco, and https://www.thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project/jacque-fresco/. There is considerable repetition in the Fresco material.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Virtual Death - [Robert] [Boswell] (b. 1953) (HarperPrism, 1995)
Dystopia with a focus on death as entertainment.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“What the SysOp Saw” - Paul McKinley (Theater, 1995)
Online discussion of theater and utopia with the participants including Gertrude Stein, Richard Wagner, Plato, Yeats, Tolstoy, Artaud, and de Sade.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The World's Last Dictator - Dwight L. Kinman (1922-2010) (Whitaker Press, 1995)
Dystopia of the conspiracy to bring thye U.S. into "The New World Order". Presented as factual.
2nd ed. Woodburn, OR: Solid Rock Books, 1995. 3rd ed. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1999.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Another Story" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (Tomorrow, 1994)
Eutopia. The planet “O” is a conservative sustainable farming society based on long established small communities and a complex marriage called a “sedoretu” in which a minimum of four people (two men and two women) marry with both heterosexual and homosexual relations. Two (one man and one woman) come from each of the two groups or moieties, the Morning People and the Evening People, into which the planets population is divided. Sexual relations take place between moities but not within them.
Rpt. as “Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea.” In her A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Science Fiction Stories (New York: HarperPrism, 1994), 147-91; rpt. illus. Pat Morrissey and with a “Preface” (ix-xv) by James Gunn (Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1995), 147-91; in The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2. Ed. Karen Jay Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith (San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2006), 185-225; in The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 197-240; in Hainish Novels & Stories Volume Two. The World for Word Is Forest Stories Five Ways to Forgiveness The Telling. Ed. Brian Attebery (New York: Library of America, 2017), 168-206 with a “Note on the Text” (780) and “Notes (785).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Asylum" - Katharine [Nancy Brahtin] Kerr (b. 1944) (Interzone, 1994)
Military coup in the US back by fundamentalist religious groups.
Rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twelfth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 549-80.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Atlantis Papers including The Constitution and The Law of Oceania - Jim Davidson; Eric Klein; Norm Doering; Lee Crocker (Jim Davidson, 1994)
Detailed mostly libertarian eutopia that was begun on the Internet and intended to be put into practice by establishing a new country. Governments and the taxes they impose are considered the major problem facing the United States. Among a number of provisions that are not accepted by many libertarians is a prohibition of abortion after three months with the provision that voters can impose further restrictions. Includes “The Constitution of Oceania” (118-50) and “The Laws of Oceania” (151-88), both © Erick Klein. There is an Index, which is not entirely accurate, to the Constitution and Laws (189-96).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Bodyguard - William C[orey] Dietz (b. 1945) (Ace Books, 1994)
"Military SF" with a dystopian background.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Chocco" - Ernest [William] Callenbach [Jr.] (1929-2012) (Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, 1994)
An ecotopia that presents a future Native American Indian based culture as a simple eutopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Crimes Against Nature" - Mary A. Turzillo (Interzone, 1994)
Dystopia of genetic engineering and manufactured viruses that can both create new people and provide manufactured beliefs and languages. The central character is a pregnant man, who is killed by those opposing the unnatural.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Dead Space for the Unexpected" - Geoff[rey Charles] Ryman (b. 1951) (Interzone, 1994)
Dystopia of corporate life in the future. The author was born in Canada and left at age 11, but he identifies himself as Canadian.
Rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Twelfth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 406-19; and in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 243-56; 2nd ed. as Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 243-56.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; UK author; US author

Deadly Care - Richard W. Fulmer (Vantage Press, 1994)
The dystopia created by government involvement in health care in which patients have absolutely no choices.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm - Nancy [Forsythe Coe] Farmer (b. 1941) (Orchard Books, 1994)
An authoritarian dystopia for young adults set in Zimbabwe in 2194.
Rpt. New York: Firebird, 2002. U.K. ed. London: Orion's Children's Books, 1995.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Freeze Frames - Katharine [Nancy Brahtin] Kerr (b. 1944) (HarperCollins, 1994)
Science fiction novel taking place on a number of different timelines, one of which includes a Calvinist dystopia in the United States. This changes when aliens arrive and convert to a reformed Roman Catholicism.
Rpt. London: Severn House, 1995. U.S. ed. New York: Tor, 1995.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Furies - Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023) (Tor, 1994)
Sequel to 1974 and 1978 Charnas. In this volume, Alldera leads a troop of Free Fems and Horsewomen back to the Holdfast, where they defeat the men and free the women. See also 1999 Charnas.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Future Boston: The History of a City 1990-2100 - David Alexander Smith (b. 1953); Sarah [Winthrop] Smith (b. 1937); Alexander Jablokov (b. 1956); Geoffrey A[lan] Landis (b. 1955); Jon Burrowes; Steven [Earl] Popkes (b. 1952); Resa Nelson (b. 1956) (Tor, 1994)
A shared future history anthology related to Smith's 1993 In the Cube, which was written during the collaboration on this volume. The basic premise is that Boston is sinking and that as it sinks some of it will simply disappear under water and that the remaining sections will struggle for survival and come into conflict with each other. To complicate matters a wide variety of different aliens arrive in Boston and become part of everyday life. One of those aliens is testing humans for admission into the interstellar world. Humanity apparently passes the test and at the end Boston reunites and establishes itself as a separate country. The volume is composed of numerous stories and vignettes, a few previously published, maps of Boston in 1772, 1990, 2014, 2030, 2050, and 2061, and an "Afterword: How It Came to Be" (376-82) by David Smith. The contents are Smith, "'Boston Will Sink, Claims MIT Prof'" (9-10); Sarah [Winthrop] Smith (b. 1947), "Seeing the Edge" (12-29); Alexander Jablokov (b. 1956), "Nomads" (30-52); Geoffrey A[lan] Landis (b. 1955), "Projects" (53-70) rpt. from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine [the copyright page incorrectly says Analog] 14.6 (157) (June 1990): 104-17; David Smith, "Dying in Hull" (71-87) rpt. from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 12.11 (136) (November 1988): 62-66, 68-75; and in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), 497-508 with an Editor's note on 496; and in Isaac Asimov's Earth. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois and Sheila Williams (New York: Ace Books, 1992), 19-34. Jon Burrowes, "The Elephant-Ass Thing" (89-108); Steven [Earl] Popkes (b. 1952), "The Parade" (109-21); Jablokov, "Seating Arrangement" (122-32); Burrowes, "The Uprising" (133-36); Resa Nelson (b. 1956) and Sarah Smith, "Fennario" (137-52); Landis, "Topology of the Loophole" (153-56); Popkes, "Not for Broadcast" (157-62); David Smith, "When the Phneri Fell" (163-66) rpt. from Figment, no. 1 (October 1989): 23-24; which was rpt. Figment, no. 15 (Fall 1993): 27-28; Popkes and David Smith, "Playing Chess with the Bishop" (168-73); Jablokov, "Letter to the Editor" (174-75); David Smith, "Who Is Venture Capital?" (176-77); Jablokov, "IPOB Dining Hall Procedures," (178-80); Popkes, "So You Want to Meet the Bishop" (181-85); Landis, "Camomile and Crimson; or, The Tale of the Brahmin's Wife" (186-98) originally published as "The Tale of the Brahmin's Wife." Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact 110.5 (April 1990): 135-43; Popkes, "The Test" (198-222); Jablokov, "The Place of No Shadows" (223-46) rpt. from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 14.11& 12 (162& 163) (November 1990): 170-86; Jablokov, "The Lady of Port Moresby Incident" (248-49); Sarah Smith, "Three Boston Artists" (250-66) rpt. from Aboriginal Science Fiction 4.4 (22) (July-August 1990): 2, 59-63 with illus on 3 and 58; Jablokov, "Focal Plane" (267-86); Sarah Smith, "Ye Citizens of Boston" (287-328); Jablokov, "The Adoption" (330-51) rpt. from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 15.12& 13 (177& 178) (November 1991): 200-15; Jablokov, "WereWhereWear" (352-53); and David Smith, "Sail Away" (354-75).
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

Future Quartet. Earth in the Year 2042: A Four-Part Invention - Ben[jamin William] Bova (1932-2020); Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013); Jerry [Eugene] Pournelle (1933-2017); Charles [A.] Sheffield (1935-2002) (William Morrow, 1994)
Dystopia but with some hope of improvement. A future world deeply divided between the rich and the poor but with positive change taking place.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

"Gaia, The Planetary Religion: The Sacred Marriage of Art and Science" - [Elizabeth known as Libby] [Hubbard] (b. 1956) (Dissertation, 1994)
New Age eutopia. See also 1988 Hubbard and 2002 Bufe and Hubbard.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Golden Swan" - Leigh Kennedy (b. 1951) (Interzone, 1994)
World with few children and its effects.
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

Gun, With Occasional Music - Jonathan [Allen] Lethem (b. 1964) (Harcourt Brace, 1994)
Future authoritarian dystopia presented as a mystery novel set in the future. Drugs, including "Forgettol", "Acceptol", and "Regrettol" which do what their names suggest, and can be blended to produce a combination. Detectives are known as Inquisitors. Personal questions considered impolite. Sex change operations are common. There are evolved animals.
U.K. ed. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995. Rpt. London: Faber & Faber, 2001.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Heavy Weather - [Michael] Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) (Bantam Books, 1994)
World depicted after ecological disaster. Various social systems develop to cope with the situation.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Hidden War - Michael [Allan] Armstrong (b. 1956) (TSR, 1994)
Flawed technological utopia that suppresses knowledge of the fact that the utopia is at war.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Hot Sky At Midnight - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) (Bantam Books, 1994)
Dystopia concerned with technology and its effects.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Jericho Iteration - Allen [Mulherin] Steele [Jr.] (b. 1958) (Ace Books, 1994)
Authoritarian dystopia. Hard SF set in St. Louis after the next great earthquake.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Land O'Goshen - Charles McNair (A Wyatt Book for St. Martin's Press, 1994)
Future war between government and Christian right. Religious dictatorship.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Little Sisters of the Apocalypse - Kit [Lilian Craig] Reed (1932-2017) (Black Ice Books, 1994)
Unusual dystopia. The "Little Sisters of the Apocalypse" are biker nuns who are expert hackers. Focus is on a society of women waiting for men to return from the war.
Rpt. in her Seven for the Apocalypse. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 1999), 73-203.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Marisol - José Rivera (b. 1955) (Dramatists Play Service, 1994)
Dystopia with hope for transformation held out at the end. The dystopia is a version of contemporary urban reality.
Rpt. in Marisol and Other Plays (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1997), 1-68. Rev. ed. Marisol. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1999.
Keywords: Male author; Puerto Rican author; US author

"The Matter of Seggri" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (Crank! Science Fiction--Fantasy, 1994)
History of a society based on gender separation with women, who far outnumber the men, dominant. The men live in castles, play games, and have contests in order to be chosen by the women as sexual partners and, in particular, to father children. The women do everything else. Over the very long history small changes are made including the beginnings of education for some of the men.
Rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twelfth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 493-526; and in Nebula Awards 30. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1996), 253-92; in Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Exploration in Science Fiction & Fantasy. Ed. Debbie Notkin & The Secret Feminist Cabal (Cambridge, MA: Edgewood Press, 1998), 347-84; in Le Guin, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 23-68. U.K. ed. (London: Gollancz, 2002), 23-68; in her The Real and the Unreal. Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Volume Two Outer Space, Inner Lands (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2012), 133-73; in the one volume edition The Real and the Unreal: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 473-518; and in The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 149-95.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Mission in Space - John B. Selby Sr., M.D. (b. 1916) (Vantage Press, 1994)
The brief novel presents two worlds, both of which can be considered flawed utopias with an abrupt shift between the two and an equally abrupt ending. The first, Antiochus, is a high-tech society with no nations, no racial issues due to interbreeding, a carefully maintained ecology. Women deal with public matters, men mostly with the domestic. But everyone is entirely focused on themselves with no interest in others and production declining and lots of accidents and no one cares. The other, Earth in 2379, has all intellectuals on the moon and everyone on the surface of the Earth is focused on their bodies. Gender equality. Solar power. Not really developed.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mysterium - Robert Charles Wilson (b. 1953) (Bantam Books, 1994)
A small town in Michigan is suddenly thrust into an alternative timeline and finds itself in an authoritarian, religious dystopia. Martial law and rationing are instituted, and people are regularly executed for any resistance. Much of the novel is about the resistance.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Native Tongue III: Earthsong - Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) (DAW Books, 1994)
The third volume of a trilogy following 1984 and 1987 Elgin. In this volume the women’s revolution begins with a minority of the men supporting them, but most men are still violently resisting at the end of the novel.
Rpt. as Native Tongue 3: Earthsong. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2002 with an “Afterword The Meandering Feminist Revolution of Earthsong” by Susan M. Squiers and Julie Vedder on 257-68. 2nd ed. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2002 with a “Foreword: Evolutionary Song” on v-ix and an “Afterword: The Meandering Feminist Revolution of Earthsong” by Susan M. Squiers and Julie Vedder on 221-34. PSt
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Nekropolis" - Maureen F. McHugh (b. 1959) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1994)
Dystopia of slavery as background to a love story about a slave and an android.
Rpt. in The Year's Best Science Fiction Twelfth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 77-110.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Plot to Win the White House and How It Succeeded - Jack Catran (1918-2001) (Jade Publications, 1994)
Satirical novel directed at the misuse of language in politics, particularly in campaigning. Ends with what appears to be the emergence of a eutopia in which all large cities in the U.S. are replaced with Garden Cities.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Queen City Jazz - Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952-2021) (Tor, 1994)
The novel begins in a rural eutopia in a post-catastrophe future brought about by nanotechnology which initially produced eutopian cities but then turned them into dystopian cities. The protagonist grows up in the rural enclave where everyone is forbidden to have contact with the cities but after the infection of the enclave she starts a trek down the Ohio River to Cincinnati, one of the dystopian cities.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Rama Revealed - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008); [Bert] Gentry Lee (b. 1942) (Bantam Books, 1994)
Dystopia. Inside an alien artifact traveling through space, humans intending to create a good society actually create a dictatorship. Ultimately this is overcome. This is the last volume of the co-authored trilogy, although written mostly by Lee, and follows Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. London Gollacnz, 1973; Collector’s Edition illus. Bob Eggleton with an “Introduction” by George Zebrowski (vii-xii). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1993. The other volumes are Rama II. London Gollancz, 1989 and The Garden of Rama. London: Gollancz, 1991, which includes, in the second half, anti-utopianism typical of Clarke’s work. In addition, Lee wrote Bright Messengers. New York: Bantam Books, 1995, which is set before Rama II.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Republic of Nothing - Lesley [Willis] Choyce (b. 1951) (Goose Lane, 1994)
An island off the coast of Nova Scotia declares its independence and a society of free expression develops. Elements of magic realism.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Rim: A Novel of Virtual Reality - Alexander Besher (b. 1951) (HarperCollins West, 1994)
Corporate dystopia. Sequels include Mir.  New York : Simon & Schuster, 1998; and Chi. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
U.K. edition London: Orbit, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Sex Offender - Matthew Stadler (b. 1959) (HarperCollins, 1994)
Dystopia in which a man who has had sex with a twelve-year old is put through an extreme form of aversion therapy by the “Criminal and Health Ministry.” He then joins a rebellion against the government.
Rpt. New York: HarperPerennial, 1995
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Solitude" - Ursula K[roeber] Le Guin (1929-2018) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1994)
Complex society in which men and women live separately. The men mostly live near the women's villages, where the women live in individual huts with extremely limited interaction, the children providing the chief means of contact. Gangs of boys and individual rogue males are dangerous to both the other men and the women, but most of the men live peacefully. Whether eutopian or not is likely to produce considerable debate. Some consider it a feminist eutopia and the point-of-view character presents the women's society as a good one.
Rpt. in The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: The Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Edward L. Ferman and George Van Gelder (New York: Tor, 1999), 353-81; in her The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 119-51; U.K. ed. (London: Gollancz, 2002), 119-51; in Diverse Energies. Ed. Tobias S. Buckell and Joe Monti (New York: Tu Books, 2012), 267-305; in her The Real and the Unreal. Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Volume Two Outer Space, Inner Lands (Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2012), 175-203; in the one volume edition The Real and the Unreal: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Saga Press, 2016), 519-50; and in Hainish Novels & Stories Volume Two. The World for Word Is Forest Stories Five Ways to Forgiveness The Telling. Ed. Brian Attebery (New York: Library of America, 2017), 290-318 with a “Note on the Text” (781) and “Notes (786).
Keywords: Female author; US author

Stardust Bound - Karen [M.] Cadora (b. 1970) (Firebrand Books, 1994)
The novel in set in a future that has experienced a series of major catastrophe and is now controlled by UniTech that considered anything not related to Reconstruction a crime, which included science crimes, which included astronomy. The lesbian protagonist is an astronomer who makes her way to La Vista in the Andes, the last operating observatory and finds a community of other female astronomers, and one man. See the author’s “Feminist Cyberpunk.” Science-Fiction Studies 22.3 (67) (November 1995): 357-172. Rpt. in Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives. Ed. Graham J. Murphy and Sherryl Vint (New York: Routledge, 2010), 157-172.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Strings" - Kelley Eskridge (b. 1960) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1994)
Dystopia in which all music must be played exactly as the notes are written on the page, no new music is allowed, and any performer who violates the rules is severely punished.
Rpt. in her Dangerous Space: Short Fiction (Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2007), 9-35.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Tonguing the Zeitgeist - Lance Olsen (b. 1956) (Permeable Press, 1994)
Complex dystopia set after various catastrophes, including earthquakes, a wide range of epidemics, and reactor explosions. Widespread extreme poverty, very high levels of pollution, and violence. Pornography a normal part of entertainment; drugs taken regularly by most people; much body sculpting, both by choice and forced. Africa has united with Nairobi the capitol. A 51st state has been formed in the U.S. out of Eastern Washington, Western Idaho, and Northern Montana.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Trouble and Her Friends - Melissa [Elaine] Scott (b. 1960) (Tor, 1994)
Authoritarian dystopia with cyberpunk elements.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Vital Star - Ray McLeod (Vantage, 1994)
Detailed technological eutopia on the planet Za Sa Sa. The people are smaller than those of Earth; they have mental enhancers implanted, which enhancers brain power to different degrees depending on the status of the person. It is, though, overpopulated, and short of water. Birthing permits required and generally not given to the working class.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The West is Red" - Greg[ory John] Costikyan (b. 1959) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1994)
Alternative history in which the U.S. lost the Cold War and is poor and backward technologically. Ends with a Communist takeover of the U.S.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Where It's Safe" - John [Patrick] Shirley (b. 1954) (The Earth Strikes Back: New Tales of Ecological Horror, 1994)
Dystopia of environmental collapse brought about by personal and corporate greed.
Rpt. with the subtitle only on the cover (Clarkson, GA: White Wolf Publishing, [1994]), 188-215; and in Shirley’s The Exploded Heart (Asheville, NC: Eyeball Books, 1996), 239-59, with an author’s note on 239.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Wildlife - James Patrick Kelly (b. 1951) (Tor, 1994)
Cyberpunk dystopia in which the elite can change their bodies at will.
Portions appeared in different form as “Solstice.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 9.6 (92) (June 1985): 148-81; “The Prisoner of Chillon.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 1.6 (105) (June 1986): 148-83; and “Mr. Boy.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 14.6 (157) (June 1990): 118-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Ammonite - Nicola [Jane] Griffith (b. 1960) (Ballantine Books, 1993)
Complex novel set on a fairly primitive planet inhabited only by women that includes a lesbian, feminist eutopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author; US author

Arc d'X - Steve [Stephen Michael] Erickson (b. 1950) (Poseidon Press, 1993)
Complex novel that is set in both the past and the future with the future as a religious dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Beautiful Soup: A Novel for the 21st Century - Harvey [Jay] Jacobs ( 1930-2017) (Celadon Press, 1993)
Near future dystopian satire in which everyone is barcoded at birth. The novel focuses on a man who, due to an accident in a supermarket, has his barcode replaced by one for a brand of soup.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Beggars in Spain - Nancy [Anne Koningisor] Kress (b. 1948) (Morrow, 1993)
Future dystopia of conflict created by development of gene altered humans with special powers. Sequels include Beggars and Choosers. New York: Tor, 1994; and Beggars Ride. New York: Tor, 1996.
Rpt. New York: Avon, 1994. Part originally published as “Beggars in Spain.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 14.4 & 5 (April 1991): 246-310. This part was simultaneously published as Beggars in Spain. Mountain View, CA: Axolotl Press, 1991. Rpt. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner Dozois (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 1-62; and in Nebula Awards 27: SWFA’s Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Ed. James Morrow (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993), 243-321.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Beyond - José Sigaud M.D. (Dorrance Publishing Co., 1993)
Detailed eutopia presented through abduction by aliens. The eutopia is a fairly standard world of peace and prosperity that parallels the Earth. Education, health along with getting rid of social classes made achieving the utopia possible. “In our society, we do not strive for accumulation of goods, which is granted to each one of us from birth to the end of our lives. . . . Rather, we strive for excellence” (11).
Keywords: Male author; Paraguayan author; US author

Blindsided - Dick Richmond-Donahue; Leigh [Tucker] Richmond-Donahue (1911-95) (Interdimensional Sciences., 1993)
An ecological catastrophe on an already overpopulated, urban, poverty-stricken, and violent Earth. The last convulsions of Earth destroys the current "civilization" and allows some survivors to begin to develop a better rural and peaceful life.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

"By Permit Only" - Terry [Ballantine] Bisson (1942-2024) (Interzone, 1993)
Satire on a system of permits sold by government to allow people to get around laws and regulations. Pollution permits, sexual harassment permits, and so forth are available.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Coelestis - Paul [Claiborne] Park (b. 1954) (HarperCollins, 1993)
Dystopia set in a future U.S. with substantial radiation causing genetic damage. Division between humans and aborigines.
U.S. ed. as Celestis. New York: Tor, 1995.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Daughter of Elysium - Joan [Lyn] Slonczewski (b. 1956) (William Morrow, 1993)
Set in same world as her 1986 Door Into Ocean. In this volume the people of Elysium have achieved immortality which brings with it complacency and arrogance and the desire of other peoples to steal their secret.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"A Defense of the Social Contracts" - Martha [Clare] Soukup (b. 1959) (Science Fiction Age, 1993)
Eutopia in which a system of contracts regulates human interaction. The story illustrates that the system has flaws.
Rpt. in Nebula Awards 30. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996), 222-38.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Deus X - Norman [Richard] Spinrad (b. 1940) (Bantam Books, 1993)
The setting of the novel is a future Earth so devastated by the results of current environmental policies that human life on Earth is in danger. The novel focuses on the creation of people within an electronic net and the problems this poses for the Catholic Church and its female pope.
Rpt. in his Deus X and Other Stories (Waterville, ME: Five Star, 2003), 90-140.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Dream of Glass - Jean Mark Gawron (b. 1953) (Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1993)
Resistance to a fascist dystopia.
Keywords: US author

The Drylands - Mary Rosenblum (1952-2018) (Ballantine Books, 1993)
Authoritarian dystopia as a result of a long drought. Three related stories are “Water Bringer.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 15.3 (168) (March 1991): 16-21, 24-26, 28-30, 32-34, 36-38, 40-42, 44-47; rpt. in her Water Rites (Auburn, WA: Fairwood Press, 2007), 12-35; “Celilo.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 15.7 (172) (June 1991): 88-109; rpt. in her Water Rites (Auburn, WA: Fairwood Press, 2007), 36-55; and “The Bee Man.” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 15.10 (175) (September 1991): 44-48, 50-52, 54-63; rpt. in her Water Rites (Auburn, WA: Fairwood Press, 2007), 56-72.
Rpt. with a brief "Foreword" (10-11) by the author in her Water Rites (Auburn, WA: Fairwood Press, 2007), 73-305.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Ecstasia - Francesca Lia Block (b. 1962) (ROC, 1993)
Young adult eutopia of youth (Elysia) framed by the Desert (roughly normal life) and Under (the old).
Keywords: Female author; US author

Elvissey - Jack [Wylie] Womack [Jr.] (b. 1956) (Tor, 1993)
A volume in the DryCo series. Dystopian satire of a corrupt urban future that involves an attempt to kidnap a young Elvis to turn him into a demigod in that future. For other volumes in the series see his 1987 Ambient, 1988 Terraplane, 1990 Heathern, 1993 Random Acts of Senseless Violence, and 2000 Going, Going, Gone. Although there are multiple alternative histories in the series, in timeline order, the volumes are 1993 Random Acts of Senseless Violence, 1990 Heathern, 1987 Ambient, 1988 Terraplane, 1993 Elivissey, and 2000 Going, Going, Gone.
U.K. ed. London: HarperCollins, 1993.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Entrada" - Mary Rosenblum (1952-2018) (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1993)
Deeply class-divided dystopia in a future U.S.
Rpt. in her Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1996), 32-61.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Escape to the Wind - Jennifer DiMarco (b. 1973) (Castillo International, 1993)
Dystopia of a patriarchal dictatorship with lesbian themes. The author was nineteen at the time of publication. A sequel, Fall Through the Sky. Radnor, OH: Pride Publications, 1997 expands the action to the surrounding area.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Femala - C. R. Spohrer (Dorrance, 1993)
Anti-feminist novel depicting the triumph of male dominance. Earth, and the U.S. in particular, is depicted as a dystopia due to feminism. Femala is a planet where women dominate but treat men well although they are drugged.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Fifth Sacred Thing - [Miriam] [Simos] (b. 1951) (Bantam Books, 1993)
Eutopia and dystopia. See her Walking to Mercury. New York: Bantam Books, 1997 for background.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Folks" - Michael [Joseph] Cassutt (b. 1954) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1993)
In the story, a man decides to visit his parents, who are in their 90s and live in the Sun Villa South retirement home. He finds that his parents, due to an advanced and a “brain booster and stimulant,” are living the good life and are in good shape both mentally and physically. Sun Villa South is depicted as the ideal place for retirees to live, fully support by takes, paid, of course, by current workers. The outside world is only suggested, but it appears that everyone is struggling to just get by.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Garden" - Alayne Gelfand (Worlds of Women: Sapphic Science Fiction Erotica, 1993)
While the emphasis in the story is on the sex, it is set in a future in which men and women do not know of the existence of the other. The female protagonist resents the authoritarianism of the women leaders and breaks the rule by regularly visiting a prohibited area.
Rpt. in The New Worlds of Women. Exp. ed. Ed. Cecilia Tan (Boston, MA: Circlet Press, 1996), 63-77; and in The Circlet Treasury of Lesbian Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Cecilia Tan (New York: Riverdale Avenue Books, 2013), 156-67.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Giver - Lois [Ann Hammersberg] Lowry (b. 1937) (Houghton Mifflin, 1993)
Young adult flawed utopia that is technologically sophisticated but overly controlled. See also 2000 Lowry. Her Messenger. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004 and Son. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2012, which includes characters from both this volume and 2000 Lowry but take place in an intentional community.
Rpt. New York: Dell. U.K. ed. London: Lions, 1994. A graphic novel version is The Giver. Based on the novel by Lois Lowry. Adapted by P. Craig Russell. Illus. P. Craig Russell, Galen Showman, and Scott Hampton. Colorist Lovern Kindzierski. Letterer Rich Parker. Scanning, cleanup, and digital coordination by Wayne Arnold Harold. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2019.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Glory - Alfred[o] [José Araña-Marini y] Coppel [Jr.] (1921-2004) (Tor, 1993)
Primarily an adventure novel but includes a future society on the planet Voerster based on South African apartheid. Sequels include Glory’s War. Book Two of The Goldenwing Cycle. New York: Tor, 1995; and Glory’s People. Book Three of The Goldenwing Cycle. New York: Tor, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Glory Season - [Glen] David Brin (b. 1950) (Bantam Books, 1993)
Male--female conflict in a future matriarchal society.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Goodfood" - W[alter] Warren Wagar (1932-2004) (Journeys to the Twilight Zone, 1993)
The story is set in a future (eutopian or dystopian is left to the reader) in which food that is deemed not good for you is illegal, culinary porn (old cookbooks) are kept in locked sections of libraries, and to be married a couple must be tested for serum cholesterol. An underground system of dealers and grillers provide bacon and eggs, hamburgers, and so forth. The F.F.F. or Food Freedom Fighters torch saladerias, bomb Goodfood rallies and fight back in other ways. The Goodfood Bureau of Investigation enforces the laws.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson (b. 1952) (HarperCollins, 1993)
Complex social science and science fiction about the terraforming of Mars and the growth of societies there. Mars is threatened by a dystopian Earth of corporate power and environmental degradation that hopes to exploit Mars’s resources rather than create healthy societies. Sequel to 1992 Robinson, Red Mars. See also 1996 Robinson, Blue Mars. Materials related to the trilogy were published as The Martians. New York: Bantam Books, 1999. U.K. edition. London: HarperCollins, 1999, which reprints his “Exploring Fossil Canyon.” Universe 12. Ed. Terry Carr (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 26-47; “Sexual Dimorphism.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 23.6 (281) (June 1999): 28-39; and “A Martian Romance.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 23.10[/11] (285) (October-November 1999): 14-28. In addition, The Martians includes poems “Six Poems from If Wang Wei Lived on Mars rpt. in his Stan’s Kitchen: A Robinson Reader. Ed. David C. Grubbs (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2020), 125-143 [“Crossing Mather Pass” (311-11/127-28), “Invisible Owls” (315-16/129-30), “Tenzing” (317-19/131-33), “The Red’s Lament” (322/23/135-136), “A Report on the First Recorded Case of Areophagy” (320-21/137-39)], and “Two Years” (324/27/141-43), and the story “Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars” (179-88/171-79).
U.S. ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. Based on a shorter piece of the same title in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 9.9 (September 1985): 112-82; rpt. in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner [Raymond] Dozois (New York: Bluejay Books, 1986), 552-619 with an editor’s note on 551. Chapter one was also published as “A Martian Childhood.” Asimov’s Science Fiction 18.2 (212) (February 1994): 128-74.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Gulliver - Michael Ryan (Autonomedia, 1993)
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels re-done with a distinctively anarchist message. All the countries of the former are visited under different names and with more explicitly political and economic characteristics. They are: Grossartiga--Lilliputians. Pretense is the rule. The poor are kept in their place. Plintablandina--Giants. No property. No money. Worship nature. Craftsmanship. Free sexuality among young. Poetry very important. The wisest are chosen as administrators. Academica (Conflict within education), Lexonomia (Language satire), Freedonia (Free Market), and Several Other Remote Regions, including Carnivalia, Imperia. Land of the Retrievers (Dogs), which is also called Ecologia --No exploitation.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Harvest of Stars - Poul [William] Anderson (1926-2001) (Tor, 1993)
Dystopia with individuals and a free enterprise society as opponents. Sequels include his The Stars Are Also Fire. New York: Tor, 1994, in which machine intelligences are dominant; and The Fleet of Stars. New York: Tor, 1997 where the machine intelligences have become more and more controlling, and a few humans struggle to stop them.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Hear the Cradle Song - O. T Gunnarsson ([Noontide Press], 1993)
Right-wing, racist depiction of the collapse of the United States. It ends with the beginnings of a right-wing eutopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Heart of the Overchild" - Daniel [David] Pearlman (1935-2013) (REAL: RE Arts & Letters, 1993)
Overpopulation dystopia. An Overchild is one who is in excess of the permitted number. Their body parts are used to keep endangered species alive.
Rpt. in his The Final Dream and Other Fictions (San Francisco, CA: Permeable Press, 1995), 33-44.
Keywords: Male author; US author

How To Save Our Country: A Nonpartisan Vision for Change - Mike [Miklos N.] Szilagyi (b. 1936) (Pallas Press, 1993)
Presents a detailed critique of the U.S. in the early 1990s and suggests specific reforms for how to stop the decay. The book is based on the premise that the problems the U.S. faces are based on “the defective value system of our society” (12).
Keywords: Hungarian author; Male author; US author

If I Pay Thee Not In Gold - [Piers Anthony Dillingham] [Jacob] (b. 1934); Mercedes Lackey (b. 1950) (Baen, 1993)
Fantasy about a matriarchy.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

In the Cube - David Alexander Smith (b. 1953) (Tor, 1993)
Future Boston, Massachusetts dystopia. See also 1994 Smith, ed. Future Boston: The History of a City 1990-2100.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Kalifornia - Marc Laidlaw (b. 1960) (St. Martin's Press, 1993)
Cyberpunk dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Last Dancer - Daniel Keys Moran (b. 1962) (Bantam Spectra, 1993)
Third volume in a trilogy. This volume is set in 2076 with the authoritarian United Nations ruling Earth but with various forces, including the two remaining telepaths, opposed to its rule. See also 1988 and 1989 Moran.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42° N Latitude - Michael [David] Sorkin (1948-2020) (Princeton Architectural Press, 1993)
The presentation of an ideal city through its building code.
Keywords: Male author; US author