Earthworks (novel)

Last updated

Earthworks
EarthworksNovel.jpg
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author Brian Aldiss
LanguageEnglish
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Faber & Faber
Publication date
1965
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages155

Earthworks is a 1965 dystopian science fiction novel by British science fiction author Brian Aldiss. The novel draws its premise from prevalent fears about population growth and overcrowding of the Earth. [1]

Contents

Plot introduction

The novel is set in a world of environmental catastrophe and extreme socio-economic inequality. Outside crowded cities controlled by a police state, a class of wealthy and powerful "Farmers" exploit a rural prison labour population and hunt down subversive "Travellers" who have broken free of social controls.

Cultural impact

In 1967, the artist Robert Smithson took a copy of Earthworks with him on a trip to the Passaic River in New Jersey (where he created The Monuments of Passaic, 1967). He reused the title to describe some of his works, based on natural materials like earth and rocks, and infused with his ideas about entropy and environmental catastrophe. [2]

References

  1. ↑ Hickman, John (2009). "When science fiction writers used fictional drugs: rise and fall of the twentieth-century drug dystopia". Utopian Studies . 20 (1): 141.
  2. ↑ Tiberghien, Gilles (1995). Land Art. Princeton Architectural Press. p. 18. ISBN   1-56898-040-X.
Sfbook.png

This article about a 1960s science fiction novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.