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re: Utopian SF
Fox — (archived)

I read a work of Utopian fiction once, Etidorhpa, published in 1895. I wouldn't call it science fiction, having read it... 'other-world adventure fiction' is closer, like much of Verne, Doyle, and a bit of Wells.

Speaking of Wells and Utopian SF: When the Sleeper Awakes (1899) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933), for starters. And then there's Olaf Stapeldon's Last & First Men (1930) and Starmaker (1937), the latter of which I could barely get through... Stapeldon wrote densely.

Remembering Etidorhpa also reminded me of Pellucidar, as they're both hollow-earth stories... and led me further to consider Burroughs' interchangeable idyll. Carson's Venus, Carter's Mars, Innes' Pelucidar, Tarzan's Africa... all the same. A modicum of conflict, on the mediaeval pattern, which is a key ingredient of Burroughs' idyll: the opportunity for heroics, to save the beautious damsel and eventually have babies by her (or hatch eggs, a la Deja Thoris). nudge nudge wink wink say no more...

(and see Heinlein's Glory Road for what comes after you rescue, etc....)

The pattern I'm seeing here is that however you slice Utopian/Idyllic SF, there are few if any examples dating after WWII began in England, and none I can think of after it ended -- that is, not in print. Along the way, the entire idea of what science fiction is changed, too -- including, by bifurcating. TV and film are a different matter than literature, as you and Steve cover so well elsewhere in this thread.

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