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]

Earthworks
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
AuthorBrian Aldiss
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherFaber & Faber
Publication date
1965
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages155

Plot introduction

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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

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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

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  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.
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