Trends in Literature

Ms. Gokturk

End of the World Independent Reading Assignment: EXTRA CREDIT

If you have completed all the required work on this class, you may opt to complete extra credit. The following is a list of literature that deals with the end of the world theme. Check our school library and peruse bookshelves in other libraries or bookstores. Check out a list of apocalyptic books at http://members.aol.com/mclatter/apoc.html. If you find something not noted on this list, please have your selection approved by Ms. G before commencing the project. Your job is to choose a book or two and create a project (which must be approved before you begin).

WAR

Title	Author	stars	Comments
Alas, Bayblon	Pat Frank (1959)		A nuclear war leaves a section of FL untouched. Deals with the problems of a breakdown and reforming government. Good read.
Canticle for Liebowitz	Walter Miller (1960)		A Ms. G pick. Fascinating book about the reconstruction of civilization after a nuclear war. Written in three parts: all post holocaust covering the future equivalent of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, & Modern Times. A must read.
Childhood’s End ISL	Arthur Clarke		We have these in stock at school. Aliens come and take over the earth causing a utopian time on earth: will it last?
Dawn	Octavia Butler		In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of extinction, aliens finally make contact. They rescue those humans they can, keeping most survivors in suspended animation while the aliens begin the slow process of rehabilitating the planet. When Lilith Iyapo is "awakened," she finds that she has been chosen to revive her fellow humans in small groups by first preparing them to meet the utterly terrifying aliens, then training them to survive on the wilderness that the planet has become. But the aliens cannot help humanity without altering it forever. Bonded to the aliens in ways no human has ever known, Lilith tries to fight them even as her own species comes to fear and loathe her. A stunning story of invasion and alien contact by one of science fiction's finest writers.
God’s Grace	Bernard Malamud (1983)		A Ms. G pick. The paleontologist Cohn is the sole human survivor of the nuclear holocaust. Together with a chimp, Buz, he lands upon an uninhabited island. The chimp has an implant that enables human communication. More monkeys appear. Cohn tries to establish a society. Having studied for the rabbinate Cohn teaches his Judaic world-view, but faces opposition from Buz whose previous human companion thought him the principles of Christianity. Cohn tries to recreate the monkeys in his own image, and goes as far as formulating his own set of seven commandments and creating his own addition to the scheme of evolution. But alas, paradise is lost again.
Hyperion	Dan Simmons		First in a series and a Ms. G favorite. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law and the reach of twenty-eighth-century science, waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to the Time Tombs. They seek the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives, and they have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.
The Last Man	Alfred Noyes (1940)		A super-weapon kills everyone quickly except for three survivors: good guy, bad guy, girl.
Level 7	Mordecai Roshwald		A Ms. G pick. Level 7 is the diary of Officer X-127, who is assigned to stand guard at the "Push Buttons," a machine devised to activate the atomic destruction of the enemy, in the country's deepest bomb shelter. Four thousand feet underground, Level 7 has been built to withstand the most devastating attack and to be self-sufficient for five hundred years. Selected according to a psychological profile that assures their willingness to destroy all life on Earth, those who are sent down may never return.
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids ISL	K. Oe		Winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature. In the waning days of WWII, a group of Japanese reform-school boys are evacuated to a remote village in a densely wooded valley. The villagers treat the teenagers horribly, making them bury a mountain of animal corpses, locking them into a shed for the night and feeding them raw potatoes. The unnamed narrator discovers that a plague is ravaging the valley. When a couple of people are infected by the disease, the villagers panic.
Obernewtyn ISL	Isobelle		After the nuclear holocaust of the Great White, the surviving humans condemn all Misfits (mutants) to either death by fire or exile to Obernewtyn, a remote mountain institution where mysterious experiments are performed on some exiles. Elspeth Gordie is a Misfit, struggling to hide her mutant mental abilities and earn a Normalcy Certificate. But when her secret is betrayed, she is sent to Obernewtyn, from which no one has ever escaped. At Obernewtyn she finds not only dreadful experiments, but ambitious overlords who seek to use the Misfits' paranormal powers to recover the devastating secrets of nuclear war. YA. This is a series.
On the Beach ISL	Neville Shute (1957)		A Ms. G pick. Nuclear War takes place between superpowers creating a deadly radioactive cloud moving southward. No place to go…
The Postman	David Brin (1984)		A man, wandering the US after a nuclear war, gets robbed of everything and then finds a postman uniform. Pretends to be a postal worker and ends up being the position of leader.
Riddley Walker	Rusell Hoban		A Ms. G pick. A brilliant, unique, and completely realized work of fiction, "Riddley Walker"--first published in 1980--is set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), where humanity has regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state, represented by a language created especially by Hoban for the book.
War in the Air	HG Wells		In the early 20th century, the invention of aerial vehicles precipitates the outbreak of a worldwide war that had brewed for hundreds of years. The aircrafts' ability to wreck unlimited destruction lays waste to civilization, reducing it to pre-Industrial revolution levels. That is the basis of this incredible piece of political and scientific prophesy. Wells unleashes his full understanding of human "progress" and the fraility of political systems, and with every page hits truths about war and technology even more applicable today than during World War I, the combat that Wells envisioned here.
Warday	W. Striber (1984)		Two authors set off on a road trip across America some years after a limited nuclear war. They interview survivors.
Z for Zachariah ISL YA	Robert O’Brien		A nuclear holocaust has destroyed civilization. Ann Burden believes she is the last person aliveAuntil she finds another survivor. She discovers there are worse things than being alone.

DISEASE

Title	Author	stars	Comments
The Girl Who Owned A City			A plague kills everyone over age 12.
I Am Legend ISL	Richard Mathieson		A Ms. G pick, though not a favorite. Vampire disease takes over the world except for one person.
Grass	Sheri Tepper		A Ms. G pick. Generations in the future, when humanity has spread to other planets and Earth is ruled by Sanctity, a dour, coercive religion that looks to resurrection of the body by storing cell samples of its communicants, a plague is threatening to wipe out mankind. The only planet that seems to be spared is Grass, so-called because that is virtually all that grows there. It was settled by families of European nobility who live on vast estancias and indulge in the ancient sport of fox hunting--although the horses, hounds and foxes aren't what they what they appear to be. Rigo and Marjorie Westriding Yrarier and family are sent to Grass as ambassadors and unofficial investigators because the ruling families--the bons--have refused to allow scientists to authenticate the planet's immunity from the plague. The egotistical Rigo sets out to prove himself to the bons while Marjorie remains wary about the relationship between the hunters and the hunted. She gains allies in her search, but invasion strikes from an unexpected quarter before the truth about an alien species comes to light. Tepper delves into the nature of truth and religion, creating some strong characters in her compelling story.
The Journal of the Plague Year ISL	Daniel Defoe		A Ms. G pick. Historical eye witness account of the bubonic plague spreading through England.
Journals of the Plague Years	Norman Spinrad (1980s)		A Ms. G pick. Sex means death when a virus, originating in Africa, is unleashed on the world for twenty terrible years, until a cure is finally found, in a new edition of this science fiction fable featuring commentary by the author.
The Last Man	Mary Shelley (1826)		A Ms. G pick A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters
The Plague ISL	Albert Camus	4 4	A Ms. G pick. The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vast percentage of the population with it. · People can change and come together. At the beginning, no emotion, people only care about self. After the plague, they realize how much they miss each other and get together to fight the plague. At the beginning a bit confusing.
The Stand	Stephen King (1979)		A Ms. G pick Best plague fiction. So much detail as to what it would be like if a plague swept through our world. Monster read (1000+ pages) but it’s worth it.
The White Plague	Frank Herbert		This book should be getting some extra attention in this day and age of extreme terrorism and the threat of biological weapons. While certainly just fiction, and of course, over the top in its premise, this book is a good solid science fiction novel. The main character is plunged into a world of revenge when his family is killed by terrorists and he comes up with an extreme punishment for the world; a plague that kills women only. Men are unharmed carriers of the disease.
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague ISL	Geraldine Brooks		Discriminating readers who view the term historical novel with disdain will find that this debut by praised journalist Brooks is to conventional work in the genre as a diamond is to a rhinestone. With an intensely observant eye, a rigorous regard for period detail, and assured, elegant prose, Brooks re-creates a year in the life of a remote British village decimated by the bubonic plague. Inspired by the actual town commemorated as Plague Village…

NATURAL DISASTERS/ENVIRONMENT KILLS/”ACTS OF GOD”

Title	Author	stars	Comments
A Blade of Grass	John Christopher (1986)		The basic idea of this young adult story is really interesting. A mutant virus has appeared, but it only affects certain plants, not humans or animals. "Well, that doesn't sound so bad," you say? Wrong! The virus destroys all grasses and grains. This not only means brown lawns in the suburbs, but also leads to a total lack of food for cattle and other livestock. Furthermore, it entails a similarly utter lack of wheat and grain, for humans. Within a year, terrible famine spreads throughout the world. Civilization collapses. The few scared, skinny survivors who remain huddle together in isolated valleys, growing rare virus-resistant potatoes for food, and fighting off bands of marauding scavengers.
Final Impact	Yvonne Navarro (1997)		A planet is on a crash course with earth. When impact finally occurs, earth is returning to ancient times. Odd book, worth reading once.
The Day After Tomorrow	Whitely Strieber (2004)		A Ms. G pick. Industrial gases bring down global temperature, ushering in the next ice age in a few months time. No literary thought.
In the Days of the Comet	H.G. Wells		A provocative novel by H.G. Wells. In the midst of a world war, the tail of a comet brushes the atmosphere of earth, causing everyone to lose consciousness for a few hours. When the world awakens, everyone has an expanded understanding of the meaning of things. The war is quickly ended; a new utopia is created; even crime is reduced to near zero.
The Day of the Triffids	John Wyndham (1951)		This classic sf novel traces the fate of the world after a comet shower blinds most of the world's population. The few with sight must struggle to reconstruct society while fighting mobile, flesh-eating plants called triffids. Samuel West's narration of this powerful and realistic story provides a flawless interpretation of the text. The listener is caught up in the catastrophic chain of events, imagined and told with such skill by narrator as well as author that one can easily visualize the cataclysmic events. All of West's vocal characterizations, including cockney accents, female voices, and children's voices, ring true.
Gravity’s Rainbow	Thomas Pynchon		The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky. For the person who loves to read – not a standard plot.
Ice!	Arnold Federbush (1978)		Industrial gases bring down global temperature, ushering in the next ice age in a few months time. This apocalypse is technologically unfriendly.
Job: A Comedy of Justice	Robert Heinlein		On vacation in Polynesia, Alex Hergensheimer experiences a series of world-changes, all of which point to Armageddon and reveal him to be a pawn in the ancient feud between God and Lucifer.
Lucifer’s Hammer	Jerry Pournelle (1977)		Complex book about the impact of a comet on earth.
Portent	James Herbert		Fast on the trail of Twister is this drawn-out apocalyptic novel replete with meteorological mayhem. Shimmering lights precede a slew of natural disasters and plunge British climatologist James Rivers into a cliched battle between good and evil. A contrived twist of events brings Rivers to Hazelrod, a deteriorated Georgian estate nestled in the English countryside. There, Rivers meets adopted Romanian twin children who possess not only phenomenal healing powers but also answers to why the planet is destroying itself.
The Purple Cloud	MP Shiel (1901)		A slow start, difficult read, but insightful about what the last man would do. Volcanoes rise out the Pacific spurting a purple cloud killing everyone except the main character who is at the North Pole.
Tsunami	Crawford Kilian (1983)		Depletion of the ozone layer continues and large chunks of Antarctica split off creating huge tsunamis, one which hits San Francisco.
When and After Worlds Collide	P. Wylie (1934)		Two books that deal with two worlds colliding and swinging into our solar system and the characters realize that the world had a technologically advanced population.

ALIENS/THE OTHER/SCARY THINGS FROM THE SKY

Title	Author	stars	Comments
Anvil of Stars ISL	Greg Bear		Eighty-two mortal exiles ride through space in the Ship of the Law, a ship constructed from the fragments of Earth's corpse, determined to punish those responsible for their planet's destruction.
Bangs and Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World ISL	James Frenkel		Presents a collection of stories exploring the end of the world from authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Howard Fast, and Robert A. Heinlein.
Ender’s Game & series: Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mine Ender’s Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets ISL	Scott Card	5	Ender Wiggin is a very bright young boy with a powerful skill. One of a group of children bred to be military geniuses and save Earth from an inevitable attack by aliens, known here as "buggers," Ender becomes unbeatable in war games and seems poised to lead Earth to triumph over the buggers. Meanwhile, his brother and sister plot to wrest power from Ender. Twists, surprises and interesting characters elevate this novel into status as a bona fide page turner. Ender is a genius child trained in military tactics to prepare for a future of alien attacks through this “video game,” which are military games. This is from the POV of a child with the mind process of an adult.
Nightfall ISL	Isaac Asimov		Yes, it’s the novel made from the short story you read…
The Tripod’s Trilogy	John Christopher (1967 ff)		Four books written for a juvenile audience. Alien race (Tripods) captures the human race thought the use of hypnotic television programs…
Wall Around Eden	Jane Slonczewski		Two decades after a nuclear war, small enclaves survive the destruction of the ozone layer, somewhat protected by walls of air established by the alien floating globes that the radiation-contaminated humans call angelbees. Isabel Garcia-Chase comes of age in Gwynwood in what was formerly Pennsylvania, rebelling against the angelbees, who communicate with humans only through a now-dying Contact and forbid the use of much technology, including radios. While Isabel and others believe the angelbees either caused the devastation or at least exacerbated it, the Quakers who mostly populate Gwynwood see them as saviors. Its slow but careful pace rewards the reader with such beautifully developed characters as Peace Hope Scattergood, born without hands and a talented painter, and a hopeful view of humanity and its future.

GOVERNMENT/HUMAN FOLLY

Title	Author	stars	Comments
Apocalypse	Nancy Springer		After years of taunts and torment about her congenitally disfigured face, a young woman asks the Devil to initiate the end of the world in her home town, the coal mining site of Hoadley, Pa. Transformed into an angelic figure, Joanie Musser returns to watch her revenge played out as the locals try to fathom the apocalypse in signs varying from a satyr in the woods to baby-faced insects crying in the night. This time the four horsemen are a quarter of local women: anorectic Cally Wilmore as Famine, cancer-ridden Gigi Wildasin as Death, AIDS-infected Shirley Danyo as Pestilence and sword-wielding, pseudonymous Elspeth as War. This offbeat fantasy may end somewhat flatly but its mixture of liberating eccentricity and small-town prejudice make for some lively passages.
Cat’s Cradle ISL	Kurt Vonnegut (1963)		A Ms. G favorite. Cat's Cradle, one of Vonnegut's most entertaining novels, is filled with scientists and G-men and even ordinary folks caught up in the game. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature. At one time, this novel could probably be found on the bookshelf of every college kid in America; it's still a fabulous read and a great place to start if you're young enough to have missed the first Vonnegut craze.
Galapagos ISL	Kurt Vonnegut	4 2	Leon Trout, the ghost of a decapitated shipbuilder, narrates the humorous, ironic and sometimes carping decline of the human race, as seen through the eyes and minds of the survivors of a doomed cruise to the Galapagos Islands. · I thought it was good. The narration is by a ghost who was killed and he would predict who would die and what would happen before it would happen. · Also fits a utopian novel when world is repopulated and languages are taught to all. For the individual, not a utopian, but for the long haul it is. Didn’t like the flow; I like a traditional read. Didn’t know where the book was going until page 300. Good symbolism. In depth details about character actions. I didn’t like it!
Golden Trillium ISL Part	Andre Norton		The land of Ruwenda is once again endangered by the legacy of the ancient Vanished Ones, and only Kadiya, Seeker-Warrior, one of three daughters of the Black Trillium, is in a position to act. In the Place of Learning, Kadiya learns from the seers of Ruwenda's aboriginal Oddlings that a fearsome blight will fall across the land. With several Oddling friends she tracks an ancient disease carrier to a place where she can move between worlds; she finds the Vanished Ones, who removed themselves after fratricidal warfare eons ago and who may hold the secret of Ruwenda's salvation.
The Iron Dream	Norman Spinrad	4	That the actual "book" is horribly written and plotted is the point; the author of this book is suppose to be a pulp writer, and this is what and how a pulp writer writes. But don't be fooled, that it is poorly written makes one laugh and in laughing we find it non-threatening, but it is dangerous to think that something stupid is harmless. Most people think that what happened in Nazi Germany was an aberration, something that a supposedly "civilized" or "humane" society would never do. It was the Teutonic strain in German makeup that turned them into Nazis, not something that resides in each and every one of us. Spinrad knows better, he knows that there are emotional buttons that can be pushed that will get you to accept the most hideous delusions, that it is the stupid things that fly in under our intellectual radar. It's not often that a book can get you to think, not about what was written, but how it was written; this book is a rare example. Utopian looking through Hitler’s eyes but with a funny twist at the end; mocks Hitler. Post-nuclear war setting. Mutants vs. True Humans. Recommended for a sci-fi & history lover. A bit repetitive. Descriptive style and I like straightforward stuff. Pretty good; I liked the twist at the end.
A Plague of Angels	Sheri Tepper		Tepper cleverly adopts elements of both fantasy and science fiction in this portrait of a world on the verge of chaos. Looking to space for a better world, most of Artemesia's inhabitants have deserted their land for the stars, leaving behind crumbling gang-infested cities, fortified suburbs protected by dwindling technology and a half-wild, half-rural land where renascent mythical beasts and fairy tale "archetypes" now live. There Abasio, a farm boy who is being pursued by vengeful gang members, meets Orphan, who is herself being pursued by the minions of Witch. Witch is convinced that in accordance with a Delphic prophecy, Orphan can provide the "guidance system" for her space shuttle and thus allow her to settle the moon. Abasio, Orphan and their few allies are called to fulfill their destiny and defend the battered Earth from Witch's mad scheme for world domination. If the fantasy and SF elements don't always merge seamlessly, the setting is well-realized and Witch's psychosis is lurid and frightening. Tepper's prose is colorful and contains astute observations about human nature.
Memoirs of a Survivor	Doris Lessing		In a beleaguered city where rats and roving gangs terrorize the streets, where government has broken down and meaningless violence holds sway, a woman -- middle-aged and middle-class -- is brought a twelve-year-old girl and told that it is her responsibility to raise the child. This book, which the author has called "an attempt at autobiography," is that woman's journal -- a glimpse of a future only slightly more horrendous than our present, and of the forces that alone can save us from total destruction
Skinny Legs and All	Tom Robbins	5 3	One of Ms. G’s all-time favorites. In a phantasmagorical, politically charged tale you wish would never end, Robbins holds forth--through a variety of ingenious, off-beat mouthpieces--on art (with and without caps), the Middle East, religious fanaticism of many stripes, and the seven veils of self-deception. Salome, skinny legs and all, belly-dances rapturously at Isaac & Ishmael's, a much-molested restaurant located across the street from the U.N., founded by an Arab and a Jew as an example of happy, peaceful and mutually beneficial coexistence. Ellen Cherry Charles, artist and waitress, heir to the most positive legacy of Jezebel, works at the same joint, nursing a broken heart inflicted by Boomer Petway, redneck welder/bemused darling of the New York art scene. Meanwhile, Can o' Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell traverse half the world on a hejira to Jerusalem--where Conch and Painted Stick will resume religious duties in the Third Temple, dedicated (of course) to Astarte. Do not read this book if you are a prude. There are tons and tons of sexuality! I love Tom Robbins’ style. Unique. Goes on rants that seem irrelevant but then make sense later. I liked his style a lot, but not the plot so much. The end result is not so profound. I knew about the Biblical connections but I didn’t feel like it amounted to much.
White Noise	Don Delillo		A Ms. G favorite. Chairman of the department of Hitler studies at a Midwestern college, Jack Gladney is accidently exposed to a cloud of noxious chemicals, part of a world of the future that is doomed because of misused technology, artifical products and foods, and overpopulation. PW appreciated DeLillo's "bleak, ironic" vision, calling it "not so much a tragic view of history as a macabre one."

Time and Entropy AND/OR Evolution and Devolution

Title	Author	stars	Comments
Planet of the Apes ISL	Pierre Boule	5 4.8 4	A Ms. G pick. Really good. Much, much better than the movie (especially the new version). Short read but packed with ideas. Ulysse (main characters) goes to a planet very similar to earth and find humans who are more animal-like. He is captured by monkeys, who wear clothes and act like our humans on our planets. He is experimented on and tries to escape by showing his intelligence. I really liked it. Fast going book. It happens quickly.
Last and First Men	Olaf Stapledon		Ms. G had a hard time reading through this. It’s highly detailed and fascinating but a long read. Only for detail minded people. One of the most extraordinary, imaginative and ambitious novels of the century: a history of the evolution of humankind over the next 2 billion years.

Utopias and Dystopias

Title	Author	stars	Comments
Ape and Essence ISL	Aldous Huxley		In this savage novel Huxley transports us to Los Angeles in the year 2018, where we learn to our dismay about the 22nd-century way of life.
A Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	5 5	A Ms. G pick. A must read for anyone. The future is not so good…Everyone is born from tubes and there’s a caste system. Created to be different to ensure stability because all would be satisfied with their role in society. Conditioned to dislike country so they’ll stay in factories and work. Emotions, family, affection are taboo. Outcast main character. Characters are very well developed. Society vs. the individual. Dystopian. In order to maintain individuality you must work at it in a society. Bernard, Alpha Plus Caste, is born from Linda and the real story starts here. All are a slaves of the societal system. Noticed a lot of Shakespeare references; I tried to reflect on The Tempest, which enhanced my reading. Social stability is another major theme.
The Dispossessed ISL	Ursuala Le Guin		Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. he will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
Fahrenheit 451 ISL	Ray Bradbury	4 4 4.5	A Ms. G pick. A classic read of dystopias where book burning is common… Guy Montag, a fireman, changes his perspective on society and book-burning in this future world. After killing people, meets a man who helps him to bring about books, remembering books for the future. I liked it, made me think about how our society is messed up; clear resemblance to us with our critique of books. Not an end of the world, but a futurist world. An unexpected read – good. Goes from a dystopia working towards a better world. I haven’t read too many books on censorship. They think books are dangerous but the censorship
Feed ISL	MT Anderson	3	This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy. A little ridiculous. The characters get really angry and out of proportion. Not awful but not amazing.
A Handmaid’s Tale ISL	Margaret Atwood		A Ms. G favorite pick. Please don’t choose this if you haven’t already taken Modern Lit This is a dystopian world where women are kept as breeders for people who can’t have babies.
Herland	Charlotte Perkins Gilman		A Ms. G favorite. About a utopian society run only be women without any men. What happens when a few men discover this place?
Midnight Blue ISL	Greg Frost		Highly readable spin on the classic Bluebeard tale, setting his version in New York's Finger Lakes district during the 1830s. Charismatic preacher Elias Fitcher, the Bluebeard figure, has set up a utopian community that prays and works while awaiting the end of the world prophesied for 1843. Into this hotbed of religious fervor comes the Charter family from the nearby town of Jeckyll's Glen. The father and stepmother succumb to Fitcher's mesmerizing preaching, but it is the three daughters-Vernelia, Amy and Catherine-who listen to household spirits and end up, each in turn, marrying Fitcher, then vanishing, except for Catherine, the youngest. In order to survive, Catherine must use her wits and the understanding passed on from her sisters.
Myrphy’s Gambit ISL	Mitchell Syne		Thiadora Murphy is a "floater." Born and raised to withstand a zero-gravity environment, the floaters are considered the dregs of the universe-an outcast society of space workers who have been ostracized and nearly enslaved. Murphy thought she could rise above her floater heritage. But then she was expelled from her military academy and forced to work as a test pilot for a powerful corporation. It's a job with many risks-and questionable rewards. Because her mission requires her to steal something from a rival company-a faster-than-light technology that could liberate floaters once and for all....
Utopias	Isaac Asimov		A comet, redirected to strike the ecologically bereft planet Inferno, could create new rivers or totally destroy the planet. The human colonists want to take the risk, but will the robots acquiesce?
Utopia	Sir Thomas More		The man who coined the word in this piece about a patriacrchal island where tolerance is practiced.
Utopia: A Novel ISL	Lincoln Child		A fantastic near-future amusement park is the setting for this techno-thriller by Child (coauthor with Douglas Preston of the Preston/Child bestsellers) in his first solo outing. Utopia, a Nevada amusement park extraordinaire, features several elaborate holographic theme worlds (like Camelot and Gaslight, which meticulously recreates Victorian England), all run by an ultrasophisticated computer system and serviced by robots. When a series of fluke accidents culminates in the near death of a boy...
Vulcan’s Hammer	Philip Dick		Tale of a giant computer, Vulcan 3, to which humanity has acceded absolute power over the fate of the world. Its flying "hammers" are deadly extensions of itself, spying on everybody and killing whomever it perceives as a threat. One needs to be very paranoid indeed to survive against this paranoid machine.
Wall Aorund Eden	Jane S.		See Aliens Section
Woman at the Edge of Time	Marge Piercy		Consuelo (Connie) Ramos, a woman who exists on the fringes of life in contemporary New York City. Early in the novel Connie beats up her niece's pimp and is committed - again - to the psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital. The novel shifts between the horrible conditions in psychiatric wards and the year 2137, as Connie at first talks to, then time travels with Luciente, a person from that future time. Luciente lives in a non-sexist, communal country where people's survival is ensured based on need, not money. A sense of freedom, choice, and safety are part of Luciente's world; Connie's world is the complete opposite. Though Connie struggles to stand up for herself and others in the treatment centers, she knows that the drugs she is forced to take weaken her in every way. She knows she shouldn't be there, knows how to play the game, and tells herself "You want to stop acting out. Speak up in Tuesday group therapy (but not too much and never about staff or how lousy this place was) and volunteer to clean up after the others." But she knows she is stuck. Connie spends more time "away" with Luciente, trying to develop a way out of her hell. Ultimately Connie makes her plan of action, and the book leaves us with our own questions about Connie's insanity and decisions.

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE CLASS

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