After Utopia

by Mack Reynolds

It is the far future. Earth is a beautifully planned, efficiently run and happily united. But still it is a world with problems- people have become so lazy, so self-satisfied, that human progress has all but ceased. Addicts of the newly-developed "programmed dreams" are increasing at an enormous rate. Only a few individuals realize that the human race is destroying itself. This book is about what those few people do.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Dystopia

250 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1977

About the author

Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in "Galaxy Magazine" and "Worlds of If Magazine". He was quite popular in the 1960s, but most of his work subsequently went out of print.

He was an active supporter of the Socialist Labor Party; his father, Verne Reynolds, was twice the SLP's Presidential candidate, in 1928 and 1932. Many of MR's stories use SLP jargon such as 'Industrial Feudalism' and most deal with economic issues in some way

Many of Reynolds' stories took place in Utopian societies, and many of which fulfilled L. L. Zamenhof's dream of Esperanto used worldwide as a universal second language. His novels predicted much that has come to pass, including pocket computers and a world-wide computer network with information available at one's fingertips.

Many of his novels were written within the context of a highly mobile society in which few people maintained a fixed residence, leading to "mobile voting" laws which allowed someone living out of the equivalent of a motor home to vote when and where they chose.

Reviews

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was weird (I think I say that a lot). So, it was written in the 70s, but depicts a man essentially time-travelling from the 50s to the future world of 2045…and tangentially mentions historical events that occur in the 60s and 70s which did not occur, and clearly would have been known to the author, i.e. cancer being cured circa 1975.

At any rate, our main character is a founding member of some kind of third-way movement that isn’t capitalism and isn’t communism, but kind of is communism, even though he says it isn’t communism (but thinks to himself that the Bolsheviks were premature). He then has his mind hijacked and is placed in a sort of suspended animation until he is awakened in 2045 by a three-person committee of people who want to overthrow the current world order.

What’s so bad about this new world order? Literally nothing! It’s a perfect utopia. Everyone’s needs are provided for. There is no want. There is no scarcity. There are no shortages. There are no underclasses, no forgotten minorities, no Eloi, no Morlocks, not even a world government (well, a very, very limited one run by trade unions, essentially) – it’s literal perfection. All manner of relationships are accepted (oh wait, that gets somewhat problematic – more on that later). It’s an anarcho-syndaclist paradise. And yet, this committee of three claims that Humanity is failing and falling apart because society is beginning to “stagnate,” in their opinion. There are no more “advancements”…no more “achievements”…so they say. And thus, they want to tear the system down because they claim that Humanity is only at it’s best when it is “pursuing happiness” not when it has actually achieved it.

I will never understand people who can so easily speak of how literal utopia will destroy humanity when we have absolutely no basis for comparison or experience to show us that this is the case. It’s capitalist propaganda.

It's utter nonsense and even undone in the story’s narrative. Per these three people, Humanity essentially achieved utopia on or around the year 2000 and operates under the philosophy that one can do whatever they want as long as they cause no harm to another. And they claim that society has been backsliding ever since – with “advancements” occurring less and less frequently. Their main complaint is that within the last five years new entertainment centers have sprung up where people can experience vivid dreams, ala Total Recall, in which they can go wherever they want, do whatever they want, be whoever they want. And this is “killing society” – even though, it’s both a new advancement and not causing any harm…

I also don’t get what the complaint about the lack of this abstract sense of advancement is. Utopia has been achieved. Why does there still need to be the drive for esoteric advancement. Advancement in what way? For what purpose?

I also heavily disagree heartily with this premise, as if I were in literal utopia, I would do all the things that society keeps me from due to the artificial lack of resources. I could pursue all the education, I could explore all the things, etc. The climax comes about by the “hero” going into space because no one else wants to…I totally would! If I could be an astronaut, and had no capitalist barriers stopping me, I’d be first in line.

The hero’s solution is also to manufacture an alien enemy to reunite Humanity and give them a new purpose to “pursue” and the committee of three realize that eventually the truth will come out, but in the meantime, they can continue “advancing”…somehow, upon learning of this threat, society rises up and burns down all the entertainment centers – I’m not sure why they do that – they just do…

Isn’t this just kicking the can down the road though? Eventually, once discovery of this “threat” is revealed to be false, won’t everyone want to return to their happy utopia?

I really hate this book and its message.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the author describes how everyone looks through actors and actresses from specific films. So, unless you know what Mr. Somebody or Ms. Somebody from Film 14-B looked like, you're on your own.

Oh, and the problematic child rape! How could I forget that? There's an occupation in the future that's essentially some kind of sex teacher that goes around teaching 14-year old teens how to have sex - by having sex with them!

Male science fiction authors from the mid-20th century were like the absolute worst!

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

review of
Mack Reynolds's After Utopia
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 27-28, 2018

For my full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

I've already expressed my newfound enthusiasm for the writing & politics of Mack Reynolds in almost every review I've written about his work so far:

The Rival Rigelians ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
Blackman's Burden / Border, Breed Nor Birth ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... )
Trample An Empire Down ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
Computer War / Code Duello ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
Planetary Agent X ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... )
Mercenary from Tomorrow ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
Planetary Agent X ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )
The Space Barbarians ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... )

That makes After Utopia the 11th bk I've read by Reynolds. As w/ so many of his bks, there's ad copy proclaiming: "VOTED THE MOST POPULAR SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR BY THE READERS OF GALAXY AND IF". Given that he's so flagrantly an anarchist sympathizer & that Galaxy & If were published from 1950-1980 & 1952-1974 respectively that's unusual for the time. Both magazines were edited for a while by Frederik Pohl, another writer whose SF & politics I admire.

" Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction (sf) magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.

"Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as Fahrenheit 451; Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters; and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_...

" If was an American science-fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn.

"The magazine was moderately successful, though for most of its run it was not considered to be in the first tier of science-fiction magazines. It achieved its greatest success under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968. If published many award-winning stories over its 22 years, including Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream". The most prominent writer to make his first sale to If was Larry Niven, whose story "The Coldest Place" appeared in the December 1964 issue.

"If was merged into Galaxy Science Fiction after the December 1974 issue, its 175th issue overall." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_(mag...

Interestingly, neither of these Wikipedia articles mention Mack Reynolds at all. I looked at the 1st incarnation of the Galaxy article & Reynolds wasn't there either. What does this hint at? Is Reynolds censored as the most anarchist SF writer? Is he marginalized as 'not important'. Neither, either or both cd be the case.

Someday, I shd read Marx's Das Capital (I have a copy in English), someday I shd read Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops (I have a copy of this in English too). For the moment I prefer Reynolds's After Utopia in wch he imagines the best society likely to come out of anarchist successes & then critiques that — interweaving political history of importance to me along the way.

""What would you say the present social system was?" Tracy said. "From what I've seen and heard so far it's certainly not communism, socialism, or even technocracy."

""It's anarchism," Edmonds said bluntly." - p 177

"Tracy tilted his head slightly as he looked at Jo Edmonds. He said, "You told me last night that the socioeconomic system today was anarchism. But what you're describing now isn't anarchy. Anarchy presupposes no government at all, which, of course, is nonsense in a highly industrialized society. What you're describing seems to be a highly refined type of syndicalism. I thought you were a student of socioeconomics."

"Edmonds smiled wryly and said, "I was being facetious last night." He thought about it. "I don't believe that the present socioeconomic system fits any of the cut-and-dried definitions of the past: capitalism, feudalism, socialism, communism. Perhaps you could make an argument for calling this a form of socialism. God knows, everybody who ever called himself a socialist had a different definition of what it was. In your day, some people accused Roosevelt of being a socialist. Hitler called himself a National Socialist. The British were supposedly under a socialist government, as were the Scandinavian countries, all of them complete with royal families, a holdover of feudalism. The Russians called themselves, interchangeably, both communist and socialist. Oh yes, the word socialist is elastic, so, if you wish, you could call this socialism."" - pp 222-223

Let's not forget that Mussolini was a militant socialist before he created fascism.

Reynolds's history is always fascinating.

"["]By the way, that's a fallacy that has come down through history. When the Christians took over in Rome, the games didn't end for quite some time. The only difference was that instead of pagans throwing the Christians to the lions, the Christians threw the pagans. It wasn't until 399 A.D. that the last gladiator schools were closed, although the first Christian emperor, Constantine, had come to power almost a hundred years earlier. In 404 a monk named Telemachus jumped into an arena in Rome and berated the spectators, who were so infuritated that they stoned him to death. The emperor Honorius in turn became so furious over the lynching that he closed the arenas."" - p 181

Nonetheless, Christian bloolust has continued.

After Utopia seems influenced by William S. Burroughs.

"He was living in a small apartment, in a small apartment house, on Rue Dr. Fumey, Tangier, Morocco. In a city famed for the anonymity of its population, Tracy Cogswell was possibly the most anonymous of them all."

Burroughs lived in Tangier in the mid 1950s & called himself El Hombre Invisible, the Invisible Man, the man who was so nondescript that people didn't notice him.

Cogswell has fought in 2 revolutions: the Spanish Civil War & the Hungarian uprising against Soviet occupation. Long descriptions of both of these conflicts constitute core sections of the novel. Perhaps these are what Monty Cantsin Amen might mean by "failed revolutions", by no means a pejorative description. https://youtu.be/QDtcfwvUH58?t=3m10s "Long live failed revolutions! Long live world revolution!" Monty Cantsin Amen would've been a Hungarian child when the Hungarian revolt was suppressed but it still wd've been a formative experience for him. The successful Russian revolution deteriorated into just-another-imperialist-police-state.

"Unconsciously, Cogswell ran his right hand up over the scar that ran along the ridge of his jaw, disappearing into the sideburn. A mortar bomb fragment had creased him there at the debacle at Gerona during the Spanish civil war. The sideburn was now going gray. Jim must have been a child when the Abraham Lincoln Battalion had been all but wiped out at Gerona toward the end of the Spanish fracas.

"Spain! That was where, even as a teenager, he'd gotten his bellyful of the damn Russians and where he'd begun to achieve some maturity in political economy. Spain, where the idealistic kids of a score of countries had flocked to fight for democracy and had wound up dying for Russian expediency." - p 8

The Abraham Lincoln Battalion was the American branch of the International Brigades. While Hitler & Mussolini reinforced Franco's suppression of the Spanish Republic, Stalin control-freaked the defenders of the Republic into an early grave & didn't provide adequate air cover. Stalin preferred betraying the Spaniards to having trouble w/ Hitler — he got it anyway.

"When the front finally stablized with both sides dug in, the Republicans had gained an area five kilometers deep along a fifteen-mile front. They paid for it. The Abraham Lincoln Battalion and the George Washington Battalion took so many casualties that they had to be merged into one. The George Washington Battalion even lost their commander, Olive Law, a Negro excorporal of the U.S. Army. The British fared worse, and their battalion was reduced to eighty men." - p 100

Once again, the day & age that Reynolds was writing in shows its weaknesses. "Olive Law", an unlikely name for a man, shd apparently be "Oliver Law". Here's more detail:

"Oliver Law was the first African American to lead an integrated military force in the history of the United States. Law was born in west Texas on October 23, 1900. While still in his teens he joined the U. S. Army and from 1919 to 1925 served as a private in the 24th Infantry, a black outfit stationed on the Mexican border. After leaving the military, Law moved first to Bluffton, Indiana, where he worked in a cement plant and shortly thereafter to Chicago where he drove a cab for the Yellow Cab Company. With the onset of the Depression Law drifted among the ranks of the unemployed. Eventually, he landed a job as a stevedore and joined the International Longshoreman's Association. Following this, Law opened a small restaurant and when this venture failed, he went to work for the Works Project Administration. While out of work, Law joined the International Labor Defense and in 1932 the Communist Party. His political activities led to frequent run-ins with the Chicago Police Red Squad during one of which he was seriously beaten. Shortly before departing for Spain, Law was arrested while leading a rally to protest Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. During this period Law married Corrine Lightfoot, sister of a prominent African American in the Communist party, Claude Lightfoot. Law was among the earliest U.S. volunteers. He received his passport on January 7, 1937 and left for France, aboard the Paris, on January 16,1937. In Spain, Law's leadership qualities and previous military experience were highly valued. He first served as Section Leader of a machine-gun company. When the Lincoln battalion was re-organized after the disastrous assaults on February 27, 1937 at Jarama, Law was promoted to Commander of the company. Law continued to advance in rank during the long period of trench warfare on the Jarama front. He was selected as Adjutant to the Battalion Commander. After an abortive attempt was made to form a regimental system within the brigade and the Lincoln commander, Martin Hourihan, was transferred to the regimental staff, Oliver Law was chosen to replace him and given the rank of captain. Law led the Abraham Lincoln Battalion during the initial days of the Brunete offensive. On July 10, 1937, the fourth day of the campaign, he was mortally wounded while leading his command in an assault on Mosquito Ridge. Fifty years after his death, Law's historic achievement was recognized when Chicago Mayor Harold Washington declared November 21, 1987 "Oliver Law and Abraham Lincoln Brigade Day." ~ Chris Brooks" - http://www.alba-valb.org/volunteers/o...

There's a long section on the Hungarian uprising too but rather than quote anything about the battles there I'll just quote a short bit that I find amusing.

"Dan said, "You ever been in Budapest?"

""No."

""I was there once. Few days. Great town. Good food, good booze. Nice people . . . in a Hungarian sort of way. They say Hungarians are the only people who can go into a telephone booth and leave by a rear entrance."

"Tracy laughed and said, "The way I heard it was that they were the only people in the world that could go into a revolving door behind you and come out in front."" - p 197

I wonder how that works w/ 'smart' phones?

Ok, ok, I have to quote an excerpt about stopping Soviet tanks. I doubt that this wd work anymore but there mioght be some more contemporary equivalent. Might come in handy some day.

"Fotrunately, the tank was coming along their side of the street. It was going slowly, cautiously. When it came abreast of them, Tracy darted out and thrust his steel crowbar into the tracks close to the sprocket, thus stopping the vehicle. Dan, immediately behind him, hurled his blanket into the stationary tracks, the poet threw his half full bucket of gasoline onto the blanket, both Dan and Tracy threw fuse matches then turned and darted back for the building again. The tank's gun was already beginning to twirl in their direction.

"But then a cheer rang out from the building. The young men were leaning out the windows, some shaking their rifles. The tank had mushroomed into flame and black smoke." - p 216

But this is science-fiction: for readers like me we get 'the best of both worlds': a work of some political substance & a work of the imagination. People who eschew one for the other don't know what they're missing.

"The pinwheel was larger and turning faster. What in the world could it be? Quite an optical illusion. He knew that if he got up and walked over to it, either it would fade away or he would be able to determine what caused it. He felt too lazy to make the effort.

"It still seemed to be growing in size.

"That Pernod he'd had at Paul Lund's had hit him harder than he'd expected. Evidently he'd had too little dinner, and the alcohol had free range." - p 11

Cogswell has been hypnotized. As a result, he appears to commit suicide.

"When it was done, he climbed into the metal box. And now he understood. The container which looked like a coffin was exactly that.

"He brought a hypodermic needle from a set that he had purchased a week before, filled it with a combination of drugs he had concocted several days before, and pressed it home in his left arm.

"He leaned back, closed the metal top above him, flicked the lugs securely and—his true mind collapsing within itself—sighed and died." - pp 22-23

You can probably imagine what happens next.

"["]You are now in the year 2045 A.D., or at least you would be if we still used the somewhat inefficient calendar of your era. We haven't been utilizing it since the turn of the century. We now call this the year 45 New Calendar."

"Cogswell thought to himself that it didn't really come as too much of a surprise. He knew that it was going to be something like that.

""Time travel," he said aloud. It was a field of thought that he had never investigated, but he was dimly aware of the conception. He had seen a movie or two, such as Berkley Square, in which Tyrone Power had played a time traveler who found himself in the world of Boswell and Dr. Johnson" - p 31

I have an ongoing interest in time travel stories & movies. I was (still am?) a member of the Krononautic Organism. I've never heard of "Berkley Square" so I decided to search for it. Wikipedia yielded this:

" Berkeley Square is a 1933 American pre-Code fantasy drama film produced by Fox Film Corporation, directed by Frank Lloyd, and starring Leslie Howard and Heather Angel. It recounts the tale of young American Peter Standish, played by Howard (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), who is transported back to London shortly after the American Revolution, where he meets his ancestors. The film was based on the play of the same name by John L. Balderston, itself loosely based on the incomplete novel The Sense of the Past by Henry James. Howard also played Standish in the Broadway play.

"The film was thought to have been lost until it was rediscovered in the 1970s. A newly restored 35mm print has been made, and the restored version was first shown at the 2011 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkele...

Note the correct spelling of the title. Note also that it starred Leslie Howard instead of Tyrone Power. Finally note that the film was thought to be lost until the 1970s. Reynolds was writing about it then at a time when info about it wd've been scarce. Hence his mistakes.

Reynolds makes frequent references to movie actors in After Utopia, w/ Cogswell comparing the novel's characters to movie stars. This struck me as a somewhat interesting device for dating character types.

"Betty winked at him, and she and her father left. He still thought she looked like Paulette Goddard, though her hair was cut as short as Ingrid Bergman's when she had the part of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls." - p 84

Cogswell, the revolutionary, is upset to find himself in what seems to be the home of rich people.

"Cogswell's irritation was growing. The two of them, no matter how well intentioned they may seem to be now, had a lot to answer for. Besides that, they were so comfortably clean, so obviously well fed, so unworried and adjusted. They had it made. It probably took a dozen servants to keep up this house, to wait hand and foot on Betty and Walter Stein and Jo Edmonds, to devote their lives to these two so that they could continue to be comfortably sleek. And how many people did it take, slaving away somewhere in industry or office, to provide the funds necessary to maintain this fabulous establishment? Parasites!" - p 33

Cogswell must adapt & learn the international language.

""Interlingua?" he said.

""The international language," Betty explained. "Everybody speaks it now."

"That floored him. He said, "You mean nobody speaks English, French, Spanish?"

"She shook her head, as though sorry she had to tell him. "Only scholars of linguistics."" - p 68

I have an ongoing interest in artificially made international languages such as Volapük & Esperanto. I've written a little in the latter although I've never learned to speak it. Given that these languages have been generally developed in an attempt to increase peaceful communication between peoples of varied nationalities, it make sense for Reynolds's future to feature a successful one.

"["]Interlingua is a scientific language based on the earlier Esperanto and is more suited for a scientific society than yours was." - p 69

"There was no such thing as having three words—lea, lee, and leigh, for example—all meaning something different, and being pronounced exactly the same. There was no such thing as having pliers, trousers, and scissors, all supposedly plural when there is no singular plier, trouser, or scissor." - p 135

But what about PUNS? What about us homonyphonemiacs? Did we starve to derth?

Reynolds anticipates the internet.

For my full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

[Philip Athans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll get into this in detail on Fantasy Author's Handbook tomorrow.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

That didn't age well.

What happens when mankind achieves a society of unlimited wealth for everyone? We become the lotus eaters. Three anti-utopian radicals bring Tracy Cogswell from the past against his will to fix the problem. We must suffer thru endless explanations of utopia, gratuitous memories of the Spanish Civil War, Hungarian Revolution and Tangiers as well as boring sex and homophobia. Another bad habit that Reynolds picked up was comparing the appearance of characters to movie stars, many of whom even a boomer like me doesn't recognize.

If edited down, it would make a good short story or novella. I recommend a pass.

[Red Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very precise details on espionage/assassinations and other things I could have done without. This book was definitely written with male readers in mind, as women in Reynolds's version of utopia are very sexually available, and in the simulated dreams, there is a scenario in which the protagonist lives out his fantasy of having sex with a harem of six-eight women.

I also could have done without the references to actors/actresses I had no way of knowing. Other than that, the story was told in the style of Bellamy's "Looking Backward", so that's a plus.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of the best I've read by Reynolds, but not too bad. Some of the interior chronology wasn't convincing, and he had an irritating habit of describing characters by saying that they looked like some celebrity or another... the problem now being that I didn't remember what that former-celebrity looked like, or, in some cases, even who they were. Aside from that, it's social and cultural extrapolation, which was typical of Reynolds.