This volume contains three acclaimed dystopian novels, which are considered the ones that set up the stage for modern Dystopian (like Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World).
We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was completed in 1921 as a response to the author's personal experiences during the Russian revolution of 1905, the Russian revolution of 1917, and his work as a Marine Engineer in the Tyne shipyards during the First World War (where he saw the collectivization of labour on a large scale). At some point, it created a controversy between authors George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty Four), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World). Orwell insinuated Brave New World was partly derived from We, charges that Huxley vehemently denied ( Orwell thought Huxley "was lying"). Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."
It also includes IRON HEEL, the most famous novel by JACK LONDON, considered to be "the earliest of the modern Dystopian. It chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably the novel in which Jack London's socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.
Finally, it includes THE AIR TRUST, by George Allan England. It is the story of a billionaire, Isaac Flint, who attempts to control the very air people breathe, and the violent consequences of his ambition and greed. In the concluding chapter, Flint is described as one of "the most sinister and cruel minds ever evolved upon this planet."
We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was completed in 1921 as a response to the author's personal experiences during the Russian revolution of 1905, the Russian revolution of 1917, and his work as a Marine Engineer in the Tyne shipyards during the First World War (where he saw the collectivization of labour on a large scale). At some point, it created a controversy between authors George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty Four), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World). Orwell insinuated Brave New World was partly derived from We, charges that Huxley vehemently denied ( Orwell thought Huxley "was lying"). Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."
It also includes IRON HEEL, the most famous novel by JACK LONDON, considered to be "the earliest of the modern Dystopian. It chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably the novel in which Jack London's socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.
Finally, it includes THE AIR TRUST, by George Allan England. It is the story of a billionaire, Isaac Flint, who attempts to control the very air people breathe, and the violent consequences of his ambition and greed. In the concluding chapter, Flint is described as one of "the most sinister and cruel minds ever evolved upon this planet."
