''Earthworks'' is a 1965

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by British

author

Brian Aldiss Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for ...

Plot introduction

The novel is set in a world of environmental catastrophe and extreme socio-economic inequality. Outside crowded cities controlled by a

police state A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...

, a class of wealthy and powerful "Farmers" exploit a rural

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

labour population and hunt down subversive "Travellers" who have broken free of social controls.

Land Art

In 1967, the artist

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and m ...

took a copy of ''Earthworks'' with him on a trip to the

Passaic River Passaic River ( ) is a river, approximately long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, ...

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.

External links

Earthworks
on Brian Aldiss's official site *

Footnotes

1965 British novels British science fiction novels 1965 science fiction novels Overpopulation fiction Novels by Brian Aldiss Faber and Faber books {{1960s-sf-novel-stub