Science Fiction: Early Writers

Winner of a retrospective Hugo and one of Time Magazine's Top 100 English language novels.

This 1887 publication was one of the largest selling novels of all time.

It is the year 2000 - and full employment, material abundance and social harmony can be found everywhere. This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West's initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy's wonderful prophetic inventions - electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting - ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel.

But, however rich in fantasy and romance, "Looking Backward" is a passionate attack on the social ills of nineteenth-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal

Is this Science Fiction or Philosophy? A criticism of English class society or a romance? Maybe it's Math. You decide.