Ben Beck

Most anarchists are familiar with Ursula K. Le Guin’s utopian science fiction novel, The Dispossessed. But its fame has somewhat served to overshadow other works of science fiction that are also of great interest. Here are a few of those.

* Eric Frank Russell’s 1948 story, “And Then There Were None,” was the nearest sci fi work to an anarchist utopia prior to Le Guin’s 1974 novel, and was praised as such in the pages of Freedom and Anarchy at the time, starting with a full-length review in 1954, under the headline “An Anarchist Utopia,” saying it “makes an anarchist society not only attractive, but also eminently practical.” John Pilgrim, writing in 1963, speculated on “just how much influence this much anthologised tale has had in forming the political opinions of the fallout generation.”

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