Utopian/Dystopian Novels: Fictional Visions of Different Ways of Living

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents

Jean Hegland, Into the Forest

Ursula LeGuin, Always Coming Home, The Birthday of the World

 Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman: Elizabeth Butler, an archaeologist who doesn’t fit into modern society, gets along well with the present-day Indians at her site and can see the Indians who lived there in the past.

Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, and Pacific Edge (three different visions of Orange County, California in the 21^st century)

Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing and its prequel, Walking to Mercury, and sequel, City of Refuge

Kate Wilhelm, Juniper Time: Jean Brighton, who hates the space station her father founded, bonds with the Washo Indians of eastern Oregon when she lives with them for a time. In the end, she and her lover, Cluny, live in “Juniper Time,” leaving the struggle for control of the world to others.

 

Fictional Alternatives from Other Cultures

Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima (traditional Mexican-American)

Hal Borland, When the Legends Die (Ute)

Maryse Condé, I, Tituba (African, by way of Barbados; early feminist)

Alice Marriott, The Ten Grandmothers (Kiowa)

Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord (Amazonian Indian) and The Snow Leopard (Tibetan Buddhist)

Mari Sandoz, Crazy Horse (Lakota)

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (Laguna) and Gardens in the Dunes (Papago)

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife (prehistoric Asian tribal life, based on the author’s experiences with the South African Kung! people)