One Man’s Heaven

In this chapter we’ll look at the tropes and pitfalls of writing utopian and dystopian fiction (exploring the origins of those terms with a discussion of the work of Thomas More, William Morris, Ernest Callenbach, George Stewart, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, and others) and consider the blended approaches of Margaret Atwood: ‘ustopia’ and Rupert Read’s ‘thrutopia’. We consider critical perspectives of Charles Fourier, China Miéville, and others. The value of offering more positive visions of the future—new ‘myths to live by’—has been posited by the likes of Ben Okri, Roman Krznaric, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Rob Hopkins. We will consider the merits and weaknesses of examples of this more positive approach including Solarpunk, Hopepunk, and Green Stories. Finally, we shall discuss ‘imagineering’ and thinking ‘outside of the box’.