50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read (by China Mieville)
Reposted from Fantastic Metropolis, author China Mieville lays out a list of 50 science fiction and
fantasy works he feels every socialist ought to read.
When I became a socialist I was also studying Sociology and Philosophy academically. I
experienced something that seems to be a trend among many (though assuredly not all) folks who
delve into these worlds: a sudden loss of interest in fiction.
Over time I only read non-fiction work and discovered something missing. Reading fiction again
had a major impact on me, stimulating parts of my brain that had laid mostly dormant (or only
experienced anything through film and TV shows). I feel invigorated from diving back in and also
feel better equipped to deal with issues as a socialist (and as a sociologist and a philosopher).
I recommend Mievilles recommendations because he is himself a fantastic science fiction author.
There is a fantastic interview with him at the website of the International Socialist Review. He is the
author of such fantastic works as The City & the City, Krakenand his new book that Im holding in
my hand in eager anticipation, Embassytown. Enjoy!
This is not a list of the best fantasy or SF. There are huge numbers of superb works not on the list.
Those below are chosen not just because of their qualitywhich though mostly good, is variable
but because the politics they embed (deliberately or not) are of particular interest to socialists. Of
course, other worksby the same or other writerscould have been chosen: disagreement and
alternative suggestions are welcomed. I change my own mind hour to hour on this anyway.
Iain M. BanksUse of Weapons (1990)
Socialist SF discussing a post-scarcity society. The Culture are goodies in narrative and political
terms, but here issues of cross-cultural guilt and manipulation complicate the story from being a
simplistic utopia.
Edward BellamyLooking Backward, 20001887 (1888)
A hugely influential, rather bureaucratic egalitarian/nave communist utopia. Deals very well with
the confusion of the modern (19th Century) protagonist in a world he hasnt helped create (see
Bogdanov).
Alexander BogdanovThe Red Star: A Utopia (1908; trans. 1984)
This Bolshevik SF sends a revolutionary to socialist Mars. The books been criticized (with some
justification) for being proto-Stalinist, but overall its been maligned. Deals well with the problem
faced by someone trying to adjust to a new society s/he hasnt helped create (see Bellamy).
Emma Bull & Steven BrustFreedom & Necessity (1997)
Bull is a left-liberal and Brust is a Trotskyist fantasy writer.F&Nis set in the 19th Century of the
Chartists and class turmoil. Its been described as the first Marxist steampunk or a fantasy for
Young Hegelians.
Mikhail BulgakovThe Master and Margarita (1938; trans. 1967)
Astonishing fantasy set in 30s Moscow, featuring the Devil, Pontius Pilate, The Wandering Jew,
and a satire and critique of Stalinist Russia so cutting it is unbelievable that it got past the censors.
Utterly brilliant.
Katherine Burdekin (aka Murray Constantine)Swastika Night(1937)
An excellent example of the Hitler Wins sub-genre of SF. Its unusual in that it was published by
the Left Book Club and it was written while Hitler was in power, so the fear of Nazi future was
immediate.
Octavia ButlerSurvivor (1978)
Black American writer, now discovered by the mainstream after years of acclaim in the SF
field.Kindredis her most overtly political novel, the Patternmaster series the most popular. Survivor
brilliantly blends genre SF with issues of colonialism and racism.
Julio CortzarHouse Taken Over (1963?)
A terrifying short story undermining the notion of the house as sanctity and refuge. A subtle
destruction of the bourgeois oppositions between public/private and inside/outside.
Philip K. DickA Scanner Darkly (1977)
Could have picked almost any of his books. Like all of them, this deals with identity, power, and
betrayal, here tied in more directly to social structures than in some other works (though see
Counter-Clock World and The Man in the High Castle). Incredibly moving.
Thomas DischThe Priest (1994)
Utterly savage work of anti-clericalism. A work of dark fantasy GBH against the Catholic Church
(dedicated, among others, to the Pope)
Gordon EklundAll Times Possible(1974)
Study of alternative worlds, including an examination of hypothetical Left-wing movements in
alternative USAs.
Max ErnstUne Semaine de Bont (1934)
The definitive Surrealist collage novel. A succession of images the reader is involved in decoding. A
Whodunwhat, with characters from polite commercial catalogues engaged in a story of little deaths
and high adventure.
Claude FarrreUseless Hands (1920; trans. 1926)
Bleak Social Darwinism, and a prototype of farewell to the working class arguments. The
useless handsworkersrevolt is seen as pathetic before inexorable technology. A cold,
reactionary, interesting book.
Anatole FranceThe White Stone (1905; trans. 1910)
In part, a rebuttal to the racist yellow peril fever of the timea book about white peril and the
rise of socialism. Also interesting isThe Revolt of the Angels, which examines now well-worn
socialist theme of Lucifer being in the right, rebelling against the despotic God.
Jane GaskellStrange Evil(1957)
Written when Gaskell was 14, with the flaws that entails. Still, however, extraordinary. A savage
fairytale, with fraught sexuality, meditations on Tom Paine and Marx, revolutionary upheaval
depicted sympathetically, but without sentimentality; plus the most disturbing baddy in fiction.
Mary GentleRats and Gargoyles (1990)
Set in a city that undermines the feudalism lite of most genre fantasy. An untypical female
protagonist has adventures in a cityscape complete with class struggle, corruption, and racial
oppression.
Charlotte Perkins GilmanThe Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
Towering work by this radical thinker. Terrifying short story showing how savage gender
oppression can inhere in caring relationships just as easily as in more obviously abusive ones. See
also her feminist/socialistic utopias Moving the Mountain (1911) andHerland(1914).
Lisa GoldsteinThe Dream Years (1985)
A time-slip oscillating between Paris in the 1920s, during the Surrealist movement, and in 1968,
during the Uprising. Uses a popular fantastic mode to examine the relation between Surrealism
as the fantastic mode par excellence and revolutionary movements (if nebulously conceived).
Stefan GrabiskiThe Dark Domain (191822; trans. and collected 1993)
Brilliant horror by this Polish writer. Unusually locates the uncanny and threatening within the very
symbols of a modernizing industrialism in Poland: trains, electricity, etc. This awareness of the
instability of the everyday marks him out from traditional, nostalgic ghost story writers.
George GriffithThe Angel of Revolution (1893)
Rather dated, but unusual in that its heroes are revolutionary terrorists. Very different from the
devious anarchist villains of (e.g.) Chesterton.
Imil HabibiThe Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1974; trans. 1982)
The full title is much longer. Habiby was a member of the Palestinian Community Party, a veteran
of the anti-British struggle of the 40s, and a member of the Knesset for several years. This amiable,
surreal book is about the life of a Palestinian in Israel (with surreal bits, and aliens).
M. John HarrisonViriconium Nights (1984)
A stunning writer, who expresses the alienation of the modern everyday with terrible force. Fantasy
that mercilessly uncovers the alienated nature of the longing for fantastic escape, and show how that
fantasy will always remain out of reach. Punishes his readers and characters for their involvement
with fantasy. See alsoThe Course of the Heart.
Ursula K. Le GuinThe Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)
The most overtly political of this anarchist writers excellent works. An examination of the relations
between a rich, exploitive capitalist world and a poor, nearly barren (though high-tech) communist
one.
Jack LondonIron Heel (1907)
Londons masterpiece: scholars from a 27th Century socialist world find documents depicting a
fascist oligarchy in the US and the revolt of the proletariat. Elsewhere, Londons undoubted
socialism is undermined by the most appalling racism.
Ken MacLeodThe Star Fraction (1996)
British Trotskyist (of strongly libertarian bent), all of whose (very good) works examine Left
politics without sloganeering. The Stone Canal, for example, features arguments about distortions
of Marxism. However, The Star Fraction is chosen here as it features Virtual Reality heroes of the
left, by namea roll call of genuine revolutionaries recast in digital form.
Gregory MaguireWicked (1995)
Brilliant revisionist fantasy about how the winners write history. The loser whose side is here taken
is the Wicked Witch of the West, a fighter for emancipatory politics in the despotic empire of Oz.
J. Leslie Mitchell (Lewis Grassic Gibbon)Gay Hunter(1934, reissued 1989)
By the Marxist writer of the classic work of vernacular Scots literatureA Scots Quair, andSpartacus,
the novel that proves that propaganda can be art. This is great science fiction. Bit dewy-eyed about
hunter-gatherers perhaps, but superb nonetheless. As an added bonus, it also has a title that sounds
amusing today. Check out his short fiction, which includes a lot of SF/Fantasy work.
Michael MoorcockHawkmoon (196777, reprinted in one edition 1992)
Moorcock is an erudite Left-anarchist and a giant of fantasy literature. Almost everything hes
written is of interest, but Hawkmoon is chosen here in honor of Moorcock having said about it: In
a spirit consciously at odds with the jingoism of the day, I chose a German for a hero and the British
for villains. There are also plenty of satirical references and gags about 1960s/70s politics for the
reader to decode.
William MorrisNews From Nowhere (1888)
A socialist (though naively pastoral) utopia, written in response to Bellamy (above), that unusually
doesnt shy away from the hard political question of how we get the desired utopia-proletarian
revolution. See alsoThe Well at the Worlds Endand his other fantasies.
Toni MorrisonBeloved (1987)
Its well known thatBelovedis a superb book about race and slavery and guilt, but its less generally
accepted that its a fantasy. It is. Its a ghost story that wouldnt have half the charge without the
fantastic element.
Mervyn PeakeThe Gormenghast Novels (194659)
An austere depiction of dead ritualism and necessary transformation. Dont believe those who say
that the third book is disappointing.
Marge PiercyWoman on the Edge of Time (1976)
A Chicano woman trapped in an asylum makes contact with a messenger from a future utopia, born
after a full feminist revolution.
Philip PullmanNorthern Lights (1995)
Pullman let us down. This book is here because it deals with moral/political complexities with
unsentimental respect for its (young adult) readers and characters. Explores freedom and social
agency, and the question of using ugly means for emanicipatory ends. It raises the biggest possible
questions, and doesnt patronise us that there are easy answers. The second in the trilogy,The Subtle
Knife, is a perfectly good bridging volume and then in book three,The Amber Spyglass,
something goes wrong. It has excellent bits, it is streets ahead of its competition but theres
sentimentality, a hesitation, a formalism, which lets us down. Ah well.Northern Lightsis still a
masterpiece.
Ayn RandAtlas Shrugged (1957)
Know your enemy. This panoply of portentous Nietzcheanism lite has had a huge influence on
American SF. Rand was an obsessive objectivist (libertarian pro-capitalist individualist) whose
hatred of socialism and any form of collectivism is visible in this important an influential
though vile and ponderousnovel.
Mack ReynoldsLagrange Five (1979)
Reynolds was, for 25 years, an activist for the U.S. Socialist Labor Party. His radical perspective on
political issues is reflected throughout his work. This bookexamining a quasi-utopia without
sentimentalismis only one suggestion. Also of huge interest areTomorrow Might Be
Different (1960) and The Rival Rigelians (1960), which explicitly examine the relation between
capitalism and Stalinism.
Keith RobertsPavane (1968)
These linked stories take place in a present day where Elizabeth I was assassinated and Spain took
over Britain. This examines life in a world where a militant feudal Catholicism acts as a fetter on
social and productive functions. Though Roberts was no lefty at all, and you could probably power
France on the energy from his spinning grave at being included in this list.
Kim Stanley RobinsonThe Mars Trilogy (199296)
Probably the most powerful center of gravity for Leftist SF in the 1990s. A sprawling and
thoughtful examination of the variety of social relations feeding into and leading up to revolutionary
change. (Its also got some Gramsci jokes in it.)
Mary ShelleyFrankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818)
Not a warning not to mess with things that should be let alone (which would be a reactionary antirationalist message) but an insistence on the necessity of grappling with forces one unleashes and
the fact that there is no innate nature to people, but a socially-constructed one.
Lucius ShepardLife During Wartime (1987)
Horrific vision of a future (thinly disguised Vietnam) war. Within the savage examinations of the
truth of war and U.S. foreign policy, Shepard also investigates the relation between SF, fantasy, and
magic realism, and uses their shared mode to look back at reality with passion.
Norman SpinradThe Iron Dream (1972)
A SF novel by Adolf Hitler Spinrads funny, disturbing and savage indictment of the fascist
aesthetics in much genre SF and fantasy. What if Hitler had become a pulp SF writer in New York?
Not a book about that possibility but a book from it. By the same author: Triumph of the Will and
Lord of the Swastika. Brave and nasty.
Eugene SueThe Wandering Jew (1845)
Huge book by radical socialist Sue, about the adventures of the family of the Wandering Jew of
legend. Symbolic fantasy elements: the Jew is the dispossessed laborer and his partner is
downtrodden woman. Marx hated Sue as a writer (not without reasonless, for Sue, is not in more)
but hell, its an important book.
Michael SwanwickThe Iron Dragons Daughter (1993)
Great work that completely destroys the sentimental aspects of genre fantasy. From within the genre
fairies, elves, and allSwanwick examines the industrial revolution, the Vietnam War, racism
and sexism, and the escapist dreams of genre fantasy. A truly great anti-fantasy.
Jonathan SwiftGullivers Travels (1726)
Savage attack on hypocrisy and cant that never dilutes its fantasy with its satire: the two elements
feed off each other perfectly.
Alexei TolstoyAelita (1922; trans. 1957)
Distant relative of the other Tolstoy. The revised version is less good, written in the stern
environment of Stalinism. A Red Army officer goes to Mars and foments a rebellion of native
Martians. Good rousing stuff, but also interesting in terms of exporting revolution. See also the
superb avant-garde film version from 1924.
Ian WatsonSlow Birds (1985)
Left-wing author whose short story collection above includes a cold demolition of Thatcher and
Thatcherism. His take on oppressioncognitive and politicalinforms all his rather austere,
cerebral writing.
H.G. WellsThe Island of Dr Moreau (1896)
Like a lot of Wellss work, this is an uneasy mixture of progressive and reactionary notions. It
makes for one of the great horror stories of all time. A fraught examination of colonialism, science,
eugenics, repression, and religion: a kind of fantasy echo of ShakespearesThe Tempest.
E. L. WhiteLukundoo (1927)
One of the most utterly extraordinary (and almost certainly unconscious) expressions of colonial
anxiety and guilt in the history of literature.
Oscar WildeThe Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888)
Childrens fantasies by this romantic, socialist author. Marked by a sharp lack of sentimentality, a
deeply subversive cynicism, which doesnt blunt their ability to be intensely moving.
Gene WolfeThe Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
Wolfe is a religious Republican, but his tragico-Catholic perspective leads to a deeply unglamorized
and unsanitized awareness of social reality. This book is a very sad and extremely dense, complex
meditation on colonialism, identity and oppression.
Yevgeny ZamyatinWe (1920; trans. 1924)
A Bolshevik, who earned semi-official unease in the USSR even in the early 1920s, with this
unsettling dystopian view of absolute totalitarianism. These days often retrospectively, ahistorically,
and misleadingly judged to be a critique of Stalinism.
With many thanks to Mark Bould, Brian Stableford, and the members of theInternational
Association for the Fantastic in the Arts email list (IAFA-L) for their suggestions. I take full
responsibility for the final selection
