Cassius Minor: The Finding of Mercia (1909)

A. Bertram Chandler: The Anarch Lords (1981)

A space opera concerning a planet named Liberia, which had been settled by anarchists. The extent to which the colony had stuck to anarchist principles had varied much over the years. There is now an Original Anarchist Party, which favours a return to basic principles. These, however, are opposed by the entrenched anarchist establishment, ‘the cream of Liberian society, the black-and-scarlet-clad Anarchist grandees and their ladies (50, DAW edition). Bakunin has become a demi-god. Not only does Chandler’s knowledge of anarchism tend towards zero, the novel is forgettable third-rate sf.

A.V. Chayanov: The Journey of my Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia (1920)

Alexei dozes of while reading Herzen, and wakes in a peasants’ utopia, which is described with some charm; it if was all a dream remains uncertain, as the work is unfinished.

   Geoffrey Ostergaard reviewed this work at length in Freedom in 1978, describing it as ‘. . . probably the only and only peasant utopian romance ever written . . .’. (9) ‘. . . Chayanov’s vision of Russia was not an anarchist one, “the marvellous anarchy of Prince Kropotkin”. But it may fairly be described as “libertarian socialist”. In its distrust of the State, in its concern for individual freedom, in its hostility to the values typical of industrial urbanised society, and in many other ways, it expresses an ideology that is miles nearer to anarchism than it is to bolshevik Marxism.’ (13)

Ivan Chtcheglov: ‘Formulary for a New Urbanism’ (1953)

‘A brief, bizarre vision of a libertarian socialist city in which everyone will have his own cathedral and “There will be rooms more conducive to dreams than any drug, and houses where one cannot help but love”. Available in Ken Knabb’s Situationist International Anthology (1981) and online at: www.slip.net/~knabb/SI/Chtcheglov.htm).’ (Dan Clore)

Curt Clark (pseud. Donald E. Westlake): Anarchaos (1967)

Third-rate western, set on an alien planet, of which the social system had been designed by anarchists, described as followers of Bakunin, ‘an obscure Russian nihilist’. Society, of course, has collapsed, anarchism being ‘not entirely realistic’. The planet appears to harbour a society in a Hobbesian state of nature. The hero describes anarchy as ‘absurd’, and the planet as ‘the longest-running planet-wide madhouse in the history of the human race.’ (Ace pb edn: 20).

   A Freedom contributor in 1976 found the novel ‘horrendous’. Albert Meltzer, in the same year, went further: ‘It is anarchism as seen through Fascist eyes. Maybe Clark is not a Fascist and has just picked up the arguments [. . . .] But the arguments are a perfect example of the Nazi views on anarchism, and fairly presented.’

   Anarchaos is probably the nastiest representation of anarchism in the genre.

Alex Comfort: Come Out to Play (1961)

Comfort renowned sexologist and gerontologist was at one time better known as an anarchist. The novel concerns the discovery of a sexually-liberating drug, and the havoc it wreaks on an uptight society. It is not explicitly anarchist, though it tends that way.

Paul Cornell: Timewyrm: Revelations, Love and War, No Future, and Human Nature

Thematic four book quartet. Love and War and No Future portray anarchists in the form of neo-pagan anarchist travellers in an interstellar travel era and a Black Star militant group in the background of a possibly alternate version of the 1976 London milieu. These portray anarchists favorably. Part of the DOCTOR WHO New Adventures sequence. (mailing to anarchysf)

Steve Cullen: The Last Capitalist: A Dream of a New Utopia (1996)    

Published by London's anarchist Freedom Press, this short book is essentially an anarchist utopia set in a future Britain. The story involves a quest for the eponymous capitalist, and contributes greatly to the book's readability. England has been renamed 'Atopia', and is explicitly anarchist, but the state and capitalism have pretty much crumbled world-wide. Alternative polities exist, to reflect local conditions and aspirations; among these is a republic on the Isle of Man, based on delegate democracy. In Atopia everything is voluntary, education is through free schools, and the economy is based on barter. Informed by green principles, technology is nevertheless sufficiently sophisticated to include high-altitude remote-controlled airships, to maintain satellite communications. Social life is fuelled by plenty of real ale (with an explicit admiring nod to CAMRA) and an easy attitude to sex. The book is joyful and optimistic.