Dennis Danvers: The Watch: Being the Unauthorized Sequel to Peter A.
Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist – as Imparted to Dennis Danvers
by Anchee Mahur, Traveler from a Distant Future; or, A Science Fiction
Novel (2002)
Supposedly written in the first person by Peter Kropotkin, who has been plucked from his deathbed, rejuvenated, into a future in which he has the opportunity to to foster anarchism once more. The plot is on the weak side, but the writing is first rate, and the Kropotkin character thoroughly researched, as is historical anarchism itself (with references to more recent figures such as Bookchin and Chomsky). Anarchism is integral to the book, and is presented with the utmost sympathy. Very readable, and a wonderful introduction to anarchist ideas for anyone not familiar with them.
Daniel Defoe (as Captain Charles Johnson [attribution to Defoe is disputed]): A General History of the Pyrates (1724-28)
‘Includes an account of Libertalia or Libertatia, a pirate colony in Madagascar founded by one Captain Misson (or Mission) and run along libertarian socialist lines. It also describes a purely anarchistic breakaway colony. This account is most likely fictional, although the rest of the book is non-fiction (see Peter Lamborn Wilson’s Pirate Utopias).’ (Dan Clore)
Joseph Déjacques: L’Humanisphère: utopie anarchique (The Humanisphere: An Anarchistic Utopia) (1858-61; first unexpurgated edition 1971)
‘A walk-through description of the world in the year 2858, after the abolition of the state, religion, property, and the family.’ (Dan Clore) Described by Kropotkin himself as an anarchist-communist utopia, and by Max Nettlau as ‘L’utopie anarchiste par excellence’. Editor of the New York anarchist paper Le Libertaire, he ‘let his utopian imagination run riot’ in L’Humanisphère. ‘Each is his own representative in a ‘parliament of anarchy’. Déjacque's ‘humanispheres’ resemble Fourier's ‘phalansteries’ and while based on the principle of complete freedom reflect a similarly rigid planning.’ (Peter Marshall:435)
Samuel Delany: Dhalgren (1974)
Has been described as presenting a world which is ‘anarchist in all but name’ (Moore 95). Although this is questionable, this is a stimulating and thought-provoking novel that bears inclusion here.
Samuel Delany: Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia; or, Some Informal Remarks toward the Modular Calculus (1976)
Philip K. Dick: ‘The Last of the Masters’ (1954)
In this early story Dick took anarchism itself for its explicit theme. Two hundred years after the triumph of the Anarchist League by overthrowing the world’s governments, a pocket state is discovered, ruled by a still-surviving government robot. An Anarchist League agent destroys the robot. The League itself is a voluntary club of unorganised individuals whose task it is to patrol the world scotching any attempts to restore government. It is made clear at the end of the story that, while there are disadvantages to global anarchism, they are more than outweighed by the effective abolition of war that has followed from its adoption.
Denis Diderot: Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville (published posthumously in 1796)
A fictional depiction of the inhabitants of Tahiti as stateless, naked natives copulating under the sun. [NB hyperlink is to French language original.]
Paul DiFilippo: ‘Any Major Dude’ (1991)
The whole of North Africa has become a political isolate thanks to its controversial use of anti-entropic free energy from nanotechnology. Money is increasingly pointless, and guns won’t function, as a consequence of “a local accumulation of anti-entropy”. A pre-utopian sidelong glimpse of the state in the very act of withering away.
Thomas M. Disch: ‘Mutability’ (1978)
Set in the free university city of Tübingen at the end of the 21st century. Tübingen is said to have been declared a free city by the UN in 2039, after the faculty and students of the university had spearheaded the pan-Germanic Anarchist movement. It is said to have a uniquely democratic government.
Cory Doctorow: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)
Said to explore anarcho-capitalist ideas.
Jane Doe: Anarchist Farm (1995)
Very entertaining animal fable sequel to Orwell's Animal Farm; not actually sf.
Henry S. Drayton: In Oudemon: Reminiscences of an Unknown People by an Occasional Traveller (1901)
Egalitarian, anarchist utopia.