6.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 155 pp Country United Kingdom | 3.1/5 Goodreads Publication date 1965 Originally published 1965 Publisher Faber and Faber | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) Genres Novel, Science Fiction, Speculative fiction Similar Brian Aldiss books, Science Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Earthworks is a 1965 dystopian science fiction novel by prolific British science fiction author Brian Aldiss.
Contents
Plot introduction
The novel is set in a world of environmental catastrophe and extreme socio-economic inequality. Outside crowded cities controlled by a police state, a class of wealthy and powerful "Farmers" exploit a rural prison labor population and hunt down subversive "Travellers" who have broken free of social controls. The novel is considered influential as both "Travellers" and the idea of the Earthwork have become part of public life in Britain.
Earthworks and Land Art
In 1967, the artist Robert Smithson took a copy of Earthworks with him on a trip to the Passaic River in New Jersey (where he created The Monuments of Passaic, 1967). He reused the title to describe some of his works, based on natural materials like earth and rocks, and infused with his ideas about entropy and environmental catastrophe. Smithson went on to become the foremost figure in Land Art.