Earthworks

Earthworks is a 1965 dystopian science fiction novel by prolific British science fiction author Brian Aldiss. 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 influe... more

Earthworks is a 1965 dystopian science fiction novel by prolific British science fiction author Brian Aldiss. 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. 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. less