Review of “A Modern Utopia”, by H.G. Wells

A Modern Utopia by H.G. Wells

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As much as I admire H.G. Wells, I still always find myself struggling to finish utopian novels. What I love about good science fiction is that upon a few basic “what if” presumptions, which we must take on faith, a whole world of logically consistent and ultimately very human stories can be built. Despite his interesting ideas and the honorific of “classic” and “canonical”, I’m afraid that I fell into the same complaints with A Modern Utopia as with many others: it is dry, overly-reliant on description instead of humanity, and prone to far more hastily-accepted assumptions than the bulk of the rest of the genre.

Wells does, to be fair, answer the question that is skirted in most utopias, but central to my distaste for them: If we live in a utopia, for what shall we strive?

Worth a read for the clarity of thought and excellent writing, and for its own sake as a member of canonical collection of classical science fiction. I probably will not read it again or refer back to it, however.



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