Earthworks (novel)

Earthworks  

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author(s) Brian Aldiss
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Faber & Faber
Publication date 1965
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 155 pp
ISBN NA

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

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.[1] Smithson went on to become the foremost figure in Land Art.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Tiberghien, Gilles (1995). Land Art. Princeton Architectural Press. p. 18. ISBN 156898040X.