u/cnash

Two books I've really enjoyed lately have been Ursula LeGuin's the Dispossessed and Becky Chambers' Record of a Spaceborn Few, and I'm interested in continuing on that theme.

That theme, I think, is utopian societies that have succeeded on their own terms, and their ongoing discontents in spite of that success. In Dispossessed, the protagonist Shevek's society runs on anarchist principles— work is voluntary, money is a dim memory, food and necessities are free for the taking— and the system basically works. But Shevek and his friends find that they're still subject to unwelcome control and limits from powerful personalities and social pressures.

In the past before Record of a Spaceborn Few, the survivors of a ruined Earth set out in generation ships, and, for various reasons— to reject the destructive habits that poisoned their homeworld, and to forestall conflict and strife over scarce resources— adopted a radically egalitarian ethos and lifestyle. And it worked: the Exodan Fleet, ~~luxury~~ gay space communism and all (resources are tightly constrained on generation ships), has made contact with, and joined, a wider galactic society.

But now they've arrived, and new generations question how and whether to continue the values and traditions that brought their ancestors safely through the voyage.

The point, for me, here, is that Odonian anarchism and Exodan communism have succeeded. There are no bosses or social classes on Anarres. The Exodus Fleet brought its people to a new home in harmony. There's no secret flaw in their societies, no smug see? these hippies are so dumb moralizing. The stories aren't about the failure of the social project. But the people in them still have problems and conflicts, especially conflicts arising from their culture.

Anyway, gimme gimme gimme more. Sci-fi setting is optional, though it kind of runs alongside the utopia concept.

How do I transfer my Virginia CDL to Illinois?

Stories about or in utopias that work, but whose inhabitants still have problems.