ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the author's journey into the architectural and spatial history of estranged literary genres. It focuses on the work of two of the greatest proponents of science fiction literature, Philip K Dick and the Strugatsky brothers, Arkady and Boris. In fact, it transpires that they have much in common and both play with a series of set piece themes that have become tropes in science fiction literature. As the edges of the Cold War hardened in the late 1970s, and the world descended yet again into political and economic crisis, paranoia becomes entrenched. In short, SF is a genre that is both chronotopically and politically rich. Amidst the slums, secret police, and machinery of the urban dystopia, there is barely a glimmer of the modern scientifically planned city of social democracy or of the splendid new apartments and building typologies designed to pave the way to freedom.
