ABSTRACT
Andrew Acworth’s A New Eden, set in 2096, is a collectivist dystopia. Set some time after a mighty cataclysm where only Australia remains ‘civilized’, the book recounts the rediscovery of the isolated island, settled in 1896 on anarchist-socialist principles and successfully regulated for the common good. This is contrasted to the degeneration and decline of the species elsewhere in the world. The island utopia is a collectivist society of the most pure kind. All individual, and indeed sexual, identity has been subsumed by the state. A number of porpoises slowly rise to the surface, and the blue waters are tossed by their clumsy gambols; in the distance a fountain of delicate spray shines in the morning sun, and shows the spot where a huge whale is blowing and resting after his long journey under water; while, close to vessel’s side, silvery flying fish skim rapidly for a moment, and then fall like a bright cloud back into their native element.
