ABSTRACT
Most modern utopias are really uchronias, with ideal places replaced by ideal times. Flanked by three volumes of his works issued by the Library of America, Vonnegut can safely thumb his nose at science fiction, much as his fellow member of the Library of America canon, Mark Twain. An engineer by profession, Hank Morgan sets out like Calvin Cohn to engineer a modern utopia. In Galapagos, a worldwide catastrophe leaves in its wake an eco-friendly Earth perpetually cleansed of murder and war, with humanity whittled down to a single family line. The purpose of Vonnegut’s assault on people brainpower and our civilization is to decentralize humankind in the cosmic scheme of things. In the novel, the second garden east of Eden is found a thousand miles west of Ecuador on one of the Galápagos Islands, where the human race gets a fresh start.
