Searching for 50s/60s Dystopic Future Novel

[UncleBucky]

Hi forum,

I have tried to search this, but there are either not enough keywords out there or I don't supply enough keywords, hehe. So I send it out to the collective pattern matchers!

There was a sci-fi novel of standard length that dealt with a somewhat dystopic future. There might have been as I remember farm fields (in the UK?) where they tried to eliminate the birds from the hedgerows in order to increase crop yields. The hero escaped from a factory farm, and somehow gets on a robot freighter headed to sea, probably down the West African coast. There is a description of the desolation of this future time, such as the atomic powered ship that could keep going regardless, but for what purpose? The seas were dead, but traveled by robot or lightly crewed freighters. He arrives somehow in an area where the very old and rich have found a haven of compounds. Finally, I can remember a scene on the coast of Africa (the continent sure, but perhaps along a desolate sandy coast) where an individual of advanced age was found dead (murdered) driftiing along the beach strapped to a refrigerator sized anti-gravity unit.

More I cannot dredge up. But it was a bleak book and not optimistic.

Any help?

Thanks to all in advance out there!

Best,

Uncle Bucky

 

[otistdog]

Interesting: That last image really rings some bells, so I think I must have read this at some point, but it's not quite coming back enough to place it. Can you provide any more details or impressions?

 

[UncleBucky]

The book I read was a paperback. It was published in the 70s, when I read a lot of sci-fi, including Dune, Vonnegut's books, Clarke's novels, City and the Stars and so on.

But this was more mundane. Set on Earth, probably in the 21st century (a long time in the future for its publ date of 60s), and in a setting where things have gone down the tubes environmentally due to the usual cast of "characters". The English agribusiness, contrary to even 60s UK farm fields, spanned miles and miles, like fields in Kansas or something. And the protagonist saw the hedgerows made for wind control with fences or nets very high. But birds still survived their planned extermination and hid out in the hedgerows/nets. Due to some intrigue, he has to flee England, and my next recollection is the guy on one of these ocean-going robot ships (robot or staffed by a very few crewmembers) heading away from England on desolate seas. I remember that the seas were almost lifeless and empty. At some point, he arrives in West Africa, where there are still villas and development for the very rich. These people are so rich that they have every possible aid and assistance to continue to survive and make money, including refrigerator sized anti-grav units that allow them to scud slightly above the ground in their comings and goings. There was some kind of an affair, or dinner party, in one of these villas as the protagonist was trying to find out something about his enemies or his predicament. It may seem that the world population had crashed, for a number of reasons, so that there were automated production facilities, but no one needed to run them and the very rich who own these enterprises. It felt a bit maybe like a deserted "Blade Runner" dystopia? And then he is out on the beach under a grey sky, and he comes across one of these rich people, dead, floating along the beach, unattended and maybe representative of the situation that the Earth had come to, technologically advanced, but a dead husk. Beyond those three scenes (England, ship, African Coast), I don't recall anything else.

What of course is so compelling is that some of those scenes seem to foretell what is currently happening to agriculture, fisheries in the Atlantic, world trade and the return of the sharp divide between the filthy rich and the rest who are dying off by the millions.

I hope that helps. I tried searching with some of those key words, but I can't pop up anything in google or other resources. One more thing, I think it was by a class B author (nothing like Clarke? and certainly not pulp filler like "Kilgore Trout").



Anyone else out there?

--UB.

 

[matle]

I'd like to read this...probably doesn't help much? Maybe an extra post will encourage a few more worldly posters to read...

 

[UncleBucky]

Matle, thanks for the post, for whatever help we get to attract the "librarians" here!

Believe me, as I conjure up my memory, it was a visually rich text, you know? I remember having some grim images of that dystopic world!

Thanks!

 

[otistdog]

@UncleBucky: If you're still out there, I got a possible hit on this from a different forum. It's not a book I've ever read, after all, so I can't say whether it's correct, but the suggestion was "Earthworks" by Brian Aldiss.

Here's hoping this solves it for you, even if it took a few years!

 

[clovis-man]

I'm pretty sure, as well, that it's Earthworks. Read it decades ago and still remember the dead man drifting along the water.

 

[BAYLOR]

Hi forum,

I have tried to search this, but there are either not enough keywords out there or I don't supply enough keywords, hehe. So I send it out to the collective pattern matchers!

There was a sci-fi novel of standard length that dealt with a somewhat dystopic future. There might have been as I remember farm fields (in the UK?) where they tried to eliminate the birds from the hedgerows in order to increase crop yields. The hero escaped from a factory farm, and somehow gets on a robot freighter headed to sea, probably down the West African coast. There is a description of the desolation of this future time, such as the atomic powered ship that could keep going regardless, but for what purpose? The seas were dead, but traveled by robot or lightly crewed freighters. He arrives somehow in an area where the very old and rich have found a haven of compounds. Finally, I can remember a scene on the coast of Africa (the continent sure, but perhaps along a desolate sandy coast) where an individual of advanced age was found dead (murdered) driftiing along the beach strapped to a refrigerator sized anti-gravity unit.

More I cannot dredge up. But it was a bleak book and not optimistic.

Any help?

Thanks to all in advance out there!

Best,

Uncle Bucky

This is not what you looking for but , book you might find of interest is Limbo by Bernard Wolfe. Its in the Dystopian category and i's quite good and quite nasty.

 

[PaulMmn]

"where they tried to eliminate the birds from the hedgerows in order to increase crop yields."

Totally unrelated to your search; the story I have in mind dealt with arcology cities and the farm belts around them. Our Hero visits one of the farms and meets a scientist. He was studying the optimum spacing of hedgerows to have enough birds to eat the pesky bugs that were eating crops, without reducing land available for crops.

This was serialized in ANALOG Magazine years ago; I have no recollection of the title or author.