Title A Crystal Age: A Dystopia Series --- Author William Henry Hudson Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing 1887 Category Utopia/Dystopia Warnings None Main Characters Smith, Yoletta Main Elements Utopia, dystopia, time travel

N/A

A man tumbles into a ditch and wakes up in the future. He runs into a group of people that live in a House run by a Mother and Father. He struggles to fit in, constantly saying things that offend them until he convinces them he's from an island (well, technically England is one) and his people were so isolated they know nothing of local customs. They basically forgive him for being ignorant and attempt to teach him how not to go about sticking his foot in his mouth all the time. Oddly, these people from far FAR in the future, all speak English...sure, but then there aren't enough pages to go through teaching Smith a whole other language.

Ah...I have quite a few complaints about this story, and not just the fact that my copy was a scanned version which meant it was littered with typos. I got it for free but it was on sale, normally people would pay $3 for that copy, what??? Go get it from Project Gutenberg, they'll have proofread it first. Anyway, the author is not to blame for the typos.

First, we have Smith who is an utter idiot. It takes him forever to figure out he's not in Kansas anymore and that he should be more careful of what he says and does, and should do better to convince the people he really knows nothing, rather than trying to show off his outdated knowledge. I did enjoy the bit where he proved he could read, because he had a coin in his pocket. It had writing on it, and he read it out. Then he wrote on a piece of paper, but he wrote cursive and they pointed out one didn't match the other, so he then printed out the same text, to the confusion of why anyone would want two ways of writing.

Secondly...oof...that Victorian thing with feelings. You know where men faint because what's happening around them is just too weird? That they don't just fall in love but end up getting sick to near death when separated from their object of affection for just a month. Constant babble of how much he absolutely loves this one girl, even though she clearly doesn't feel the same kind of love for him. Did I mention that he thought she was 14 or so? Turns out she's fortunately around 30, but that still had some ick factor. In fact that's where this utopia perhaps hides a dystopia. Everyone is happy, living in harmony with each other and with nature. Everyone basically loves everyone else but there aren't any couples and no children, however there are people referred to as Mother and Father which leads me to...

Thirdly...I think I get the so absolutely horrible terrible unthinkable thing Smith discovers while reading a book on how this society functions, I had suspicions from the whole Mother/Father already...however its never laid out fully, so I'm not 100% sure my understanding is correct. And of course Smith totally overreacts, drinks something he figures we cause him not to feel sexual attaction, only platonic love, course it was something else entirely and the story, well, ends.

There were moments I enjoyed it. Their relationship with animals and nature. If you don't feel that sex is a key component of your life, it is very much a utopia, with everyone mostly happy most of the time and punishments tend to be things like being sent to your room rather than say, beatings. The people did try hard to understand Smith and gave him a lot of leeway and guidance so he could fit in, which he thankfully started to do. But Smith's constantly wild mood swings (and they say women are emotional *cough*) got annoying fast, I kept thinking "grow up dude". But some of the conversations he had with people were interesting to think about, though sometimes also too much "but I love you so much I can barely breath, the thought of being without you was ripping a hole in soul, blah blah". Fortunately this also won him some leeway with the people as they decide that all his screw ups were at least with the best of intention if maybe a little too much love.

It was interesting when they punished him for getting sick. Smith was furious but they pointed out that he drove himself to his sickness and that was what he was being punished for. That to care for the rest of the community he was also required to take care of himself (a nice utopian thought there!)

For what its worth, I guess its just this style of Victorian writing. I also did not like Wells' The Time Machine, though I did love very much his The War of the Worlds. Maybe because in both cases you toss this so called "modern" man into something that appears to be a utopia, he charges about like a bull in a china shop, and then finds that underneath it all, there is a dark side. The two stories are very different and explore different aspects but I just couldn't like the narrators who were so full of themselves and felt the world revolved around them.