Well, yeah, the Eloi weren’t “people” as we know them in the book, but they are people in both movies. I wasn’t trying to offend, but the Morlocks didn’t really like coming above ground unless it was dark. So, I guess by comparing this story to our relationships with cows, the poor things are living in a dystopia too, along with their chicken and pig friends. I suppose The Time Machine should’ve ended with the Morlocks dragging the time traveller underground as he calls out to the clueless prey: “Soylent Green is Eloiiiii!”
I know the Eloi weren’t really much of a society because they were, by design, dumb as rocks and meant to be food for their totalitarian oppressors, but let’s not split genre hairs. If the example of some entity subjugating a post-apocolyptic society isn’t considered a dystopia, then what is it?
How about Octavia Butler’s Xenogenisis series? I read 2 (I think) of the 3 many years ago. Post-apocalypse with aliens who sort-of rescue humanity afterward.
> As an answer to the actual question in the OP, how about dystopian or
> ecotopian? Used in reference to a post-apocolyptic world wherein soceity is
> culturally/socially subjugated or imprisoned (i.e. the Morlocks and Eloi in ‘The
> Time Machine’, or the Combine and Humanity in ‘Half-Life 2’). The dys- prefix
> implies a serious dysfunction at the core of a seemingly utopian society, and the
> eco- prefix implying a focus on protecting an environment that may have been
> damaged or destroyed as a result of some cataclysm. There’s an entry on
> utopian fiction on Wikipedia which goes into some good detail.
The problem with using those terms is that they apply to more general types of stories than just the post-apocalyptic/post-holocaust stories that are being asked about in the OP. A utopia is a society (usually a future society, but it could be hidden away somewhere at present) that is better, in some sense, than any present-day society. A dystopia is a society (presumably future one) that is worse than any present-day society. There isn’t any commonly accepted definition for the word “ecotopia,” but presumably it means a future society that’s more ecologically sustainable than present-day society.
These are all useful distinctions, but they don’t answer the OP, since people have written utopias, dystopias, and ecotopias that didn’t come about because of some apocalyptic event. Some post-apocalyptic stories are utopias, dystopias, or ecotopias, but some aren’t any of those catagories. Furthermore, some utopias, some dystopias, and some ecotopias didn’t come about because apocalyptic events. So these distinctions don’t really answer the question in the OP.
They most certainly are. Childlike (both physically and mentally), and low intelligence, but still people. They’re still sentient, they still have a rudimentary (if decadent) society and language. They’re as much people as the Morlocks are.
This is really anoying, because I read these books too, and know exactly what you mean, but I can’t remember the title or the author either. I can tell you precisely which shelf it was on in the school library, though…
Maybe I got that wrong. Still, it’s a staggering number.
One of the most striking passages in the (terrific) series sees the protagonist climbing down a vast, Grand Canyon-like cliff, studying the the layers of rock as he passes. He notes, almost offhandedly, that every level of strata he passes shows signs of human existance, all the way to the bottom. It’s an awe-inspiring moment.
Captain_C & Septima you are remembering another post apocalypse book by John Chrisopher. He wrote quite a few of them. It’s called The Prince In Waiting and it was one of my favourite books as a teenager.
Other post apocalyptic books he wrote include :
A Wrinkle in the Skin - a series of earthquakes destroy much of the world.
Death of Grass - a plague wipes out most forms of grass, so there’s no wheat, rice, maize or cattle fodder. Survivors battle each other for the limited food that remains.
Perhaps another term would be ‘historical’. After all, humanity’s already sufferred the odd apocalypse or two: the fall of the Roman Empire and the Black Death to name but two. Society collapses, but then rebounds.
A dystopian story is simply one where the future sucks. It doesn’t necessarily involve an apocalypse. Orwellian fiction is dystopian, but there usually wasn’t an Apocalypse of any sort.
As for “ecotopian,” well, that sounds like a word I’d use to describe Captain Planet.
I vote for “fallen society” or “post-holocaust,” per Agonist and Wendell Wagner’s posts. “Post-Apocalyptic” is usually used to describe stories in which the Apocalypse occurred in the relatively recent past. Both Fallen Society and Post-Holocaust mean the same thing, but don’t have the same connotations of immediacy.
BTW, the Star Trek franchise is set in a post-holocaust future. A nuclear war nearly wiped out humanity, and allowed the utopic Federation to arise.