A Modern Utopia

While walking in the Swiss Alps, two English travellers fall into a space - warp, and suddenly find themselves in another world. In many ways the same as our own - even down to the characters that inhabit it - this new planet is still somehow radically different, for the two walkers are now upon a Utopian Earth controlled by a single World Government. Here, as they soon learn, all share a common language, there is sexual, economic and racial equality, and society is ruled by socialist ideals enforced by an austere, voluntary elite: the Samurai'. But what will the Utopians make of these new visitors from a less perfect world?

H. G. Wells (1866-û1946) is widely considered the father of science fiction.

Francis Wheen is a journalist, author, and broadcaster.

Gregory Claeys is a historian at the University of Royal Holloway, London.