The Sixties Sci Fi Imagination: Utopia as Social Dreaming

Poul Anderson, After Doomsday (1962)

In Danish-American author Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, Earth has been blown up by attackers from another planet, but members of the two surviving spacecraft still cruising in space have no idea who the perpetrators are. Two spaceships troll the skies: the American spaceship Franklin, comprised of all men and an affectionate, emotional bird-like creature called a Monwaingi, and the spaceship Europa, flown by an all-female crew of Europeans.


The crew of the spaceship Franklin are captured by a nomadic society called the Kandemirians, who are desperate for the Americans' superior technology. They threaten to kill the crew unless the captain agrees to reveal technological secrets. Donnan, one of the prisoners who is coerced into sharing this technology, pretends to comply, but actually makes guns instead. In a scene bespeaking American "idealized self-regard," the American crew fights off the Kandemirians and escapes. I won't reveal "who murdered Earth"--you'll have to read the novel yourself to find out!

This page has paths:

This page references: