Seymour, John
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1914-2004) UK farmer and author almost all of whose works, from the early 1950s until his death, are nonfiction discussing the disappearance of what he deemed to be a balanced world (see Ecology), and the prospects of achieving sustainability in the future (see Futures Studies). Of sf interest is Die Lerchen singen so schön ["The Larks They Sang Melodious"] (1982), portraying Near Future disaster and recovery for a UK afflicted first by a general strike and then by collapse of infrastructure; farmers succeed, where the armed forces have failed, in re-imposing a civic order that approaches a state of Utopia. Somewhat similar is Retrieved from the Future (1996), another Near Future tale in which, after the UK government has crashed under the weight of ecological and other crises, a separate state is established in East Anglia, where the principles of planetary governance espoused elsewhere by the author prove, with difficulty, to be workable. [JC/DRL]
John Seymour
born London: 12 June 1914
died Newport, Pembrokeshire: 14 September 2004
works (highly selected)
- Die Lerchen singen so schön ["The Larks They Sang Melodious"] (Munich, Germany: Heyne Verlag, 1982) [trans by Irene Holicki from English manuscript: pb/Ulf Herholz]
- Retrieved from the Future (London: New European Publications, 1996) [pb/]
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