1891: Sr. As Experiências de East no Mundo de Bellamy: Registros dos Anos 2001 e 2002 Conrad Wilbrandt , traduzido do alemão ( Herrn Friedrich Ost Erlaubnisse no der Welt Bellamy ) por Mary J Safford ; disponível no Arquivo da Internet e Google Livros .
Esta história de um homem que acorda de um longo sono para se encontrar em uma distopia socialista é aparentemente o mais antigo de uma série de refutações para Olhando para trás, 2000-1887 , conto de Edward Bellamy de 1888 de uma futura utopia socialista. Não é uma "história do fim do mundo" (conforme exigido pelo OP), mas mostra que "a noção de entrar em coma e surgir em um mundo que é fundamentalmente pior do que era antes" já estava firmemente estabelecida em 1898. quando H. G. Wells escreveu Quando o Sleeper Wakes .
O que se segue é de revisão de Everett F. Bleiler em Ficção científica: os primeiros anos :
Mr. East, a Berliner, is impressed with Looking Backward. At a small party he and his friends, drinking a little too much, have a heated argument about the possibility of suspended animation like West's. The argument ends in a dare for East to try it. Present at the party is an intelligent young Hindu who has been a pupil of Yogi Haridas and knows Haridas's technique for suspending life. He performs the necessary physiological processes on East—cutting his tongue ligature, folding the tongue back, sealing body orifices—and East is stored away, to be revived in a short time.
Something goes wrong, however, exactly what, East never knows, for he does not awaken until 2001, when his body is found. He regains consciousness in a hospital, where he is tended by Sister Martha, a sympathetic, intelligent young nurse who acts as an introduction to the world of the future.
East is very enthusiastic at being in Bellamy's world and cannot understand why Sister Martha and others do not share his enthusiasm. He is gradually enlightened.
His first disillusionment comes when he reads through a file of newspapers to see what life is really like. There are, of course, no personal advertisements, since there is no personal commerce, but the newspapers are filled with announcements of government products that are now available at certain warehouses and of projects that will be undertaken in certain areas. There are also regional protests that such projects have never been finished. East reads of thefts of credit cards, crimes of violence, domestic disputes arising out of governmental policies, charges of sexual favoritism, complaints about scarcities and shoddy goods, protests about job assignments, objections to educational classifications, and similar matters. He learns that the original idea of assigning work on the basis of individual preference had to be abandoned, for one-third of the population of Germany applied for positions as hunters and game keepers, and no one volunteered for the hard physical work. All this is upsetting for East, but he still has not lost faith.
[. . . .]
The upshot is that East is assigned a job as a minor inspector of agriculture, since he has had farming experience. His special assignment is to discover why egg production has fallen off. He is given a very small salary and told to make do with it.
After a while East sees what has been staring him in the face from the beginning: The fault lies in the system, which is wasteful, inefficient, and shortsighted. This is proved when war breaks out unexpectedly in Central Asia, which had been Germany's best customer. Raw materials will no longer be available, and there will be no market for German goods. As the book ends, the government has been forced to declare very severe food rationing, and it is obvious that the culture will topple, with what results cannot be foreseen. The manuscript ends abruptly.
Also included is a series of journal entries by Sister Martha, East's nurse. She had planned marriage, but state allocations and assignments made her postpone marriage for years.
Well-reasoned, but the fictional vehicle is not strong. It is probably the best critique of Bellamism from an economic point of view.