Customer Reviews

Commune 2000 A.D.

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This is a prequel to _Rolltown_, though it doesn't neatly mesh with the earlier novel. Both novels feature a policeman named Bat Hardin. But the characters aren't much alike. In _Rolltown_, Hardin is an amiable, somewhat insecure cop who is convinced that he is not highly intelligent. But in _Commune 2000_, which supposedly occurs earlier, he is a tough, hard-bitten, self-confident man. Also, _Rolltown_ is an action oriented novel, while _Commune 2000_ is more of a straight social study.

The central character is an academician who is asked to investigate communes for his dissertation and who gradually realizes that the project is sponsored by government agencies that want to control or squash them. There are lots of details on a variety of communes-- including a lesbian commune, an artist's colony, and a Greek revival colony-- and information on the history of communes and utopias. Reynolds makes the point that a lot of communes for various kinds of nonconformists can be benificial to mainstream society over the long haul.

Some of the dialogue is on the slangy side, and there are some sex scenes that are pretty awful. But on the balance, this is a readable and thoughtful book.

Commune 2000 A.D. by Mack Reynolds

Published in 1974, Mack Reynolds' novel, Commune 2000 A.D. depicts a North America in which 90 percent of the population is unemployed and on government assistance, and yet everyone leads a comfortable lifestyle, with plenty of food, beautiful spacious housing, efficient public transportation, and an array of electronic devices (including what we would now call cell phones and internet access.) Crime and envy are almost entirely eliminated, and there is no paper money or coins, all transactions being done through what we would call debit cards. There is no pollution and the landscape has been restored, with factories and highways underground. Computers and automation make this utopia possible. In fact, every year people take an intelligence/aptitude test, and the government computers select the best individuals for the tiny number of jobs available.

The fact that everyone has a middle class income and lifestyle without working allows them to leave the cities and band together into communes of the like-minded (for example, a commune of homosexuals, a commune of artists, a commune of people who like to get high on drugs every day, etc.) The main character, a graduate student in the social sciences, is tasked by his graduate adviser to write his thesis on the communes, and he travels from commune to commune, interviewing communards and taking notes.

There is not much plot to the book. The main character travels from commune to commune, and, because he is very skilled in bed and this is a very promiscuous society, he has sex with a beautiful woman in every commune. In the last 20 pages or so we suddenly get some plot momentum, with the conspiracy behind the communes, and the conspiracy in the government, both revealed, and the main character having to choose which one to ally with. What are the chances that he will join up with the conspiracy that has been throwing beautiful women at him?

This is a talky book, with lots of dialogue about life in the various communes and lots of anthropological and historical trivia - early in the book we read about the sexual positions favored by different civilizations, and get a lecture on the history of the mobile home in 20th century America. Later we get a recipe for cannabis brownies and a boring description of an LSD trip.

The book is also devoid of passion; most books about a socialistic future will be bashing your head in trying to convince you that our current market economy is horrible, or bashing your head in trying to convince you that the socialist economy we are headed for is horrible. In Commune 2000 A.D. there are some mild criticisms of a society in which 90% of people are on the dole, and some mild criticisms of 20th century exploitation of the environment, but neither the book's characters nor Mack Reynolds seem very exercised over anything (with the possible exception of homosexuals, both gay men and lesbians, who are portrayed in a rather unsympathetic light.)

Lacking in the plot department and the point department, Commune 2000 A.D. is a limp, tepid read. It is not offensively bad, but when you are done you wonder why the hell it was written or published.