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Seven Days in New Crete (Twentieth Century Classics)

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"Seven Days in New Crete" is the original title (I think) of a book also published as "Watch the North Wind Rise." It first appeared in 1949. The original US edition was by Farrar Straus and Giroux, and there were US paperback printings by Avon Books in the 1960s, under the alternate title. I have not actually seen any later editions. In any version, it is a sort-of-science-fiction sort-of-novel by the poet, historical novelist, and would-be interpreter of anthropology and mythology, Robert Graves. It presents a tour of a future utopian society in which Graves' views of the ideal sexual (and other social) arrangements are displayed. There are resemblances, perhaps not entirely coincidental, to some of the experiments of the 1960s.

The society is based largely on Graves' own reconstruction of prehistoric Greece and the Aegean, as suggested in the novel "Hercules My Shipmate" (also, I believe, published as "The Golden Fleece"), and set out more fully in "The White Goddess" and the introduction and notes in "The Greek Myths." The latter two books are formally non-fiction, but "The White Goddess" is, in my opinion, probably the best fantasy novel ever written which does not have a developed narrative or an obvious plot. (Not a view Graves would have appreciated.)

"Seven Days in New Crete" does have a narrative, however. It was much admired by Fritz Leiber, a science fiction and fantasy writer of distinction, and a fine critic, who explored alternative societies in some of his own writings. (Mainly dystopian; as L. Sprague de Camp warned science fiction writers, utopias are insipid by virtue of their perfection). "Seven Days" is sure to intrigue anyone who has enjoyed Graves' books about antiquity, but it would be a poor introduction to his work. Those interested in utopian fiction in general will probably also find it of considerable interest.