Armageddon-2419 A.D./Airlords of Han by P. F. Nowlan
Quote:
In the year 1927 WWI vet, Anthony Rogers is exposed to a mysterious radioactive gas and buried alive while working as a mine surveyor. Preserved in a state of suspended animation, he awakes 492 years later to discover a devastated America ruled over by the Han (Chinese) Empire.
The Han are content to live in luxury scattered across the continent in and Mega-cities--leaving the overgrown, wild countryside to the barbaric Americans…
Meanwhile, after centuries of brutal Han suppression and constant infighting, the Americans are beginning to rebuild. Organized into small loosely allied paramilitary socialist collectives known as “gans,” Americans are preparing for a second war of independence in their camouflaged, forest villages and subterranean weapon factories.
After saving ace air-scout Wilma Deering from a renegade gan, the Bad Bloods, Rogers is adopted into the Wyoming Valley gan. All is well until a Han Airship appears above the valley, using its disintegrator rays to lay waste to the hidden American base below! All seems lost until Rogers uses some good OLD American know-how to knock the Han’s Dragon out of the sky…
The second revolution has begun!
So, this is the pulp novella that introduced Anthony "Buck" Rogers to the world... It's actually a very good SF story with some good action.
BUT, the thing I find most interesting here is that these future American freedom fighters are SOCIALISTS.
...and it's not just glossed over either. Nowlan goes out of his way to emphasize the fact that the Americans do not own anything but (very) personal stuff. Everything else-all resources-are held in communal trust and used for the common good!
By contrast, the Han are described as greedy, weak, pleasure/wealth seeking tyrants.... Hmm...
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No man is free who is not master of himself.~Epictetus