Unlikely Utopians: Ecotopian Dreaming in H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’ and Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood

Utopia, like beauty, rests in the eye of the beholder. Those of us who study utopian ideas can easily recall imaginary societies regarded by their authors and by others of their time and place as eutopias, but which we readers of another time, place or temperament regard with amusement or even horror. Similarly, apparent dystopias can occasionally, with time, change into something much more desirable. Changing definitions of race, for example, can transform the monstrous into the beautiful, and as we stand on the precipice of an era of rapid climate change and widespread extinction, we may even have to consider changing definitions of humanity itself in order not only to survive, but to thrive in harmony with our environment.