As mentioned, Bellamy was amazed at the reception of his Utopian story. All over the country, “Bellamy Clubs” sprang up, particularly in the colleges. Thousands of letters poured in, praising, criticizing, questioning, sometimes reviling various aspects. In defense, he wrote a sequel, expanding his ideas, going into more detail. It was entitled Equality, was unsuccessful, and soon disappeared from the scene.

The present writer finds himself in the same predicament. Letters began pouring in—not all of them flattering. In defense, I have written my own sequel. Equality: In the Year 2000.

Though a sequel to Looking Backward: From the Year 2000, this novel can be read without a knowledge of the first book. However, it will do no harm to have a brief summary of what has gone before.

When Julian West, playboy multimillionaire, is informed by his doctor that his heart gives him at most two years to live, he seeks out the top authority on stasis—placing bodies into artificial hibernation. With the hope that science will evolve to the point where his disease is curable and he can be revived, he creates a foundation to finance the radical experiment.

Julian had expected it to be a matter of a few years at most. He is flabbergasted to be awakened thirty-three years later in the apartment of Academician Raymond Leete, his wife Martha, and daughter Edith. They have been given the task of helping him adjust to the geometrically developing changes.

Leete points out that since 1940, when Julian was a child, human knowledge has been doubling every eight years, so that now the race has 256 times the knowledge that prevailed then. The computers and automation are in full swing, so that only two percent of the population are needed to produce all that the country can consume and ninety-eight percent are on Guaranteed Annual Income.