erewhon - samuel butler

in a faraway land, a traveler encounters a peculiar, topsy-turvy society in which sickness is a punishable crime and crime is an illness for which criminals receive compassionate medical treatment. the english church is ridiculed as a "musical bank," which deals with a currency nobody believes in but which everyone pretends to value. university instructors teach courses on how to take a long time to say nothing, and machines are banned for fear they will evolve and be the masters of man.