Erewhon

Erewhon or Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler set in the fictional country of Erewhon (in real life New Zealand) and is based on the author's time on a sheep ranch in New Zealand called "Mesopotamia Station". The book satirizes British society during the Victorian era, especially the industrial revolution, British imperialism, the class system, crime and punishment, religion and anthropocentrism. Erewhon was one of the first novels to touch on ideas of artificial intelligence, self replicating machines and the like.