Great Ring

Great Ring is cycle of novels, written by Russian writer Ivan Efremov. Novels in cycle (in in-world time order) are

Туманность Андромеды (Andromeda Nebula a.k.a. Andromeda: A Space Age Tale) is a communism utopia, describing the guiding principles of the society and briefly noting a hard way to it.
Сердце Змеи (The Snakes Heart or Cor Serpentis) is a novella describing the contact between an Earth's spaceship and that of an alien humanoid life form, but based on hydrogen fluoride, instead of hydrogen oxide (water) solutions.
Час Быка (The Bulls Hour) is a totalitarian Dystopia. It describes mission to the planet colonized by humans, who escaped from Earth long before the current society was established.

Tropes used in Great Ring include:

Absent Aliens: Averted. There are loads and loads of them. The only problem is that lack of reasonably cheap Faster-Than-Light Travel makes it's a pain in the ass to communicate with them.
After the End: Hinted abouth the Earth's society in the first novel, explicitly said in the second.
Alternate Continuity: Despite describing pretty much the same society on the Earth, as in othe books, the Cor Serpentis is explicitly a First Contact story and no Great Circle is ever mentioned.
Faster-Than-Light Travel: Only quite-slower-then-light (up to 0.8 c) travels in the first novel, near-light in the Cor Serpentis and full FTL (but still very complicated) in the Bull's Hour. All of them require very much effort.
No Poverty: It's Utopia.
Utopia: The Earth society itself.