Harry Harrison (1925–2012)

This was a much better dystopia than I expected—dark and gritty, just the way I like them. It is dated and not just in that it takes place in the far future of twenty years ago. Despite having some attitudes that were radical for its time, it is full of gender stereotypes as well as sprinkled with some racist terms for the Chinese that I'd just as soon neither read nor remember.

Despite its flaws, I find it interesting that the book addresses that which we have still failed to fully grasp: the single most effective thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint is to reduce our reproduction. Make less babies. Despite everything, access to birth control is still denied, often quite deliberately, to women. In some places, it is entirely unavailable, and even in those places where women are freer, we still must fight to maintain our access. Reproduction is still viewed so strongly as a sacred right that one cannot even discuss the concept of incentivizing people to have less children without responses of horror and approbation.

Of additional note, this is a loose book-to-film adaptation. Even if you've never seen Soylent Green, there's one thing you know about it, and that isn't even in the story. Don't come into this book expecting the movie. Furthermore, this isn't scifi in the technology sense. It's byline is in fact "A Realistic Novel of Life in 1999", so it was never even intended to be. Dystopia is generally considered a subgenre of science fiction, much like alternative history is, but don't come here expecting robots, spaceships, and other such tech either.… (mais)