Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
Wow, how does such a slim volume explore so many BIG issues, whilst also telling an interesting story?
Although published nearly 80 years ago (1932), it presciently exposes many issues that are problematic in our time: consumerism; the nature of happiness; what it means to be civilised; cloning and other reproductive technologies; parenting, families, loyalty, promiscuity; recreational drug use; social mobility and equality of opportunity; individualism versus group loyalty; pornography; benevolent dictatorship; censorship; religion; the power of language, and so much more.
Clearly some of the details of a future world are more plausible than others, but that doesn’t matter because the book is about ideas and dilemmas, not the specific technologies that give rise to them.
Read it once for the plot, and read it again to get full value from the powerful issues within.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
I only read it to completion because I was buddy reading this with my friend Katie.
It was horrible, dreadful, boring, uneventful, pointless, and useless.
That’s it for this review, I refuse to waste any more time on this book.