heatherjane

One of science fiction's trustworthy tactics is to expand a contemporary fear into a complex possible future. Living among the growing Baby Boomers, Silverberg enacts this trope to great effect in The World Inside as he constructs an extreme response to overpopulation. Set in the 24th century, The World Inside imagines a future in which the dominant human society on Earth exists wholly within a network of impossibly tall apartment buildings. This "Urban Monad" system emerges following widespread social collapse due to overpopulation. In the crowded "urbmon", privacy is vice and procreation the most "blessworthy" pursuit. As with much SF of the mid-1900s, obsessive detail is given to fantastical technology throughout the novel. This preponderance may turn off readers interested more in the sociological implications of life in a human hive but will surely delight lovers of retro-futurism. The original 1971 Doubleday printing is worth tracking down for the illustration on the dust jacket by James Starrett. This scan is included on the Wikipedia entry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worl...]

2023-02-02 04:54