A Drum post
amazon.com.
I read this book a few days ago and recommend it to you.
Is it the best written book out there...no, but it has many ideas and themes that would be familiar to TOD readers/members.
The book depicts a U.S. of 2045 where science is roundly disdained, and to get a decent science/math/engineering education one must go overseas or go to exclusive institutions where foreigners can teach you.
Schools/institution which teach the the theory of evolution must be guarded to prevent domestic terrorist attacks, mainly from ultra-fundamentalist religious groups.
Many new religious cults are thriving, including two competing sects which each predict the coming apocalypse: One in 2054 and one in 2058, and the sects are practically at war with each other.
Wal-Mart has sold most of its stores to these new charismatic mega-churches and profits from thsi rental activity...as the demand for big-box stores has collapsed due to the demise of the car and the demise of people's disposable incomes.
There are so many themes discussed on TOD that are prevalent in this novel that I would have thought it was written by one of the TOD members/readers:
- Detrimental increases in population
- the demise of the private car
- the increased use of (very crowded and hot) rail service
- Desertification and other negative outcomes from human-induced climate change
- The desertion of the suburbs and movement of people into cities where walking, rickshaws, 'took-tooks), etc are the way to get around.
- The increasing divide between the rich and everyone else; the down-slope of the so-called 'Middle class' and the great increase in poverty,
- Sub-division of McMansions to hold three or four families where one once lived
- Sub-division of lots with yards to squeeze in 6-story apartment buildings between homes.
- Mass migration from the SouthWest and SoCal to places such as Chicago and Wisconsin (where it is now regularly in the high 90s (F) in May.
- Governments at all levels wither and become from men for eight huge conglomerates which run the
World from three ultra-swank islands (one in the Caribbean, one in the Med, and one in SE Asia)
- Rampant un-employment results in laws prohibiting more than one person in a household from working, and mandating minimum numbers of employees in establishments, in order to satve off riots which occurred back in the 2020s-2030s.
- Hotels which charge the guest for each toilet flush and each drop of water used in the shower, etc due to shortages of water
- Everyone must have home water purification units...tap water is undrinkable...
- The U.S is depicted as what we would now characterize as a third-world country, and many undeveloped areas in Africa and elsewhere have become nightmare zones, news from which is censored from the 'developed world'.
An interesting and disturbing take on societal collapse...
Heisenberg on December 26, 2010 - 2:21pm |
