We (written 1920-21; suppressed in USSR until 1988) fits under the heading of retro-dystopias. Zamyatin's real interest here is the impossibility of being fully human in a totalitarian society. His future is not technologically superior. There's very little that might be called high-tech. In the way it is both forward-looking and dated, the mood it inspires it is rather like that of watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I liked that. It was like finding this artefact of world lit. A piece of the history of literary dystopias, and one that influenced Orwell. But it's worth reading for more than simply historical reasons. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road we are in a post-technological future. In We science is neatly at the service of OneState. Thanks to "our glass," with its steel-like properties, buildings are transparent so one can see everything everyone else does. Except during sex when one can lower one's blinds, with prior authorization of course. The fictional patterning is strong throughout, but there are these inconsistencies of logic too. For instance, the spy agency of OneState known as the Guardians seems inanely feeble in comparison to, say, the efficient Stasi of 1984. But then Orwell was writing more than 25 years later when ideas like television were very much in the air. For D-503 everything is fine and dandy in his freedomless world of OneState. He begins by being a rather tiresome booster for its "ideals." He is happy sharing O-90's favors with R-13. He is happy with his work on the INTEGRAL (all caps) which is some sort of missile, time-capsule affair destined for other civilizations on other planets. (Later, when it flies, I was assailed by mental footage of Buck Rodgers' low-tech rocket jiggled on string before the camera.) Everything is fine with D-503 until he falls passionately in love with I-330, who is both beautiful and a willful transgressor of the conformity of One State. She is, in short, a revolutionary. Passionate love overthrowing one's otherwise well-ordered world is one of the great themes of world literature. Philip Roth's The Dying Animal springs to mind most readily, but the examples are vast. I-330 is constantly gaming the system. And because D-503 is head over heels in love with her, he's drawn into her crimes for which death appears to be the only possible punishment. There are a number of disconnected images, scenes that don't quite fit with the otherwise lucid patterning of the novel. It's as if the book never made it through it's final draft. But you've got to forgive that. It is after all an artefact. If you're seeking perfection this is not your novel.