Eight Against Utopia
Just finished reading "Eight Against Utopia" by Douglas R. Mason, published by Paperback Library back in 1967.
The original title of "Eight Against Utopia" is "From Carthage Then I Came."
"Eight Against Utopia" is a classic dystopian novel from the late 1960s and 1970s that has strong parallels to the original "Logan's Run" novel with the domed city of Carthage and it's rigid societal structure, but it was an advancing Ice Age that drove humanity to seek survival in various domed cities across the planet.
Gaul Kalmar, a brilliant engineer, discovers a passage to the roof of Carthage, a massive domed city built 7,000 years before on the ruins of historic Carthage in Tunisia. From the observation deck he discovers that the world is not covered with ice as the rhetoric of the state, ruled by the first President (his brain is connected to the city's mainframe), proclaims. Carthage maintains control over its citizens by monitoring brainwaves. When anyone is emotionally riled up due to seditious thoughts, the police swoop in.
Gaul approaches a few of his friends, including Tania Clermont a state psychiatrist whose treatment rooms are safe proof from the peering brain monitoring waves, and decides they need to escape from the city. The reasons for escape, instead of changing the society which has raised them, are rather nebulous. Yes, the official rhetoric is all lies, yes human individuality is curtailed, but the choice to escape instead of instigating a revolution isn't clear.
Gaul and his fellow escapees discover that they are not the first ones to escape from Carthage over the centuries and that humanity has devolved which might hint at their own future.
Strongly Recommended.
Four Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/Eight-Against-...
The original title of "Eight Against Utopia" is "From Carthage Then I Came."
"Eight Against Utopia" is a classic dystopian novel from the late 1960s and 1970s that has strong parallels to the original "Logan's Run" novel with the domed city of Carthage and it's rigid societal structure, but it was an advancing Ice Age that drove humanity to seek survival in various domed cities across the planet.
Gaul Kalmar, a brilliant engineer, discovers a passage to the roof of Carthage, a massive domed city built 7,000 years before on the ruins of historic Carthage in Tunisia. From the observation deck he discovers that the world is not covered with ice as the rhetoric of the state, ruled by the first President (his brain is connected to the city's mainframe), proclaims. Carthage maintains control over its citizens by monitoring brainwaves. When anyone is emotionally riled up due to seditious thoughts, the police swoop in.
Gaul approaches a few of his friends, including Tania Clermont a state psychiatrist whose treatment rooms are safe proof from the peering brain monitoring waves, and decides they need to escape from the city. The reasons for escape, instead of changing the society which has raised them, are rather nebulous. Yes, the official rhetoric is all lies, yes human individuality is curtailed, but the choice to escape instead of instigating a revolution isn't clear.
Gaul and his fellow escapees discover that they are not the first ones to escape from Carthage over the centuries and that humanity has devolved which might hint at their own future.
Strongly Recommended.
Four Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/Eight-Against-...
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