Allarme sulla terra

by Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch è il celebre autore di Psycho e di altri romanzi che non ci hanno fatto dormire, ma oggi si presenta ai lettori di URANIA con due purissimi romanzi di fantascienza "futuribile", due classiche incognite nella miglior tradizione del genere. L'uno ci catapulta, non senza divertimento, in un incubo sociale e sessuale che maliziosamente si intitola Donne di tutto il mondo...L'altro, Non c'è più posto per noi, è uno sguardo su una società perfetta che rischia di far impazzire anche l'uomo ideale. Ma esistono ideali nella Terra di domani? La risposta di Bloch potrà sembrarvi crudele, ma è certo assolutamente realistica.

Indice:
Non c'è più posto per noi (The Crowded Earth, 1958)
Donne di tutto il mondo (Ladies' Day, 1968)

Copertina di: Vicente Segrelles

Genres: Science Fiction

143 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent.

Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.

He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a somewhat obscure collection of two of Bloch's science fiction novellas. This Crowded Earth first appeared in a 1958 issue of Amazing Stories, and Ladies' Day appears to have been original to this volume. Bloch was an immensely popular and accomplished author of fantasy, horror, humor, suspense, and mystery... but not so much science fiction. This Crowded Earth is a Dystopian cautionary tale of overpopulation, as witnessed by Harry Collins from 1997 to 2065. Ladies' Day is set on a future Earth that's been ravaged by the atomic war of 1971, the same year in which Barton is put in cryogenic suspension for medical reasons. He awakens in 2121 and finds that the women have taken over since the men (who were mostly wiped out by the war), made such a mess of things. It's a weird and crazy topsy-turvy mess of a civilization where women wear trousers and have masculine haircuts and smoke cigars and don't act properly ladylike at all. It's possibly the most misogynistic story you could ever imagine, even for stories published in 1968. Both novellas suffer from big boring background blocks of exposition and are strangely paced and structured. Bloch is the author of some outstanding works, but these two are of historical interest only.

[Leothefox · Rating 3 out of 5]

When reviewing older science-fiction, it's generally appropriate to examine predictions. In “This Crowded Earth” the story starts in the late 90s when the Earth's population reaches 6 billion. I was in Biology class in 1998 when the population counter the teacher set up reached 6 billion and I was like “Damn, shit be crowded!”

I've always been a huge fan of Bloch's short stories, so I was a little disappointed at these two novellas (complete science-fiction novels, according to the cover). Both involve such themes as urban decay, over mechanization, reproduction, social this and that, dude on the run... “Crowded” is from 1958 and “Ladies” is from 1968 and they both read that way.

The first novella, “This Crowded Earth” was the better of the two, following various people in the late 20th and early 21st century who are caught up in the social tide of a world that tries to solve overcrowding in a pretty radical way. Apartments are one room, and the only way to get more rooms is to get married and breed, so people do, like bunnies. This book has a guy in a cell chatting up a science-fiction author at once point, which makes it a tad meta and jokey. Oh, and the solution involves injections to all pregnant women to create a race of 3-foot humans who take up less space and food.

“Ladies' Day” has an amnesiac guy frozen during WW3 (in 1971, remember?) and waking up in 2121 where the world is a matriarchy and men are a minority without rights. This story also subverts the genre, although it's not that satisfying. There's some thought, some wordplay (people exclaim “Mary” in place of “Jesus”, menstruation is referred to as “womanstruation”). It's shorter, so I guess you can't really fault it for rushing relationships and delivering exposition in long blocks of monologue.

I already knew Bloch was no typical fellow from his other writings, so it should be no surprise that these two stories take a relatively progressive slant for their times.

As a guy living in the 21st century, it's nice to see that one doesn't have to commute for hours through major city gridlock to work a job for 4 hours and then come home to a box. There are still 7 billion people walking around, though, and that shit is craaaay! We need some damn cities on the moon already! (no, there were no cities on the moon in the book.)

Anyhow, not a total waste of time, but hardly equal to Bloch's short horrors or most of his screenwriting.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read This Crowded Earth last month, then turned to Ladies' Day. A confused modern-day man wakes up to find the world is now run by women, who treat men as amusing playthings and sex objects. It turns out that after the last big war, so many men died out that women had to step in. Now they've reworked society to eliminate war and violence, while struggling against a male revolution that wants the 20th century back. Which side does the protagonist pick?
Bloch is so often cynical (and sometimes sexist) it's easy to forget he's done a few utopian stories too. While not utopia, this surprised me by showing a female-ruled world as an improvement for everyone. It's also amusing in that the shocking gender reversals include things like women wearing pants, getting tattoos and smoking cigars — can you imagine a world like that?

[Jim Standridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two interesting but not great tales. "Ladies' Day" is more the longish short story. Interesting concept where women rule the planet after the (hopefully) last world war. A man from the past arrives from suspended animation and must decide if he likes the setup or wants to change back to the old system.
"This Crowded Earth" tells of a planet overrun by people with the unbelievable population of over five billion people! Even in 1958, when this was written, that number could not have been that outrageous. And to result in the problems the author describes is quite farfetched. The simple solution to the space problem is nit to shrink the population but to shrink the populace. And of course the unintended complications to an easy fix ensue.
I finished the book because I hate to give up in the middle of something. Four stars for style. Minus one for content.

[Devero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due racconti lunghi, distopici, del maestro Bloch: in uno la crisi malthusiana che colpisce la Terra spinge l'umanità verso un nanismo eugenico; nel secondo, in un futuro post guerra, lo sbilanciamento tra maschi e femmine (1 a 4) nella popolazione mondiale porta ad una società decisamente diversa da come era concepita negli anni '50, ma anche da com'è oggi.