IQ 83

by Arthur Herzog III

"A world lapsing into imbecility...true horror!"
-New York Times

YOU ARE DR. JAMES HEALEY AND LAST WEEK YOU WERE A GENIUS

That was before the DNA experiments. Before the accident you said could never happen...

Since then you have felt your mind decaying a little more each day. You have watched your wife slip into imbecility. You have seen the crowds growing murderous with animal terror, the President of the United States babbling and drooling on TV...

Only one thing separates you from them. You, at least, know what is happening as you search for the cure for the horror you have unleashed upon the world-as each day the dimming of your mind lowers your chance of finding it!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook

287 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Arthur Herzog III (April 6, 1927 – May 25, 2010) was an American novelist, non-fiction writer, and journalist, well known for his works of science fiction and true crime books. He was the son of songwriter Arthur Herzog, Jr..

His novels The Swarm and Orca have been made into films. His science fiction novel IQ 83 is being made into a film by Dreamworks.

Herzog was also the author of non-fiction books: The Church Trap is a critique of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish church organization and institutions particularly in the U.S; 17 Days: The Katie Beers Story, is about the kidnapping and child sexual abuse of Katie Beers.

Reviews

[Trin · Rating 1 out of 5]

For once it seems appropriate to write this review in the “things I learned” style of a 4th grade book report.

Things I Learned From This Book:

1. If you want to hide the fact that your science is ridiculous and your methods of exposition boring, you don’t need to hire someone like David Hewlett to explain it all very quickly and humorously; even without this aid, if you use enough big words, surely no one will notice that your explanations are just sitting there leaden on the page, to be exposed as the ridiculous and boring fake science they are.

2. If you want your main character to be less affected by your invented “stupid sickness” than everyone else, you don’t need to provide even a half-assed explanation like “it’s thanks to my Ancient gene” or “it’s because I used nasal spray/took Tylenol/ate Wheaties this morning” or anything; just the fact that he’s your main character is enough.

3. An IQ drop will make everyone struggle to remember words the author has seemingly at random decided are difficult; the characters will all display this absent-mindedness by stuttering over the words they are trying to reco—rec—remember in exactly the same way.

4. An IQ drop will make women lose their inhibitions and become the sex-starved creatures they really are! (Because smart, sexually confident women don’t really exist.)

5. An IQ drop will make the novel’s single significant character of color—a black scientist—first start talking in “jive,” and then “regress” to the point where he—honest to god—dons a loincloth and tries to cook and eat one of his coworkers. (And yes, this will be the point when, less than 15 pages from the end, the reader will just barely resist the urge to chuck the book across the room and repeatedly stomp upon it until its spine is broken.)

6. An IQ drop will in general not make people anything like the actually mentally handicapped, it will just make them, you know, kinda trashy. Like the women will dye their hair blonde and wear skimpy clothing. The men will want to do nothing but drink beer and watch TV. And the teenagers—why, their desires will immediately turn to playing pool. Yes, pool! It’s trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!

7. The author is apparently not kidding about that pool thing.

8. An intelligence-sapping plague makes for an excellent opportunity to ditch your wife in favor of a younger, hotter female scientist who has absolutely no personality or other function in the narrative.

9. This book makes Flowers For Algernon look like a frickin’ masterpiece.

10. If you thought this book would be a fun, intense thriller—well, maybe you do need to get your IQ checked.

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was simultaneously so cringe-inducing and so much fun (MST3K-type fun). There were a couple moments of pathos with characters who were aware that something was wrong, but the stupid-virus had progressed so far that they literally could not comprehend any explanations, and thus they panicked. But mostly it was stereotype and cliche after stereotype and cliche, not to mention some of the clunkiest exposition ever. Full spoilery review below.


Doctor Protagonist: Hi! I'll be your Protagonist for this novel! You can call me Doctor Protagonist, since everyone always calls me that! Because I am a Doctor, and I am very smart, as are my wife and children. I'm so proud of me! I mean, them!

Karma, in the background: Heh heh heh.

Doctor Protagonist: I and my fellows are fiddling with DNA! DNA! How the f*** does it work?

Doctor Ad: I'm the character who's too smart for his own good! Have I mentioned my intelligence yet in this paragraph? Also, Doctor Protagonist, your wife is hot.

DoctorP: Thanks, Doctor Ad! I don't see this ever being an issue in our friendship.

Black Doctor: I'm the token person of color!

Female Doctor: I'm the token female! I'm also young and gorgeous, and I know a Protagonist when I see one.

Doctors: SCIENCE! SCIENCE FOR THE GREATER GOOD!

Doctor Ad: I'm working early, alone, and I have a cold. But this will not affect me one iota, due to my epic intelligence! Why, it doesn't matter that I ignored several safety rules, took a deep breath over an uncovered sample with altered DNA in it, then sneezed and wiped my nose! I don't think this is even an issue! I shan't mention it to anyone.

Doctor Ad: spends a full day working in the hospital, goes home with DoctorP, kisses his wife, hugs their kids, eats their food, congratulates their housekeeper, and leaves on a business trip, sneezing continually. Karma, over in the corner, is in hysterics.

DoctorP: Hmmmmm. Honey, why are you suddenly unable to do your crossword puzzles?

Wife: I dunno.

DoctorP: Daughter of mine, why have you stopped reading and started watching TV, even when it's a test pattern?

Daughter: Books are haaaaaaard. And the TV's purty. And I like boyzzzzz, even though I'm only eleven and have never cared a whit for the gender before now.

DoctorP: And why are my thoughts suddenly constantly interrupted by old commercial jingles, stupid jokes, and inane nonsense babble argle margle blah blah blah there once was a lad from Nantucket WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

The News: SAT scores are dropping! Crime is rising! People can no longer drive cars! And gee golly, this telly-prompter's awful hard to read.

Doctor Ad: Did I mention I went on a plane? It went vroom vroom vroom swooooosh, and I went to several airports and sneezed there.

DoctorP: Well, crap.

The Hospital: goes all to pieces.

DoctorP: My fellows! We must attempt to solve this problem WITH SCIENCE!...while we still can.

Black Doctor: Why sho', bossman. Lemme go get mah cornpone first.

Female Doctor: Wanna see what I look like naked?

Doctor Ad: Doctoring is boring! I'm gonna go do stuff. Like your wife.

DoctorP: Excuse me????

The Head of the Department: Clearly, the best way to solve this crisis is to send weaponized boxes of this virus to the Reds! Then we'll all be stupid together! If only I could remember how to use a stamp...

DoctorP: goes home.

Doctor Ad: was totally not kidding about doing his wife.

DoctorP: OMGWTF? You are both...mean old jerks, is what you are...damn it, what happened to my rapier wit?

Wife: You're boring and no fun and all I wanna do now is bleach my hair and wear slutty clothes and have sex. But not with you! And I'm taking the child!

DoctorP: We have two children.

Wife: I KNEW THAT.

The City: goes all to pieces.

The Nation: looks likely to do the same.

The President: My fellow Ameri...Ameri...people. There is no cause for alarm. This is just a...thing...that's going on...Russians...was I?...ooooo, cookies...

Wife: moves out.

Female Doctor: Hi!

DoctorP: ...were you waiting around the corner for her to leave?

Female Doctor: Yep! I've loved you forever, and now I'm too stupid not to act directly on my urges. Wanna get naked?

DoctorP: As the Protagonist, I should do the right thing. But also, the Protagonist is destined to get the Hot Girl...

Female Doctor: I'll just writhe around on the bed over here, because apparently all women lose every last inhibition and become nymphos when they're stupid.

Doctor P's Last Few Brain Cells: give up.

The Country: is in shambles.

DoctorP: Must find cure. Must find cure. Which end is up on this microscopey?

Black Doctor: Lawdy, suh, I jes' am so confuzzled!

Doctor Ad: Woo hoo hoo blah blah blah wanna sweetie!

Female Doctor: Wantsexwantsexwantsexwantsex...

DoctorP: Amazing how everyone has devolved into caricature except me. God, I love being the Protagonist. Wait. Could this McGuffin we've had on hand since page 6 be the cure? Only one way to find out!

DoctorP: tries eight times, manages to inject himself. Several hours of agonizing pain later... I'm cured, everyone!

Black Doctor: Me go back to jungle, bwana.

Doctor Ad: drools.

Female Doctor: Mate?

DoctorP: ...it's gonna be a long road back.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the end of the 20th century, psychologists had discovered something called the Flynn Effect. This meant that intelligence levels had been rising steadily and rapidly over the past century. If we fast forward to the 2020s, psychologists have discovered an alarming trend. Over the past two decades, the Flynn Effect has been reversed and intelligence levels are now dropping at an alarming rate. There is no consensus to why this is happening; the most obvious causal indicator appears to be the introduction of the internet, but as of yet, this connection is inconclusive. One thing is for sure: with the immediate problems of climate change, economic instability, a collapsing educational system, and the threat of political totalitarianism working in conjunction with AI systems, this is not a good time for all the intellectual and scientific progress we have achieved over the centuries to retreat.

If we backtrack a bit, there were artists who saw this trend coming before anyone else. The dystopian 2006 movie Idiocracy porrayed a world where popular culture has made people so stupid that their existence is threatened because they forget how to grow food. It’s a silly comedy that mocks the kinds of people who would find it funny. Maybe it’s worth watching once. 1968’s Planet Of the Apes was a more serious science-fiction dystopia that showed human evolution going in reverse, with an upsurge in religion and despotism, after the banning and forbidding of science. Then there is Arthur Herzog’s overlooked novel IQ 83. Written in the 1970s, it is a hard science-fiction story showing what happens when an experimental virus escapes from a laboratory, spreads throughout the whole population, and makes everybody’s intelligence level decline rapidly.

James Heaaley is the central character. The story is divided between his family life in their New York City apartment and his employment as the head of a research team in a hospital in Central Manhattan. The research team is trying to save a girl named Cathy who is a permanent patient in the children’s ward. She should be of normal intelligence, yet she contracted a disease that caused her IQ to drop. As the biologists’ work brings them closer to a cure, experimental gene editing brings Cathy’s intelligence level back up to normal. But just when Healey makes plans for Cathy’s discharge so that she can attend public schools, everything goes to hell.

Wallon is a Belgian lab technician working on Healey’s project. Since creating a vaccine for the disease involves the use of a virus as a vector, precautions are imperative. Yet Wallon thinks the safety regulations are too stringent so he cuts corners during his work, doesn’t follow safety procedures, and accidentally takes the airborne virus out of the lab and begins spreading it throughout New York by coughing and sneezing.

After Wallon visits the Healey family for dinner, James Healey begins noticing some unwanted changes in everybody, including himself. He has problems with his memory and nonsensical thoughts from his childhood intrude into his thoughts, disrupting his concentration and making it difficult to work as a scientist. His wife Ruth becomes hypersexual and his two academically gifted children start struggling at school.

As Healey grows more aware that something isn’t right, he meets with Orenstein, the hospital psychiatrist. They discuss the possibilities and potential consequences of a sudden drop in intelligence across the whole world. Of course, the prognosis is not good. They agree to test their hypothesis by administering IQ tests to all the members of the research team. To their dismay, they find that everybody’s IQ had dropped and that it will continue to drop with the progression of time.

Healey contacts the hospital director, a doctor with an IQ of 200 and the curious name of Herman Hermann. The director, by this point, has already begun to succumb to the virus. Rather than expressing grave concern over the crisis, his defenses drop and he sees this as an opportunity to conquer the world, becoming a totalitarian leader who enslaves all those who he decides are inferior to him. But since the virus has taken hold, he resembles Healey in the way nonsense intrudes into his thoughts. Only with Hermann, the nonsense intrudes into his speech as well. As he holds meetings and conferences laying out his plan to dominate the world, he constantly interrupts himself in Turrette Syndrome-like attacks where he belches out obscene limericks and makes a fool of himself. This is not only a little comic relief, but also one instance of the author making social commentary. There is no doubt that Arthur Herzog believes fascism to be a form of politics for fools and clowns.

Subplots and social commentary run throughout the whole novel. There is a wide range of characters and each offers their own angle on society. What happens with most of them is that, like Herman Hermann, their inhibitions drop and their true motivations are revealed. James and Ruth Healey’s marriage is falling apart while Wallon is sexually pursuing Ruth. Healey’s son drops out of high school, takes up a marijuana habit, and becomes a biker. In Healey’s nuclear family unit, his bourgeois lifestyle sinks into the hedonistic excesses of the American counter-culture scene. Also the once harmonious multi-ethnic lab technicians become irritable and make racist comments towards each other. Rather than addressing this issue constructively, they bicker and match insults with insults. Similar things happen with the female nurses on the children’s ward. Before the virus struck they were dedicated, honest, and nurturing in the way good nurses should be, but afterwards they fall into petty man-hating and irresponsibility. Feminists start complaining in the letters column of a scientific magazine about the word “helix”, insisting this is sexist and should be changed to “herlix”. Herzog’s message in all this is that the social reforms of the 1960s are legitimate, but when approached without intelligence and proper analytical thinking, these issues of social justice can’t be approached in a meaningful way. Notice how he anticipated the childish arguments surrounding politics we find on the internet these days.

This social commentary is most developed in the character of Vergil Buck, a labor union leader and ambulance driver who makes impossible demands on the hospital management during a strike that happens just as the low-IQ virus begins attacking all of New York. During collective bargaining sessions, Buck demands that hospital employees get paid massive amounts of money without being obligated to do any work. He is inflexible in his proposal and refuses to negotiate. Later when James Healey goes to a rural retreat to develop a vaccine for rhe virus, Vergil Buck kidnaps him. Buck is the kind of person who thinks the world owes him something because he was born white, dumb, ugly, and poor (thanks to the Butthole Surfers for that description). He is also an annoyingly arbitrary character, more of a literary device than a meaningful symbol of the socially discontent. Herzog uses him to inject some action and suspense into a novel that doesn’t have much of either.

Herzog brings real science into this fictional story. The process of editing DNA to cure the disease that Cathy suffers from is described in detail early in the story. If your knowledge of genetics and virology are limited, these passages might be off-putting. Even with some knowledge of these disciplines, they are still clunky and out of place as though the author just wants to show off how much he knows about science. Some of the information does become relevant at the end when James Healey is struggling to find a cure for the idiot disease his team has created.

Of greater significance to the story, and your own education as well, is the chapter where Healey and Dr. Ornstein discuss the science of intelligence. Ornstein gives a detailed explanation of what an IQ test measures, what it doesn’t measure, and why it isn’t the most important metric for human intelligence and human worth there is. Still, a class of people with higher intelligence and expertise are necessary to maintain the stability and progress of a society. A decline in the average collective intelligence level could make a population barely functional and constantly on the verge of collapse if they survive at all. Then Dr. Ornstein and Healey have a discussion about their high IQ’s. Honestly though, listening to two men comparing their IQ scores is a lot like listening to two men comparing the length of their johnsons. It doesn’t impress anybody except the dumbest people who get preoccupied with things like that.

But the story recovers ground when Healey takes an IQ test to see if his intelligence quotient has dropped. What’s clever about this passage is that we see the test through his eyes while being aware of our own ability to answer the questions. We see Healey, a man with a higher than average IQ struggling to answer test questions that most readers would be able to answer. But you can’t feel too superior over this since as the test gets harder and Healey gets more and more answers wrong, we get hit with a vocabulary question that is so difficult it would be impossible for most intelligent people to answer. So the reader gets humbled and can only sympathize with Healey as we realize our own intellectual limitations. It’s a unique and effective way of harmonizing the reader with the main character through the use of scientific methodology.

Otherwise James Healey is out of step with the logic of the novel. Herzog does well in depicting the rapid decline of intelligence in the other characters while this stripping away of their higher intellectual functioning reveals their inner personality cores. Healey doesn’t follow this path to such an extent though. While other subjective symptoms of the illness are shown, he doesn’t display such a big drop in intellectual functioning as the other characters do. His character remains stable throughout the whole story which feels like a serious flaw in the narrative.

The novel is also flawed in that it is such a formulaic work of writing. It’s the story of a hero who is racing against time to save the world from imminent disaster. It’s a basic story-telling template that has been used seemingly forever. But at least half of the material used to fill in that template is interesting enough to carry the whole novel. The only other major problem is some of the dialogue. You’ve heard of hammy acting before, but some of the conversations here are like hammy writing. You know a writer has made a mistake when their dialogue is so over the top that it is unintentionally funny. Occasionally that happens here.

IQ 83 was published in 1978. It’s been almost three decades since scientists have learned that the Flynn Effect is operating in reverse while digital technology and AI appear to be infecting the minds of the young. If you look at the way people interact on social media, you get a clear sense that Arthur Herzog knew what he was talking about when explaining what the effects of a drop in the collective intelligence level could result in. On top of that, it’s only been a short time since the COVID pandemic hit and that certainly brought out a lot of stupidity in people, spawning all kinds of conspiracy theories, social dislocation, and a noticeable decline in critical thinking skills. Add in the election of a mentally challenged president twice with the fanatical devotion of his followers and the future of humanity is looking pretty grim at the moment. Arthur Herzog had no way of predicting any of this. He was writing a book based on observations of the time he was living in. IQ 83 has its many flaws, but when he gets things right, he really gets them right. This is an underrated novel that should be given reconsideration despite its weaknesses. It certainly feels relevant to the times we live in, even if it does depend on formulas and cliches to get its message across.

[Dan Slimmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty rough. One-dimensional, stereotype-driven characters. Stilted dialogue. Shallow conception of intelligence and human nature.

I'm giving it 2 stars rather than 1 because the premise is interesting and I did manage to read the whole thing.

[Rob Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prime late-70s disaster trash. Pervasive sexism, cardboard characters, slapdash plotting, and a fair amount of humor (some of which, at least, is intentional). So yeah, I enjoyed it.

[Downward · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a sort of dry by occasionally very funny book about a virus that makes people stupider, told in a super clinical hard science kind of way that is Arthur Herzog's MO. there are a lot of scientific ideas drawn out (some of which are laden with different problematic biases, but hey that's science and certainly reflective of the science of the time that the book was written and besides it does a lot of its best to confront these biases) through dramatic scenes of people slowly forgetting what they're supposed to be doing, losing their grip on their professionalism and reverting to a dumber if not downright infantile state. it's interesting to see these ideas develop and as mentioned before it's funny, which writing "dumb" characters is a difficult trick to pull off for sure. Anyway, I love Herzog as a hard sf writer and I'll probably do either the swarm of LSITT in the coming months.

[David Weigel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Years ago, maybe 30 years ago, my eye caught the cover of "IQ 83" in a library and I skimmed through. A goofy premise, but unnerving; a lab-leaked virus starts making everybody stupid, starting with a scientist who goes from thinking about a bad driver's physiognomy when he's rear-ended, to one who can't get a baked beans jingle out of his head. I thumbed over to a scene of a reporter using bad English to cover a sub-moronic president.

Seemed interesting. Seemed more interesting after I read Stephen King handle the concept in "The End of Whole Mess." The fear of losing one's intelligence was potent enough to get me through this middling airport novel. Instead of chase sequences or bomb-defusing countdowns, I read scenes of scientists taking IQ tests and realizing they had zoned out on someone else's monologue. It gets extraordinarily stupid when the minds of non-white, non-male characters start melting, and takes far too long to get to that, after a lot of rough work establishing how brainy our hero was. Not great!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. James Healy and his team of scientists are on the verge of a breakthrough in gene therapy. Together, they work tirelessly to complete the tests that would allow for the next step: testing on volunteer humans. However, DNA-altered virus being tested breaks free in a quiet way, allowing it to spread like a common cold. Dr. Healy is the first to figure out what happened and sadly he must watch as his family and friends become stupid even as he himself struggles to remain intelligent long enough to find a cure.

The book starts off a touch slow, but then starts delving into the science, which hooked me. Dr. Healy is in charge of the treatment of a young girl (Cathy Gobrin) who suffers from a metabolic genetic disease. If she doesn’t live on a special diet, her metabolism goes sideways and her IQ drops to the point where she can barely feed herself. This is probably Dr. Healy’s motivation for having set the research and experiments in place for a new gene therapy treatment.

There is a lot of character development, which I enjoyed. It gave the story a harder punch when my favorite characters started to decline due to this unleashed disease. While the book is written with an almost 1950s flavor (no cussing, no cell phones, etc.), there are female scientists and cultural and ethnic diversity in the characters. I really appreciated that this scifi story wasn’t dominated by White male characters making all the decisions.

The stupid sickness, which is a practical thing to call this new man-made disease, made it hard for the affected to concentrate, often dredging up rhymes or bits of song from the person’s childhood and playing them on a loop in the background all the time. It’s like when you have a bit of song stuck in your head that won’t leave. Memory and impulse control also become shoddy. I really enjoyed all the social implications of having a stupid population. How would the government keep other nations from taking over? Would marriages hold up to impatient spouses? Would school systems even be around after a generation? It was a great way to explore all these questions and more.

The book fell into natural thirds. The first third was a lot of character development and science info dumps (fine with me). The second third is where we the reader know the altered virus has escaped confinement but the characters haven’t figured it out yet (plenty of yummy suspense here). The last third has the most action as many of our characters are short on impulse control and Dr. Healy and his friends race against the virus’s clock to find a remedy (also a very good section). Over all, I found this a very satisfying story that came with plenty of philosophical food for thought.

Narration: Charles Henderson Norman was a good fit. We see almost the entire book through Dr. Healy’s eyes and Norman made a very good Dr. Healy. He also had distinct voices for both female and male characters. He has a goo voice for little girls too.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a gift from a friend, who gave me a paperback first edition for Christmas, so believe me when I say that I wanted desperately to like it. In fact, I've been sitting on this review for two days honing my euphemisms and trying to think of ways to make it a more acceptable 3-stars, but that would be a lie, and I've always endeavored to be honest on goodreads, unless my friend actually wrote the book, and then well, a recusal is in order.

This book. Oh, this book. We got off to a bad start when I opened the cover and found this giggle-inducing description:

DOOM WAS SPELLED WITH THREE LETTERS

DNA. The secret code of life that scientists seek to master, so that they can shape the future of the human race. But a "safe" DNA experiment that goes wrong creates a force that controls the scientists themselves--unleashing on the world a virus that lowers the intelligence of all it attacks!

***

Like THE CHINA SYNDROME, this story is fiction. The fact is that today in laboratories all over American, despite the protests of concerned scientists, DNA research is being actively pursued. This research, officials assure us, is perfectly safe...

Books of this sort are why I have a "future-is-a-crapshoot" tag. I'm sure this fear-mongering sounded perfectly reasonable when the book was published in 1978; in 2015 it's hilariously laughable. Yes, yes, we still could manufacture and accidentally release a deadly virus that kills us all, see that other book, The Stand, but I don't think there are all that many concerned scientists worrying about people doing "DNA experiments!" (I don't know GMOs? Not quite the same thing). Anyway, never mind that, the science is kind of crap, as is the sociology. Herzog has a serious hatred for dumb people, which just glows through his tale of dropping IQ. At about 60% of the way through the book, he includes a chart that gives professions by median IQ, that has attorneys and accountants at 128, and yet when Healy is around that same IQ, he's barely functioning as an appropriate adult in society. Umm, what? You don't have to have a blazing IQ to be a good person, or a really low one to have a sex drive, also implied. As the women's IQs decline, so does their ability to think about anything other than teh sex. And please, please, let's not even mention what happens to the story's lone scientist of color. Oh, why not, it involves a loin cloth, and mind you, his IQ is probably somewhere in the mid-nineties at this point. Bullshit.

This book is unimaginative, dull, and offensive.

[Leigh-ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I noticed this title came up in the sidebar on Goodreads when I did a search and it triggered a memory -- I'd read this book! I was in high school, in my "medical horror" stage (i.e. Robin Cook), and I know I enjoyed this book a lot. I was probably 16 or 17, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. The one thing I can say is that the idiotic phrases the author uses to denote that a person is lapsing into idiocy have still stayed with me, things like, "mmm, mmm, good idea!" Given all that I've forgotten over the past 25 years, maybe that's the equivalent of two thumbs up?

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

reading this book itself has decreased my IQ points.
making it a minus value.

I grabbed it from my Dad's collection.
Wondered why he even buy it in the first place.
maybe Dad got an unfinished revenge plan to someone that was involving force-reading this book..

DUNDUNDUUUUUN!

[Tate Schad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Searched everywhere to find this book. Eventually found it in an archived section in the Brooklyn Library. The premise sounded intriguing, hoping it would be like Flowers for Algernon. It had its moments, but it had a really slow pace until the last twenty pages. Probably not worth all the work to find it!

[Julie Hewitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny at times. Retro at times. Egotistical and misogynist at times. Well, it is a book of the 70s.

My partner also read the book, so we still crack up when one or the other of us comments 'mmm, mmm, good idea'.

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book doesn’t seem popular with readers. I thought it was clever and frightening. Plausible too whether or not the science in the book is convincing (I couldn’t comment). Some of the criticism seems to be politically correct.

[Gwyneth Yung · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is mia thermopolis’ from the princess diaries by meg cabot’s favorite book

[Rees Pozzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I quite enjoyed it!

There are certainly some objectively poor undertones in this book, but given the year this was written I try to not linger on them too much.

I liked the idea of a "stupid sickness" and it was interesting to see how that plot unfolds, the story is fast and easy to follow.

However, the final third was really let down by poor writing! Our main character has been reciting American States all of his life, suddenly he can only remember 2 because of his huge IQ decline. Yet, in the next paragraph he is debating Socrates and the Greek philosophy of intelligence? 🤣
Better yet, whilst his Coll-collea... peers are almost failing to function around him, Healey is somehow able to dial in and complete the complex genetic theory and application of a cure for the IQ reducing disease. What a fortunate blessing that somehow he was immune to the disease in many ways whilst also suffering from it 😆
This kind of theme is always present throughout the book and generally, character actions or behaviours do not make sense given an IQ drop, or are frankly insulting, and the more you think about it the worse it gets.
It was still an enjoyable read though

[shane grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel written in 1978 predicting a global pandemic which creates a world where everyone is stupid, there is too much bureaucracy and people argue over the gendering of words.
It all feels a bit too familiar.

Ok, reading that back sounds pretty right-wing, and I guess that's the main issue a lot of people had with this book. It is somewhat dated in the way it plays out as a sort of wish fulfilment for the main character. Although he loses IQ along with the rest of the population, he remains smarter than almost everyone else and his sexy female colleague keeps throwing herself at him. There's also some iffy racial stereotypes.

Still, for me it's a minor gripe for a book with such foresight and playful humour.

When the zombie virus has been done to death so many times on screen, it's a wonder this has yet to be adapted. In my opinion it's a much scarier idea.

[Lazy Spice]

I won't rate this because I only read it as a kid in the nineties and don't remember much, although the title stuck with me. I'm amused to find it on Goodreads with recent reviews.

For anyone interested in a better execution of a similar premise, pick up the Stephen King short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes and read "The End of the Whole Mess".

[John (JC) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ending lifted me up

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was hilarious

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should have started in media res, struck me as the book equivalent of a forgettable late seventies apocalyptic film, best avoided by a modern audience.

[Kevin Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good beginning, but a slog in the second half.

[Kyle Whitfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

Low IQ = trashy. Read this cause Charlie Kauffman is making a series out of it. Kauffman buddy, can you just say you’re adapting Stephen Kong’s short story “The End of the Whole Mess” instead?

[Maximillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOL and he wrote this in 1978? What a dumb world of irony this is.

[Mike Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

23

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I heard that Charlie Kaufman and Steve Carell are going to give IQ 83 a stab. By a stab, obviously, I mean adapt said book into a movie.

I've enjoyed every Kaufman movie I've seen and I tend to be pro-Steve Carell. And lately I've been really into reading a tiny snippet about a book on the internet and then immediately purchasing it. Because capitalism.

Also because books.

Needless to say, I bought it.

And it was totally worth it.

IQ 83 is very solidly sci-fi. It is also a whiff of fresh air in a world that focuses predominantly on the space/futurism/freakinlasers variety of sci-fi. IQ 83 is about a virus that escapes a lab. This virus has several side-effects, the most measurable one being that it damages IQ levels. The average IQ of the country very quickly drops to 83. The book has us follow a Doctor Healey and his team as they and their families slowly (and then quite rapidly) become more and more inept at dealing with their professional and personal worlds.

This is a fast and fun read. Herzog paces the book marvelously. The style with which he cuts from scene to scene usually mirrors the intensity of the virus, so at the end of the book especially, the chaos and confusion that the characters are experiencing flies off the pages. Every character, even as they become increasingly awful, is compelling.

The tone of the book is a little dated, in that it reads a little prejudiced in a few sections. There are also moments in the book that illustrate the correlation of dropping intellect with prejudice. Those are not the moments that bothered me because that was an obvious point Herzog was making. I mean the other moments where the tone was frustratingly caught in a world that was a little bit less conscientious than the one we're living in now. But that is a rather unfair criticism. We are the world we live in, after all.

Overall, strongly suggested. The movie should be good, too.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Charlie Kaufman is adapting this book for Steve Carell. If it’s a good movie you see a year from now, you might wonder if the book is good. Wonder no longer!

Warning! Danger!

A story about geneticists accidentally creating a communicable stupidity virus has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was the seventies. The only black characters are the maid and a researcher who is introduced as “articulate” (!!!) but who slides from jive turkey all the way to Stepin Fetchit after he catches the disease. He is last seen literally in a loincloth. There are two female scientists, one of whom exposes herself to the hero the day she gets sick. Both become nymphomaniacs (stupid?) and sleep with the “hero” as soon as they can. The Jewish character secretly believes he's smarter than everyone else.

I know what it was like in 1978, but the fact that it is supposed to send ominous chills down your spine when the hero’s bright young daughter… starts asking to turn on… the TELEVISION!!!... is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I have read in some time.

The main character and the author have very, very high opinions of their own intelligence. Both are pigs. Blue collar characters were dumb to begin with, and they immediately descend into savagery when they get sick. Oh, the writer was born and raised in Manhattan and had a summer home in the country? I wish there was a way I could have guessed that about him.

NO STARS, BURN ON SIGHT

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

A DNA disaster unleashes a mind-shrinking storm on every man, woman and child in America!

YOU ARE DR. JAMES HEALEY AND LAST WEEK YOU WERE A GENIUS

That was before the DNA experiments. Before the accident you said could never happen…

Since then you have felt your mind decaying a little more each day. You have watched your wife slip into imbecility. You have seen the crowds growing murderous with animal terror, the President of the United States babbling and drooling on TV…

Only one thing separates you from them. You, at least, know what is happening as you search for the cure for the horror you have unleashed upon the world—as each day the dimming of your mind lowers your chance of finding it! (cover blurb)

"Well, good heavens, who can resist a synopsis like that?" I thought, and started reading it.

Omigosh. This may be the most preposterous story I ever read. To go along with the premise -- the devolution of human intelligence -- requires a major suspension of disbelief, not to mention critical thinking skills. And it's not particularly well-written besides. Still, it's a relatively enjoyable way to waste a couple of hours. Emphasis on waste, by the way. If you have anything else in the house, read it first.

[Richie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur Herzog's "IQ 83" is "Outbreak" meets "Idiocracy" without the suspense of the former or humor of the latter. It follows Dr. James Healey who, in an attempt to manipulate DNA to cure certain genetic disorders, accidentally unleashes a virus on the populace that attacks IQ. It is up to Healey to find a cure before his own "stupid sickness" engulfs him and spells disaster for civilization as we know it.

I love the premise - And I am beyond excited to watch Charlie Kaufman's adaptation starring Steve Carrell - but Herzog makes the mistake of not giving us enough emotional attachment to his characters. Despite their intelligence, these are boring, paper-thin people who the reader struggles to care about. I often find myself thinking the same thing about Stephen King's novels - Great story, No character/connection. Ultimately, we need to fear for the protagonist(s) or else we don't care if the virus or monster or alien, etc. wipes out all of humanity. I truly believe, in Kaufman's capable hands, this will be one of those rare instances where the movie is greater than the source-material.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting plot line. I would have liked it more if there was a remarkably noticeable difference in characters as their intelligence decreased. More than just misspelling words when required to write, or using simpler words. The fact that the author con...con...kept using the same for...form....way to show it was very irr...irr.....annoying. (Get my meaning?) As their intelligence went down in the beginning, I could see it being plausible, but to continue trying for big words before going for a lower level words when the characters themselves were already at a rather low level was unbelievable. It would be like talking to a five-year-old that kept trying to use big words but forgot them as he was speaking. Completely unbelievable.