I have mixed feelings on this book.

I LOVE SPOFFORTH. I loved everything about him. The twists involving him were great, and it was chilling to think about life from his perspective. I couldn't be mad at him. It was just really well done.

But then we get to the majority of the book.... Bentley's point of view. I have trouble believing humans would forget how to read. Being a fan of Asian media, I can read certain kanji without ever having studied it, just because I see the kanji on the screen when they speak about certain things. Considering stuff like that, I feel like it would be hard for an entire culture to just "forget" when you have store signs that people know the names of, etc. Maybe if all letters were somehow removed from earth I would buy it.. but to be surrounded by words and forget...? And the whole religious part was... weird.... just.... Bentley's whole narration was boring and pretentious. Yea we get it, leisure and enjoyment is bad, and we are ruining ourselves, I get it. Knowledge is power. I get it. Also to believe everyone would chose to be on drugs except Mary Lou...... You are asking me for more suspension of disbelief than I have to offer.

Overall it was a nice commentary. I just wish it had been more about Spofforth.

Este libro es digno de 5

Leggetelo.

"Not with a bang but a whimper." An unusual book in that there is no "apocalyptic event" but rather the gradual extinction of humanity. And the funny thing is that humans don't even know its happening... The cause ends up being so mundane and well intentioned. Take heed. Interesting read, consistent pacing and satisfying resolution.

Queen's Gambit is amazing, but this... let's just say it dates very badly. A lot of the futurism isn't even logically internally consistent, and most of it stretches credibility to breaking point. If you are going to write that humans gave up writing, reading and having children, you better make me believe the how, and he doesn't come close. Advances in AI have rendered the 'robots' in this fairly laughable which isn't so much his fault in a way, but this was published in 1980, only four years before Neuromancer. Either way, reading it in 2020 is like reading some kooky dream. The deeper points about humanity are laudable, but sometimes they're just telegraphed, and the whole wasn't really worthwhile.

A fantastic dystopia that pierces to the core of some of the problems facing the modern world.
Tevis strikes a careful balance in this book; it could very easily have come across as "old man yelling at cloud", as in large part it is a critique of newly developing technologies and sociological trends. In my opinion however he manages this very well, making the issues universal and deeply human.

The book portrays a dying humanity- the population of the earth is dwindling and noone seems to care; mostly because they are hooked to their TVs and fed as many mind-altering drugs as they could possibly wish. But worse- they've forgotten how to read. The book follows one man as he re-learns this lost talent, and slowly rises above and away from the mire that humanity has been left in.
We also have the story of a depressed robot who can't die, some thoroughly misguided religious folks and a whole host of group suicides by immolation.
It's a great exploration of how any ideology can be twisted or taken to meaningless extremes; of how internal satisfaction can ultimately be to its own detriment; as well as the standard utopian/dystopian themse of survival, what that means and what we are willing to sacrifice for safety and happiness.
Very well written book, Tevis should definitely get far more acclaim than he currently seems to.

I've been sitting here, trying to come up with some kind of review, but I keep drawing blanks. This is a very good book- a little bit average at times, and the themes became a little bit forced at points- but it's very enjoyable and one that will make you think.

I felt that how the world came to be illiterate was not explained well. Though, I suppose, that was partially the point. If nobody can read, and people are obsessed only with themselves (or, as it is said in the text, Privacy), then history is unlikely to be passed down. They don't even know what year it is, though it's stated at some point as being the 25th century.

The characters in [b:Mockingbird|2657|To Kill a Mockingbird|Harper Lee|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1234606708s/2657.jpg|3275794] are interesting, but I found myself unable to truly connect with any of them. I sympathised with Bentley and Spofforth (Mary Lou I was rather ambivalent about), but towards the end of the novel, I found them starting to become rather irritating. Maybe it was because of the prison and why it was never really explained as to why Spofforth decided to imprison Bentley (outside of shacking up with Mary Lou).

An enjoyable book, but some questions that I felt were unanswered.