Flivvering Ford, is this book ever PNEUMATIC!

Noble Savage/SciFi/Teen Drama. A lost and unwashed teen, outcast in his own land, is rescued (along with his repulsive VIVIPAROUS mother) from the deepest darkest desert and introduced to the Jetsons-meets-soft-core-porn-esque genetically engineered civilization of his forbears (crowds of identical people all produced for one job, arranged by caste, creepily similar to Oompa Loompas) where he finds that OH MY GOD his TOTAL freakishness makes him cool. And like any nihilistic teen who hates the mall, he banishes himself to a life of self flaggelagtion and intestinal purges high in the Scottish Mountains. Should have picked a deserted island to live on, injun! He is pursued and ogled, a la King Kong, until driven to madness and suicide. His ideological guru, SHAKESPEARE (inexplicably enough), would not have approved. This book is pneumatic, which, contrary to the positive connotation in the book, means it sucks. However, as _Brave New World_ is part of the Literary Canon, and Aldous Huxley is considered the greatest satirist of his time, it is, unfortunately, required reading. But pop at least a half pill of soma before reading it. It is probably better while on drugs.

oh my Ford!!

I hate this book. It is very poorly written, the story is almost laughable ("feelies" "orgy-porgy" WTF), the language is dry, etc. etc. i wouldn't even give it 1 star...

FIGHT THE POWER!

With its vivid description of everyday activities such as the "feelie" movies and classification of every human into one of five letter and color groups, Huxley's Brave New World is a fun read for young adults and teens.

The Brave New World is a sort of Utopia, where humans are not born to mothers; they are bred in bottles and slowly travel by way of a huge conveyor belt through various machines during the gestational period. Those babies who will become astronauts spend a majority of time upside-down in the bottles, and those who will work in the jungles are submitted to a higher than normal temperature throughout the process. The embryos which are destined to be in one of the lower classes (Epsilons or Deltas) are purposefully deprived of oxygen so that they will not be "born" too intelligent for their class. In light of the current progressions that we have made with cloning and genetic alteration, it seems that Huxley has shown us one distinctly possible direction that society could wind up taking...

The book begins with a tour through the "decanting" factory.. recently fertilized eggs are artificially multiplied in the "Bokanovsky Process", which can create almost 100 identical embryos from a single egg. The lower classes will be multiplied to the highest degree, while the Alphas (the upper administrative class) will be individuals. The tour continues up to the nurseries where the children are conditioned every day to enjoy their lot in life. Some of this conditioning is done through aversion therapy, while some of it is drilled into the childrens' heads while they sleep. This sort of conditioning is what leads to a perfectly controlled world. (The controlled drug called Soma which is distributed faithfully to the masses doesn't hurt, either).

It is easy to determine which caste one person is in by the color they are wearing; each class wears a different color. The classes range from Alpha (highest) down to Beta, Gamma, Delta, and finally Epsilon. Deltas, for example, wear only khaki and are conditioned to hate books so that they will not waste their time reading. Betas, by contrast, are conditioned to be glad they're smart, but not as smart as Alphas because Alphas work too hard.

The older folks are so ingrained with these thoughts that they know nothing but happiness with their lives, regardless of whether they are the hard labor force or in one of the upper classes. However, the people in charge, as a result of knowing what is actually going on, can become a little bit jaded. When one "Alpha" decides to take a holiday, he sneaks off to a reservation of "savages" (folks who don't want any part of the Brave New World's society) and sees his illegitimate son. This is soon discovered, and he is brought forth before a committee which is shocked because they consider natural birth to be downright barbaric. The mother and son are brought into the "civilized" society, and everything quickly falls apart.

This book is fascinating in every way, from the colorful images that Huxley paints for the reader, to the parallels it draws to our current society. Brave New World is absolutely a must-read for anyone who is old enough to understand the implications, but try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to the science fiction, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, a fun, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.