Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Perennial Library, 1969 (originally published 1932)
Link to Book: Wikipedia
Rating: 
Date Reviewed: Apr2007
Reviewed By: Super
Comments: This. Book. Sucked. Monkeybutt. I spent nearly the last year finishing this piece of dren, and it's only 177 pages! I did not like this book at all. It's the worst kind of science fiction: it was mostly a bunch of talking heads espousing the author's very pointed ideas about the world (or where he saw the world heading, at least). When Huxley veered off into character, he would quickly pull back and puke up some more personal philosophy. Maybe this was cutting edge stuff back in the day (actually, it was), but it's all very stuffy and pedantic today. Soylent Green is much more entertaining dystopian future; hell, so was Logan's Run!
Though, I will begrudgingly admit that the scary aspect of BNW still seems very relavent, namely, indifference. Art no longer has any meaning to the populace and, more importantly, no one cares. One of the few nearly developed characters, Helmholtz, illustrates the inability of the populace to really grasp art as he cannot get past the idea of mother/father (you'll have to read the first 20 pages of the book to get this) in a scene read by the Savage from Romeo and Juliet. Helmholtz wants to understand, but he can only go so far as he is hindered by his programming.
I will recommend you read this book, but only as a companion to Orwell's (better written) Nineteen Eighty-Four.