Make Room! Make Room!

I came to this book through its movie adaptation, Soylent Green. Imagine my surprise that the big reveal was purely a Hollywood invention. Harrison's book is a combination murder mystery-romantic melodrama set against the backdrop of a grossly over-populated and under-resourced New York City. The writing is perfectly fine, but it IS a message story -- see the title if you have any doubt. There are a couple of monologues in which one of the characters articulates what the problem is and how to solve it. More birth control!

The problem with books like this is that the author extrapolates from his or her own time, assuming a linear progression to some nightmarish future. Harrison's population projections undershot the 2000 reality significantly. Although we're basically there now (in 2026), we don't see the hellscape depicted in this novel, and NYC is nowhere close to 35 million inhabitants. It's currently less than a fifth of the population described in this book. And, in fact, current declining fertility rates indicate that human beings will experience significant DEPOPULATION by the end of this century (assuming a linear progression, of course -- see what I did there?).

All things considered, this is a fine depiction of a dark future that we will likely NOT see. I can understand why someone reading in 1966 might buy into the fear (Paul Ehrlich wrote the introduction to the paperback edition I read). I hope the dedicatees of the book -- Harrison's chiuldren -- did not lose too much sleep over it.