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jenikki 's review for:
The Children of Men
by P.D. James
We live in an era right now where people are suddenly buying up as much classic dystopian fiction as they can get their hands on. Five years ago they read like the science-fiction they were intended to be; now they read like how-to manuals. A month ago Amazon sold out of all copies of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I decided it was time to read P.D. James' Children of Men. I saw the film years ago when it came out, and it was beautiful. I only remember parts of the film, and I could see a similarity between it and the book, but I feel like the book varies from it quite a bit. This is a frightening look at what would happen if suddenly every man and women were infertile. In the book (written in 1992), the last child is born in 1995, and that becomes the Omega year. The book is set in 2021, when the youngest people on earth are 26 years old. Elementary schools and high schools are deserted. Toy manufacturers have gone out of business except for one specific kind: the ones who manufacture lifelike baby dolls so women can walk them around in prams and act like they actually have children. Elderly people are mandated by the government to participate in "Quietus" ceremonies, which are basically government-sanctioned mass suicides so the precious Omega generation won't have to take care of them. Rights have been taken away, a despotic Warden rules over England and keeps telling the people that of all of the countries in the world, theirs has boasted the fewest riots and civil unrest. But when a group of people decides to band together because of a big secret they are carrying — one that could change everything — they bring on board a lonely scholar who provides the point of view of the story. The story is compelling, fast-paced, and terrifying, and James has plotted out every detail of what the world might look like in the face of knowing the human population is coming to an end. And in the sense of people being silenced and fearful of saying things in case someone else might be watching who could hurt them, it suddenly seems very timely.