Everyone Stand on Zanzibar

"Everyone Stand in Zanzibar". A book that has been among the top twenty best science fiction novels according to the magazine "Locus" for 50 years. And it seems quite deservedly so – the grim predictions of Brunner made in 1968 are beginning to come true before our eyes. At the beginning of the 20th century, someone calculated that the entire population of the Earth could fit on the Isle of Wight, placing everyone shoulder to shoulder. By 1968, when John Brunner published his novel, an island of Man, four times larger, would already be required for this purpose. And a few decades later, by the time the events of the novel unfold, the number of inhabitants of the Earth has reached such limits that there wouldn’t even be enough room for them on Zanzibar. The planet is suffocating. The population is going mad from overcrowding, poverty, and lack of prospects. People are tightly hooked on government-legalized drugs to reconcile citizens with their joyless existence. For even the quiet joys of family life are now far from available to all. In developed countries, strict legislation prohibits people with imperfect genes from having children. For most, a complete family becomes an unattainable and endlessly desired dream. And so it would go on if not for the invention of an Asian scientist that has given hope for healthy offspring even to those who do not possess perfect physical and mental health…