Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The Marching Morons by Cyril M. Kornbluth

The Marching Morons is a short science-fiction story about a dystopian future in which the majority of society has become, shall we say slower than molasses. In this future, people with higher IQ's tended to either be more goal oriented and not have children or have one. While those of lesser intelligence procreated like rabbits at the beginning of spring.

The story begins with Barlow a conman from the past being awoken from a state of hibernation after being dug up. As the story progresses, he comes to see how society has fallen into disarray and how the majority of people are well, morons. As he is apprehended by the highbred elite [a group of very intelligent individuals], they explain to him the problems of this society and how they as the only intelligent beings work very hard to keep people alive.

The story focuses on the planet over populations issue which in the book is about 5.5 billion people about 95% of the people being morons, its is there that Barlow offers a devious and deplorable solution to control the over population. His solution is to kill them off by selling them real estate in Venus [yes, the second planet from the Sun] and then sending the morons off in rockets that will never actually get there, as they most probably explode the moment they leave Earth. The second part of his plan,  Barlow rips off from the Nazi's, sending post-card on behalf of the deceased morons to their relatives still on Earth promoting how great life on Venus is and essentially creating more propaganda for their over population solution. As the story nears it's end and the population problem is brought under control, the elite use the same solution they used to get rid of the morons to get rid of Barlow.

The story focuses not only on how over population can put a strain on resources and societies, but also on how ignorance should not be accepted. Rather than coddling the morons the elite should have found ways to alleviate the problem by promoting education from the very beginning. 

Rating 5 out of 5
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Monday, February 24, 2014

The Ultimate Betrayal by Michelle Reid

This book follows the story of a married couple who encounter some marital problems as a result from infidelity. 

The main characters Daniel and Rachel have been married for 7 years, they married really young because Rachel became pregnant with twins. Years later through hard work and determination Daniel build a well off business empire, while Rachel is a stay at home mom and sole caretaker to their now 3 children.

The story begins with Rachel receiving a call from her so called friend Amanda, who informs her that her husband Daniel is having an affair, that he has been seen around town with another woman and that she saw him coming out of the other woman's apartment. Rachel goes into shock as she can't believe that Daniel would do something like that to her. Because Rachel hung up on her "friend" and then refused to answer subsequent calls, Amanda goes ahead and calls Daniel. Daniel rushes home and is confronted by Rachel. He doesn't deny the affair which infuriates and hurts Rachel. During this confrontation you can see what a bit of an ass Daniel can be as he is actually mad that Amanda ratted him out, he claims it was none of her business and that since it was over, Rachel never needed to know. 

As Rachel deals with the fallout she begins to realize that as Daniel grew as a person, she didn't, she remained the same in those 7 years and she attribute that to their drifting apart. Rachel decides she needs a makeover, that she needs to shed the 17 year old image she's maintained since she met Daniel. Daniel and Rachel go out, they have dinner, go dancing and while dancing, they run into Amanda who doesn't recognize the woman Daniel is with and she begins to take shots at Daniel, when he thrown at her despite her attempts he's never even been looked at her twice. It is then Rachel turns around and Amanda gets a good look at Rachel before she storms off. 

As the book progresses we see Daniel and Rachel try to work through their marriage, while at the same time trying not to affect their children who have become very aware of the conflict their parents are facing. Rachel starts to see that she stagnated in her development because everyone always tried to shield her.

Towards the end of the book we see a final confrontation between Daniel and Rachel, in which Daniel discloses that his affair was not in the physical sense as Rachel believed, but rather in the emotional sense. He explains that as work became complicated and Rachel was unavailable dealing with the sick children and too exhausted for him he began to find it easier to go out with her and enjoy a date night so to speak. 

The reason this book was good was because you substantial emotional development for the characters. The reader is showed the psychological effects the affair had on both of them and the strain it put not only on them but on the children as well. 

Rating 4 out of 5
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WELCOME !!!

So this is my new blog solely dedicated to writing book reviews. On average I read about 3-4 books per week or more, (*gasp) I know right total bookworm here. So I have decided to start publishing my reviews onto my own blog. Normally I use www.goodreads.com to get book suggestions there and when I'm not feeling to lazy, I write a review for whatever book I just read.

So enjoy this blog and Read@Book ;)