Harry Harrison’s sci-fi novel about Earth on the edge of disaster is both bracing and cathartic as Covid-19 continues to spread
Society has broken down. The weather’s weird. The air is foul with pollution. No one can travel anywhere. The government is unaccountable, brutal, corrupt, criminal. The police spend their time beating up protestors while ignoring most crimes because that uses up too many resources. People keep coming up with really crappy vegan alternatives to meat. Everyone is exhausted. The only nice place left on Earth is Denmark.
Related: Make Room! Make Room! is our reading group book for March
It was really the first book, fiction or nonfiction, about overpopulation. The idea came from an Indian I met after the war, in 1946. He told me, ‘Overpopulation is the big problem coming up in the world,’ (nobody had ever heard of it in those days) and he said, ‘Want to make a lot of money, Harry? You have to import rubber contraceptives to India.’ I didn’t mind making money, but I didn’t want to be the rubber king of India!
… But I started reading a bit about overpopulation, and got the idea for the book. It stayed in my head as I watched the population trend going the wrong way.
Make Room! Make Room! presents a gripping scenario of where current trends may be leading. Such scenarios are important tools in helping us to think about the future, and in bringing home to people the possible consequences of our collective behaviour. When such a serious goal can be achieved through an engrossing work of fiction we are doubly rewarded. Thank you, Harry Harrison.
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