Jack Sharkey 2 hr 16 min read

Beneath a vast crystal dome ringed with hundreds of Vote Boxes, Lloyd Bodger jostles through the milling crowd, a cog in a rigidly programmed society whose true nature is about to be tested.

Jack Sharkey's 1963 novel is a taut dystopian and social-SF tale. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a well-built story of a regimented future ruled by mechanized ritual and control, where one man's awakening threatens the whole programmed order, in a fast-moving golden-age piece about conformity, rebellion, and freedom.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

2 hr 16 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller