Make Room! Make Room! in Shine & Shadow

Jun 12, 2024 inciminci rated it really liked it

Shelves: physical-copies, audiobooks, sf, shisha_dark

Make Room! Make Room!, one of the best predictive science fiction works of its time, and one of the most underrated too, foresaw in 1966 that the end of the century would be a time out of hell for New York City, opening the flood gates to an even more hellish new millennium: Climate change and scorching heat burning the planet down; the world bursting at its seems with extreme overpopulation; serious food and housing shortages; barely any water to drink and as a consequence, the lack of a vital Make Room! Make Room!, one of the best predictive science fiction works of its time, and one of the most underrated too, foresaw in 1966 that the end of the century would be a time out of hell for New York City, opening the flood gates to an even more hellish new millennium: Climate change and scorching heat burning the planet down; the world bursting at its seems with extreme overpopulation; serious food and housing shortages; barely any water to drink and as a consequence, the lack of a vital infrastructure pushing the masses into crime... Not an ideal place at all. The book shows how people from different backgrounds cope under these utterly dire living conditions.

Against this hellish backdrop we focus on Andy, a police detective tasked with investigating the seemingly mysterious death of the ultra rich mobster Mike O'Brien, Big Mike. During the investigation Andy starts a relationship with Big Mike's hired lover, sugar baby, live-in sex worker, whatever you want to call her, Shirl, who then moves from Mike's gloriously luxurious house with running water and food aplenty into the poor, two room shack he shares with his roommate Sol, an older man who produces his own electricity by riding a wheelless bike.

Meanwhile there are uproars outside, especially the older generations are constantly rallying against the system. The way older people and their political understanding are portrayed is utterly interesting, especially for our times; this exact generation which back in the day was quite revolutionary is being dismissed and looked down on now.

As lead character, Andy is actually quite bland, to be honest, he is kind of an everyman and replaceable with many. He holds values like integrity and honesty and has traditional expectations from his relationship with Shirl; he is kind of a romantic expecting to find a true love he can provide for and take care of (but does not have the financial means to do so). Too bad Shirl is a tough and realistic business woman disguised as a naive young girl, and who is only following the rules this cruel new world has taught her in order to survive - namely to go with whoever can provide for her, pay her money for her company, which Andy can't do.

Sol, on the other hand, is created to be every reader's dream character - old, wise, funny, smart, and familiar with the time and conditions the reader lives in, a time where food is not scarce, where running water and electricity are not luxury goods, but basic human needs. So being a person who knows both how wonderful life could be and his harsh reality, he possesses the kind of clarity the other characters lack. As he states, the crux of the matter is birth control. Since the invention and growth of modern medicine, or death control as he calls it, the number of people on Earth has been multiplying uncontrollably, causing the current state in the book. All the sadder that today we are again moving backwards, moving away from the need to control birth on this planet (as we control death) and finding a way to distribute resources so that every person can live in dignity. We're nearing our catastrophe by the minute actually.

By using as many characters as possible from different backgrounds, Harrison also presents the survival options for the groups in question; Billie Chung, for instance, as a young man of Asian background living in a type of China Town, leads a much harder life than Andy or Shirl, the latter, as a pretty white girl, has found the option of sex work for herself to live in luxury. She too has to pay a price and keep company to men who aren't always nice to her and the sexism she encounters and faces smiling politely is infuriating. Still, it's her job. Then there's Billie's mother, who leads a life of extreme poverty as an Asian woman and mother.

Everyone is miserable and as the new millennium is rang in, it is a bitter sort of new beginning which offers neither hope nor joy.

This is the Shine and Shadow dark read for June'24! ...more

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Jul 14, 2024 Bionic Jean rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, sf-speculative, read-authors-e-h

鈥淥ne time we had the whole world in our hands, but we ate it and burned it and it鈥檚 gone now.鈥�

鈥淲e got a plague of people, a disease of people infesting the world. We got more people who are living longer. Less people have to be born, that鈥檚 the answer.鈥�

These two sentences could be from any current eco-thriller, but in fact they were written in 1966 by Harry Harrison, in one of the most prescient Sci-Fi novels I have ever read: Make Room! Make Room! Overpopulation was not yet thought to be a worr ...more

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May 13, 2024 蚕耻别谤补濒迟鉁� rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bc-pick

Make Room! Make Room! is a dystopian book published in the late 1960s set in New York City in 1999. The city is populated by 35 million people so as you can imagine, it鈥檚 crowded and resources are stretched thin and rationed. The story follows detective Andy Rusch as he investigates a murder case whilst simultaneously struggling to cope with being overworked and different crises (extreme weather, rations cut in half, water points closed up for months, hospitals being crowded and lacking medicine Make Room! Make Room! is a dystopian book published in the late 1960s set in New York City in 1999. The city is populated by 35 million people so as you can imagine, it鈥檚 crowded and resources are stretched thin and rationed. The story follows detective Andy Rusch as he investigates a murder case whilst simultaneously struggling to cope with being overworked and different crises (extreme weather, rations cut in half, water points closed up for months, hospitals being crowded and lacking medicine, etc.).

I was a bit surprised reading the book because the synopsis made it sound like the core of the book could be a murder case when, in fact, it was just the overpopulation issue. We get to know the murderer very early in the book and while we follow the case, what matters is the ensemble of characters: Andy, Sol, Shirl, and Billy (and I guess Peter). They all experience scarcity and overpopulation in very different ways. None of them lives through it easily. Shirl鈥檚 case is interesting because her 鈥榳orld鈥� is perhaps much more comfortable yet it comes with a price she isn鈥檛 happy to pay, so even in her 鈥榖etter鈥� case, there are no winners.

I felt the different perspectives colluded in one of Sol鈥檚 last tirades against the government: prepare, prepare, prepare. But his suggestions and what the book proposes as ways to deal with things are quite extreme. I do want to say, I truly adored the dialogue in this book. Sol was my absolute favorite character with brilliant bits like: 鈥�Funniest show on earth. They鈥檙e trying to push this Emergency Bill through 鈥� some emergency, it鈥檚 only been a hundred years in the making 鈥� and you should hear them talking all around the little points and not mentioning the big ones.鈥� Or perhaps this one that I think it鈥檚 the core of what Harry Harrison is trying to convey with this book: 鈥�We got death control 鈥� we got to match it with birth control..鈥�

My one reason not to give this a 5 stars is perhaps because it feels dated. Obviously, it was written decades before I was born and I understand that. Yet much of it sat weirdly with me. 1) I don鈥檛 know what my thoughts are about Shirl. She鈥檚 just an uneducated woman who gets lucky after winning a beauty contest and then jumps from man to man, and while I really liked her and I found she looked out for herself鈥� I don鈥檛 know, I鈥檓 not sure about my feelings towards her. 2) This book features things that are problematic now, maybe not then and there (LSD, nuclear facilities, lots of religion first/doomsaying, etc.). 3) I didn鈥檛 find the book racist, though there was racism. (Also as a side note, I recently read Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories by Flannery O'Connor which was published a year before this one and holy moly that was unreadable because of how racist it was. And in that book, I couldn鈥檛 say if it was the characters or the author).

I鈥檓 reading this with my book club Shine & Shadow and I鈥檓 typically the party pooper who hates everything, so I鈥檓 thrilled to not be the hater this time around. Woop woop. ...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Nancy Oakes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Considering that this classic novel of sci-fi was written in the 1960s, it's still quite a grabber and definitely worth reading. You're welcome to stay here for the short version or click for the longer one.

The setting for Make Room! Make Room! is New York City, 1999, well beyond teeming with a population of 35 million people. Food is a precious commodity and water is rationed,except for the rich who have speakeasy-like secret meat markets for their shopping pleasures and can enjoy long sho Considering that this classic novel of sci-fi was written in the 1960s, it's still quite a grabber and definitely worth reading. You're welcome to stay here for the short version or click for the longer one.

The setting for Make Room! Make Room! is New York City, 1999, well beyond teeming with a population of 35 million people. Food is a precious commodity and water is rationed,except for the rich who have speakeasy-like secret meat markets for their shopping pleasures and can enjoy long showers in their guarded apartments.

One of the defenders of the people in this overpopulated New York City filled with desperate people is Andy Rusch who lives in a room next to Sol, an elderly man who fills Andy's head with his old stories & opinions. Andy is currently tasked with finding Billy Chung, the murderer of a wealthy criminal named Michael O'Brien, who most of the policemen are glad to see gone. Andy wonders why this guy's death is such a big deal. All he knows is that the word has come down from the politicians that he's to give the case top priority. Overworked, tired, with a little extra food ration for being a cop, he starts his investigation and meets Shirl Greene, girlfriend/mistress to the dead guy, who is about to be tossed out into the streets; Billy Chung manages to find a way to disappear, holing up with a former priest who is waiting for the turn of the millennium, for the new heaven and new earth. Each character represents a different segment of the population; the murder plot is the frame for the real point of this book, which examines the hell of "an overpopulated future," as well as how things got to this state.

While some reviewers say that the themes in this novel aren't relevant in today's world, I say a) read it again...you'll find plenty of issues that resonate today, and b) that it is an intriguing look at the looming issues of its time: overpopulation and the failure of the earth to sustain an out-of-control population was a real concern back then. Another prevalent criticism of this book was that it was nothing like the movie Soylent Green -- and failed to mention the secret behind the food. Really? Seriously? This book didn't even go down that path, so why on earth criticize it for something that Hollywood made up after the fact? Even Harrison, as his LA Times obituary notes, thought the film only occasionally "bore a faint resemblance to the book."

While Harrison's doom-and-gloom scenario of 35 million people in New York City never came to pass, the book shouldn't just be one you turn your nose up at. According to the author's obituary, Tom Doherty, founder of Tor Books, noted that Harrison saw science fiction as a medium that "caused people to think about our world and what it could become.鈥� That's one major reason I read sci-fi, although I have to admit I'm partial to older novels like this one. I liked it, and while maybe it's not the best sf novel I've ever read, it's definitely one I won't forget. ...more

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Jun 03, 2024 Janelle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1980s, 2024

I first read this decades ago and really enjoyed the re-read. The movie Soylent Green was based on this although there are many differences, especially the one line from it everyone knows is not in the book!

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Jun 06, 2024 Netanella rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, dystopian, 2024-june-reading-challenges

Charlton Heston kept inserting himself into my head while I was reading this book!

This was a group read at the Shine & Shadow group. Very cool. I'm still trying to puzzle out my thoughts on the book and the subsequent movie. ...more

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