From Amazon.com
Do desperate times call for desperate measures? Charles Sheffield asked a bunch of writers who commonly speculate about the future's fringe to consider how to save the world from its most debilitating disease--humanity. James P. Hogan imagines a future where anyone can be killed instantly if five others agree that the offending person should die. The result is an amazingly polite and courteous (if terrified) society. Geoffrey Landis indulges the idea that altering DNA to eliminate our differences might look like a good solution to racism, at least to an earnest group of biotech wizards. Other authors, such as Larry Niven, Kathe Koja, and Jerry Pournelle, offer visions of humans leaving Earth altogether, of extreme sex selection to reduce the population, and of legalized virtual dueling. Almost every reader will find something alarming somewhere in this collection, which means
How to Save the World is jam-packed with food for thought.
In the introduction Sheffield writes, "Unfortunately, we, as a species, are on our own. We have no friendly advisor looking over our shoulder." But let's hope that we can come up with some less extreme solutions than the scenarios offered here. --Therese Littleton
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Sometimes light in tone but always serious in subject, these 13 SF stories present modest proposals for ending racism, reducing hostility, restoring the environment, benefiting from space travel and otherwise improving the world?or, at least, preserving it. Overwhelmingly, the stories are not simple wish-fulfillment, although "Higher Education," by Jerry Pournelle and editor Sheffield (Cold As Ice ), risks that. Many of the tales show well-laid plans going astray, as in Brenda Clough's "The Product of the Extremes" and Geoffrey Landis's "The Meeting of the Secret World Masters," two of the best entries here. Others highlight the temptation of solutions that may be worse than the problem, as in Mary Turzillo's "The Guatemala Cure," in which an abused woman seeks vengeance against all men. When plans succeed, sometimes it is by trickery?as in James P. Hogan's "Zap Thy Neighbor" or Arlan Andrews's "Souls on Ice"?but technology can prove beneficial as well, as shown in Nick Pollotta's "Raw Terra" and Doug Beason's "Defense Conversion." While outstanding prose surfaces only in the Kathe Koja and Barry Malzberg collaboration ("Buyer's Remorse"), this collection, while perhaps not up to saving the world, should at least save its readers from a few perhaps otherwise empty hours.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
