Implosion

Recently I watched Children of Men starring one of my favorite actors, Clive Owen. It envisions a bleak England in 2027. People have stopped reproducing, although we’re never told exactly why, and humankind is facing extinction. Society is in chaos and the only hope is to get the last pregnant woman to a group called The Human Project in the hopes of finding a cure. Theo (Owen) is enlisted to deliver the woman and a violent, pulse-pounding adventure ensues.

The plot started me thinking of a book I read many, many years ago. I was thrilled to find it still in my collection because so many of my old books have gone MIA. I rarely get rid of books, but I do lend them out. Hopefully they’re in someone else’s collection and not in a landfill.

At any rate I did find the book I was thinking of – IMPLOSION by D.F. Jones. My hardcover edition was published in 1967. Wow that was over forty years ago! How can that be? I’m not a day over thirty-nine. Nuff said.

Dennis Feltham Jones was a British science-fiction author who died in 1981. The film Colossus: the Forbin Project was based on his book Colossus.

IMPLOSION is also set in the United Kingdom. A scientist from an Eastern Bloc country produces a drug, Prolix, that decreases fertility. Britain is targeted and the minister of health is forced to create concentration camps for women who are still fertile; one of whom is his wife. Other countries become involved and at the end it’s discovered that the women who can still reproduce will only give birth to boys; mankind is doomed to become extinct.

Aside from having a slightly sexist tone, (consider the year) it’s still a good read.