The Children of Men by P. D. James (1994)

I bought this book because I saw the movie with Clive Owen and Julianne Moore and became so interested in the story that I looked for the cheapest place to buy the book, which was ebay. Good 'ole ebay! Anyhow, I haven't read this book yet, but I am writing this because I was so interested in the story that I had to know where the source of the story came from. Generally, from the reviews that I have read, this book is depressing, but it is very interesting and does have a strong theme of hope at the end. Personally, I am concerned about overpopulation in the world and how and what the world would do if some type of global disaster were to happen to the human population. This type of apocalypse is probably the worst type: the human population slowly dying out rather than one event which wipes out humanity. It also rethinks my attitude towards children: what would the world be like without children? People beat, starve, sell and abuse children. We live ina world where children are commonplace and unspecial. Yet, a world without children is a completely hopeless one, as P.D. James demonstrated. Despite having not read this, I would recommend reading this book if you are interested in those things or have seen the movie. "Children of Men" (movie) was so compelling as to get me to buy the book and read it; very few movies based on books get me to do so.

Sometimes it's hard to read a book written about the future when you are already living in the future. Where are the cell phones, computers, police? Certainly when he wrote this book he knew about computers and cell phones. And more importantly, he only skimmed the surface of what our world would be like if no one else was born. So many REAL issues without a mention. And the movie is NOTHING like the book. I don't recommmend this book.