The fascination, for me, lies partly in the fact that these novels are deeply pro-life. I think these books constitute a fascinating sub-genre of dystopian novels with the theme of a world without children, or a world where certain children are illegal and unwanted. James’s Children of Men ( Semicolon review here) and of Margaret Peterson Haddix’s series that begins with Among the Hidden ( Semicolon review here). She must serve in order to pay back society and Mother Nature for the unfortunate accident of her birth, for the drain she is on the Earth and its legal inhabitants. Her purpose in life, if Surpluses can even have a purpose, is to learn to serve Legals, to become a Valuable Asset doing housework, yardwork, and and any other services that Legals disdain but need to have performed. She doesn’t even have a surname, just Surplus Anna. Children who are born illegally to parents who have signed The Declaration, agreeing not to reproduce, are called Surpluses, and they have no rights, not even a right to life.Īnna is a Surplus. There’s no room and there are no resources for children. In this book, the price is “no children.” The world’s resources are stretched to the limit in providing for all of the people who “opt in” to take Longevity, a drug that prolongs life indefinitely. If the chance to live forever came with a price, would you opt in or out?
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