Louis Charbonneau (1924–2017)

As w/ most dystopic SF, mix a sensational technological development w/ social-control politics & predict what might happen - as a warning to the society in wch the development is taking place. In this case. perhaps CIA experiments w/ LSD for mind-control purposes (if the author was even aware of them in 1964 when this was probably written) w/ the usual intention of power conglomerates to CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL & out comes this possible (near) future (now the present or the past).

It wd be interesting to take all past prophesizing novels & combine their text w/ footage from the times they prophesize about for the sake of juxtaposition & framing. This 'futuristic' bk begins in 1976. A general public living for drugged vacations? That certainly wdn't be hard to find. It's the "super-intellects" of the ruling elites that I'd question here.… (más)

In keeping w/ my ongoing project of showing uses of "anarchy" in the bks I read, I refer the reader to page 186 of this. On it, the space colonists, after having been attacked by government forces from Earth, are informed that 'civilization' on Earth has been destroyed by a nuclear disaster, & are asked to accept this new government that's just attacked them as governing them too. The patriarch of the family accepts their authority, informing his family: "That's the way it has to be. Otherwise, there'd be anarchy." Right. There'd be anarchy, there might not be any more nuclear disasters or government forces attacking them. Heaven forbid.

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I don't normally leave reviews after reading a book, but after reading Down to Earth, I really needed a good rant. This book actually has an interesting premise, but is plagued by poor writing, and completely asinine plotting. The story describes a small family living in an isolated space station that is only used for emergency landings. Seeing that the family is so isolated, the space station is equipped with holograms that display a virtual world at all times. This allows a psychopath to enter the station undetected, and allows him to hide among the holograms, as he attempts to kidnap one member of the family, and kill the others.

Now for my rant...

The first thought that comes to mind would be to simply shut off the holograms, but the station was designed to prohibit that. I found that hard to believe, but could ignore in order to allow for a good story. However, the entire plot seemed implausible and was setup only to create action. For example, the station is equipped with a chair that is extended on a column of air, allowing the person in the chair to view a series of video screens located in the top of a tower. This allowed the psychopath to shut off the air column in an attempt to kill the character in the chair at that time. Why on earth would you locate the video screens in the top of the tower? If they're just showing videos, just stick them on the ground floor. Also, I didn't believe the explanation that a column of air would be safer than something actually connected to the chair. Later on in the book, after the family realizes that there is a killer onboard, the father attempts to fight him with a variety of weapons, including a flamethrower. Why on earth would an emergency space station need that much firepower? And a flamethrower of all things?

The author could also have benefited from a elementary physics lesson. He actually writes that the planet has less gravity due to having less atmosphere. Also, the planet is covered by strong duststorms, yet one of the characters was able to see stars while outside during a storm. This was during the day nonetheless!

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