Being a dystopian novel with parallel plot lines. The first describes an age roughly contemporary to our own during which an Obamaesque president, moved by a spasm of piety, announces an extreme natalist policy (the eponymous "transformation") which rapidly spreads into misogyny throughout society, particularly in education and the professions. The second takes place three generations later, by which time the policy has evolved into a brutal theocracy ruling over a world which is so overpopulated that all animals (except humans, of course) have died, pollution has made the sun invisible so that the people must live inside illuminated domes, and all the plants are similarly extinct except for a handful kept alive in a laboratory to produce an atmosphere for the humans. The lab is operated by a dissatisfied and restive botanist, the great-granddaughter of a botanist who fought the original transformation. Both plots are very interesting, and the book's message packs a real punch. But will the common man heed it?