Beyond This Horizon
Ratings4
Average rating2.8
15
Ratings4
Average rating2.8
Synopsis courtesy of GoodReads : Utopia has been achieved. For centuries, disease, hunger, poverty and war have been things found only in the history tapes. And applied genetics has given men and women the bodies of athletes and a lifespan of over a century.
They should all have been very happy....
But Hamilton Felix is bored. And he is the culmination of a star line; each of his last thirty ancestors chosen for superior genes. Hamilton is, as far as genetics can produce one, the ultimate man. And this ultimate man can see no reason why the human race should survive, and has no intention of continuing the pointless comedy.
However, Hamilton's life is about to become less boring. A secret cabal of revolutionaries who find utopia not just boring, but desperately in need of leaders who know just What Needs to be Done, are planning to revolt and put themselves in charge. Knowing of Hamilton's disenchantment with the modern world, they have recruited him to join their Glorious Revolution. Big mistake! The revolutionaries are about to find out that recruiting a superman was definitely not a good idea....
Reviews with the most likes.
“The one thing that could give us some real basis for our living is to know for sure whether or not anything happens after we die. When we die, do we die all over—or don't we?”
A fine Heinlein utopian, futuristic novel on genetics and economics. Sometimes I felt like the plot wasn't really going anywhere and that he was trying to cover too much ground, but it was certainly an enjoyable read nonetheless. I couldn't stop thinking in how this relates to Huxley's Brave New World hierarchical society but with synthesists and geneticists; it's, of course, way more science-packed as you might expect from the Grandmaster.
Hamilton Felix is the culmination of a three hundred year program of controlled genetics and selective breeding. Leader type. He is part of a “star line” group of high-quality human characteristics. He enjoys life but thinks it's meaningless, thus he gives a rat's ass about line continuity... until he is drawn into new adventures.
3.5
