Welcome to the Monkey House

I picked this up specifically for “Harrison Bergeron,” a dystopian future story where “equality” is forced on everyone by law. Any advantages citizens have, intelligence, strength, beauty, must be handicapped artificially. Interesting concept and absurdly wicked the way the plot goes down.

Other stories in the collection I enjoyed were “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” “The Euphio Question,” and “Deer in the Works,” all of which were dark and funny at the same time and gave me plenty to think about.

The title story was a real doozy, another dystopian future, in which the world is overpopulated so people take a pill to kill all sexual desire, instead of the more expected methods of contraception.

“If you go back through history you'll find that the people who have been most eager to rule, to make the laws, to enforce the laws and to tell everybody exactly how God Almighty wants things here on Earth — those people have forgiven themselves and their friends for anything and everything. But they have been absolutely disgusted and terrified by the natural sexuality of common men and women.”

Electric Dreams