03/24/10: I just finished reading "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison, the basis for a sci-fi film I remember fondly from when I was a kid: "Soylent Green". I'm pretty sure I saw "Soylent Green" at the Brighton Theater, possibly as a re-release, as they did frequently in the days before cable TV and home video. SPOILER WARNING (if that's even necessary for a 37-year old film): Certain things I remember vividly from the movie: the overcrowded city, the oppressive heat, the dirt and garbage everywhere, the "furniture" that came with the luxury apartment, the "Computer Space" arcade game in the background, the "150 buck a jar strawberries", the government-assisted suicide facility, the shower scene, and of course, the startling revelation that "Soylent Green is people!"
The funny thing is, according to the book, it's not. In the book, there's only one type of "soylent", a meat substitute made of soy beans and lentils, hence the name. Also, there was no concept of "furniture", no suicide facility, no Soylent corporation. The overpopulation, the stifling heat from the greenhouse effect and the scarcity of food and water are in there. In fact, that's really the point of the book. Set in the far-off year of 1999 (it was written in 1966) the book was a cautionary tale of what would happen if the population explosion was out of control and the human race consumed more resources faster than the environment could replace them. In the midst of this is the main character, a police detective, trying to solve a murder. It's a pretty bleak, but very entertaining, vision of a future which still could happen. For the movie they moved the date out to 2022, but it's still near enough to make you think.
Harry Harrison is one of our favorite authors. Stephie and I have both read his West of Eden series and I think we have all the Stainless Steel Rat stories but the new one, so I figured I would enjoy the book, which I did. I need to watch the movie again, though, while the book is fresh in my mind. Harrison was not a big fan of the film, but in an interview, he said that they got the look of film right. He said what he, and most people he spoke to, took away from the film is "the feeling of horror of this world" as depicted on the screen. It's certainly not anywhere I'd like to live.
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