| Five to Twelve - One of Edmund Cooper's better novels - the sort I would hand to someone to interest them in Cooper. By 2071, as an apparantly irreversible side effect of birth control, men have been outnumbered by women (ratio: 5 to 12.) These women are a new breed superior in previous masculine strongholds - notably the sciences and politics. Marriage as a social institution has fallen apart. Female prostitution has vanished; male prostitution grown. Men are mere chattels. Born into this matriarchal society, Dion Quern, sensitive, independent, and the rebelious last of the troubadors - thumbs his nose at a world without love, and at eighteen, resolves to change the rules. This novel wasn't Politically Correct when written - it certainly isn't now. (But it is still an effective tale.)
|