Synopses & Reviews
This classic Swedish novel envisioned a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of idealistic scientist Leo Kall,
Kallocain’s depiction of a totalitarian world state is a montage of what novelist Karin Boye had seen or sensed in 1930s Russia and Germany. Its central idea grew from the rumors of truth drugs that ensured the subservience of every citizen to the state.
Review
"A fascinating novel of the 1984 and Brave New World genre."—
Library JournalReview
"Despite the robot-like characteristics of the fellow-soldiers in Boye’s nightmare city, she expresses her poetic genius in the use of symbols and imagery."—Signe A. Rooth,
Scandinavian StudiesSynopsis
The classic television show The Twilight Zone explored the possibilities inhering in the ordinary. A Twilight Zone episode moved us by being poignant and intimate, rambunctious or thought provoking. But whether it takes place on an asteroid, in a city pool room, or in the backwoods, it will usually convey both a folklorist s eye for detail and the born raconteur s sense of pace. Rod Serling, the show s originator, main scriptwriter, and artistic director, knew how much burden he could place on his rhetorical and dramatic gifts. Deservedly celebrated as a pioneer fiction writer for television, Serling always grounded his work in the human condition: he wrote movingly about history and loyalty, the grip of everyday reality, and the dangers of both forgetting about one s ghosts and giving them the upper hand."
About the Author
Karin Boye (1900–1941) was a Swedish poet and novelist whose suicide in 1941 amid the shambles of a war-racked Europe reflects the fate of a whole generation of writers. Her first novel,
Astarte, appeared in 1931.