EARTH’S LONG DYING HAS BEGUN!
“Platt’s work demonstrates undeviating clarity, pulp-magazine plotting instincts, and a sure inclination to offend. [Here is] a substantial look at the death of an unnamed city and of the crisis-ridden America surrounding it.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
Night is falling on humankind. Urbanization has reached its limits. The birth rate plummets. Driven by technology, city life becomes an orgy of sensation - until it crashes. The birth rate plummets, and tough clans of rebels are left roaming through an urban wilderness where giant, empty buildings stand as monuments to the unborn.
It is a world waiting to end, and Michael has a plan to help it along…
“Platt's theme that the City is killing man, mentally and physically, is very valid today. An uneasy work, but … passages will move the understanding reader beyond what is often expected from sf. …Recommended.” Vector: Science Fiction Review
“Completely weird.” – Tampa Florida Tribune
”Without a doubt Platt’s best, the sardonic lift and wild irony of authentic terror” —Michael Moorcock
“A vivid, gripping nightmare.” —Alfred Bester, Hugo & Nebula winner
“Suicide rock concerts, abandoned subdivisions scoured by gun-toting vigilantes, the pleasure palace, and a neighborhood-rage ending all intensify Platt's study of interpersonal relationships. Unfortunately for all of us, little has been done to address the issues raised by Platt; only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.” —Amazon Customer
“The book has frightening power because so many of the elements of this future society are here today. And the question it raises is: is this really our world-to-be? Or can a new, better society be formed from the debris of our present state?” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A great read. It packs a nifty little punch. Platt must have had a time machine or a crystal ball when he wrote this, the economic and social malaises he touches upon (which led to the decaying and dysfunctional city he envisioned) are eerily present in the here and now.” —Amazon Customer
Fifty years before Chinese ghost cities, Platt was the only science-fiction writer to imagine a diminishing birth rate, and its consequences.
