THE JOY MAKERS. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1963. Octavo, boards. First British (and first hardcover) edition. Portrays a hedonistic yet hellish future that guarantees pleasure -- at a cost. THE JOY MAKERS "describes, in Gunn's dark, ponderous, cumulatively impressive manner, a society whose members are controlled by synthetic forms of release that corrode their sense of reality." - John Clute, SFE (online). In Earth's future, the "Hedonic" principle rules -- the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. But society grows stagnant , and it becomes apparent that pleasure is not after all the chief goal of humankind. Capably written SF in the American 1950s mode of social criticism (not as sharp as Pohl and Kornbluth though)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 197. Part three of this fix-up novel is "Name Your Pleasure" (aka "The Joy Ride"), which concerns a mechanized city on Venus run by an AI whose mission is to make the human colonists safe and happy. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-185. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 279. A fine copy in fine dust jacket. (#149208).
Price: $250.00
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