[.ca] Tomorrow File (ISBN 0425081796)

Realistic, innovative science fiction.:
A book far ahead of its time, quite uncharacteristic of Sanders but still innovative and compelling. Nick Flair, the protagonist, gives the reader a view of the future from a 1970's perspective. There is no supercomputer controlling the world, just the basic ingenuity of mankind. Think of it as Brave New World and 1984 produced for daytime TV.

Good weekend read;plenty of present-day parallels.:
Sanders probably isn't writing sci-fi as much as he is using the future setting to avoid libel claims. The focus on youth, intelligence, and information as a source of power are no future stretch. Government's/industry's job is to keep people happy by carefully managing the flow and spin of information, to maximize the benefits,not to the public at large, but to the executives, politicians and bureaucrats. This is best accomplished in a society where most people don't give a rip, unless their own boat is rocked. For parallels,one need only look to the current impact on market indices or consumer confidence measures of a tiny tick in a government-produced labor or inflation statistic, or to the impact on our perception of public safety produced by a favorable crime statistic. Is Nick Flair that much different from Bill Gates/Clinton, in his early appreciation and clever use of the power that derives from control of information? I guess I read this as satire.

An excellent book, apparently overlooked by all:
An amazing and chilling tale! Should be classified as Science Fiction and thus, it is unlike any other Sanders book - not a mystery or a sex-fest, though it has those elements in spades. Obviously, Sanders had fun with his premise, which (I think) is: What would happen if the Government set about to make its citizenry happy? And at any cost, including active manipulation of individual lives. Imagine Brave New World, with an entertaining mystery, modernized, and taken to the next degree. Sanders cleverly renames common terms, for example: Males are EM's, females are EF's, sex is "using." This extends to the government - the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has evolved into the "Department of Bliss." (Couldn't happen? - remember the Dept. of Defense used to be called the War Department.) Definitely will make you glad your government is as inept as it is - after reading TF, you will never ask again for a government that knows what it's doing! Ken

Addresses Bill Joy's questions before he asked:
Several years ago this author suggested that our country will create a new branch of government - the scientific branch - for the purpose of identifying technolology that should not be pursued...and advising the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government to put that technology into the "tomorrow file" - essentially buried for a future time, when society might be better suited to absorb the consequences. Excellent concepts.Appropriate material to help consider Bill Joy's observations.

A near future when kids get MUCH smarter, much younger.:
Sanders, in a change of pace, chillingly limns a future when fast maturation and blazing intelligence are available to young teens, gradually forcing the older leaders and movers of society into unwanted retirement. Excellent characterization, pace, and imaginative projections of current trends in computer science, media (think MTV election specials), and sports forcing for the Olympics make this a novel that you will think back on often, and wonder if you'll be replaced by a ten-year-old with a 200 IQ...