Mockingbird (Del Rey Impact) (ISBN 0345431626)

Don't Miss this Wonderful Book:
"Mockingbird" is one of my favorite books of all time. Set in 25th-century America, Tevis paints a picture of an eerie yet believable world, made all the more spooky by the fact that the twenty-five years since the book's publication has brought us ever closer to Tevis' imagined world: of a humankind drugged with chemicals, TV, and ignorance; where robots have broken down and can't repair things or each other; where there are no families and no more children being born; and where people are taught that "privacy is supreme," "quick sex is best," and "don't ask; relax." No one knows how to read; nor do any books, or even signs, exist. Human history is dead. The main characters are Paul, who manages to teach himself to read and in so doing becomes an outlaw on the run; Mary Lou, who drops out of the system and finds herself the only pregnant woman in the world; and Spofforth, the last of the last line of robots to be built, sick of life but programmed to be incapable of suicide. The way the lives of these characters intertwine weaves a complex and surprising story of human relationship and what it really means. The two humans - and even the robot - gradually emerge from the nightmare of state-provided pleasure and into the real world of pain, loss, and love. The book has a tight and nicely-paced plot, as well, and the ending does not disappoint. It is also punctuated with rich ideas, poignant vignettes, and such tenderness that you want to cry. One such vignette - I don't want to give anything away - but it involves a toaster factory inefficiently run by robots that Paul comes upon in his travels; what Paul discovers at the toaster factory is such a metaphor for our 21st-century world, it left me awed. Tevis died in 1984, at the age of 56. What an incredible loss. I would love to have seen what would have come from his fertile imagination, and what cautionary tales he would be telling us today. An interesting factoid: the book was written in 1980, while the Twin Towers were standing, but in Tevis' 25th-century New York, the Empire State Building is the tallest building in the world. Hm... what did Tevis know? In a post-meaning world, where humans have had all emotion and spiritual longings educated out of them, Paul finds a copy of the Bible. He says: "I think I may already be a worshipper of the ocean. In reading the New Testament..., I developed a strong admiration for Jesus, as a sad and terribly knowing prophet - a man who had grasped something about life of the greatest importance and had attempted, and largely failed, to tell what it was. I can feel, in myself, a kind of love for him and for his attempt, in saying things like, `The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,' for I think I glimpse his meaning, here, looking out of the thought-bus window toward the still and gray expanse of the Atlantic Ocean with the sun about to rise on it." This book is now out of print, which is ironic, since it is about a world without human literacy, where books only exist in dusty forgotten warehouses. Find a used copy, buy it, and cherish it.

I wish Walter Tevis was still alive...:
... so I could buy him a drink and thank him personally for this amazing book. As a writer, and as a lifelong lover of speculative fiction, it immediately made my Top Five List -- and I've read a lot of Sci-Fi. I'd rank this book right up there with The Little Prince and The Alchemist in terms of its deceptive simplicity and stunning impact. Thanks, Tevis. Wherever you are.

It is not the tale but the telling:
This novel, like many other classics, does not astound the reader with the grandiosity of a sweeping story, specatular settings and . The beauty of "The Grapes of Wrath" was not a grand setting and a plot that requires the suspension of reality. It was simple of ordinary and in some cases less than ordinary folk, eeking out an existence in a dperessing world. "Mockingbird" is a masterful telling of the non-spectacular occurences in the rather boring lives of; an academic, a listless orphan raised by a hippy relic, and a depressed-obsessive compulsive civil servant who happens to be an android. This book, very much dog eared, made the rounds of my campus(twice in my hands)when it was 1st published. It was indeed science fiction, but stood shoulders above its contemporaries such as "Dune." This it does without light speed warping spaceships, and epic battles. "Mockingbird" is set in a believable future, fleshed with believable inhabitants. They are no different from the people of today-burdened with ignorance, substance dependence, and most of all apathy. Unfortunately as this is a science fiction novel, and has a limited audience it is temporarily out of print whilst "Chicken Soup for the Soul" is available in 33 languages. If you take the plunge and avail yourself of a used copy, free up the next two or three days.

A silly book- go and read "Man Who Fell to Earth" instead:
I had high hopes for this book due to the glowing amazon reviews. Also I'd read and greatly enjoyed Tevis' earlier novel, "The Man Who Fell to Earth", which is indeed a classic. However, I just found the premise (of near-future illiteracy) and story too silly to enjoy. It's a "love-story" of sorts: boy love girl but later we learn it's a one-sided affair (after he's sent to prison). Later, he escapes from jail and after a long and arduous journey gets back to the girl- then she suddenly falls for him because he's now a real he-man (all tanned and buffed)! Give me a break....oh yeah, and then the robot takes a flying leap. Seriously, Mockingbird was old-fashioned the day it was published and like "Fahrenheit 451", it's not aged well at all.

A Terminator movie with less violence:
What's a Walter Tevis book without a couple living in sin, omelettes and an occasional reference to Ohio? When are they going to make a movie about this? I've read it twice in the last several years and my only complaint is that it is a little slow moving at times. If you daydream about life in the big cities after a post-apocalyptic event, then this is a world/book you'll want to visit. The Terminator movies, Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, and Ben Bova's novel called City of Darkness all are similar. This is a special read because reading is special. Like the Mike Judge movie called Idiocracy, the future is not a pretty picture. Nearly every human is in a drug induced daze, robots performing repetitive tasks without direction and one cyborg (Spofforth) is in charge of running it all. In time, he falls behind and nearly all of civilization is decrepit. Everything as we know it is falling apart. No new babies are being born. The love story part of it exists because one woman realizes that the robots really can't stop her from doing her own thing while a man close to her age teaches himself how to read. They are perhaps the only people left on the planet who can keep mankind going until Spofforth detects them and intervenes. Very 2112.