Sheila Niles 32-B-2 FPE

BOOK REVIEWS

Science-Fiction came through strong in 1969, with two items of interest to the TVia reader. We understand one of them was personally spon- sored by a subscriber into the publisher's list — no more said for security reasons, but thank you! First, a word of warning, these are NOT about cross-dressing, but more subtle things.

FIVE TO TWELVE, by Edmund Cooper, Hodder Paperbacks, London, 187 pp, $1.00 (Also published in the US, details not available.) The 5/12 ratio of the title is that of males to females in the world of a hundred years in the future. Due to a series of mishaps involving side effects of birth control pills, etc., the women have not only become more numerous, but equal in size, physical strength and competitiveness to the men. And so, with many a storm but no actual slaughter, the women took over . . .

The story is of little importance, being actually based on a misunder- standing on the part of the author. He apparently believes the XYY males are sort of supermen, rather than the over-sexed, high-grade moron criminal types they really are. The interesting thing is the setting, and it is rather well done.

The woman, naturally enough, come in two grades. The Doms are the capable, intelligent and reasonably hard-working ruling class— sterile by choice. Child-bearing is done by the Infras, low IQ types with no talent for anything else than serving as proxy-mothers. For reasons not made clear, the Dom's egg must be fertilized after being transplanted to the Infra, which creates some emotional complications.

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