Make Us Happy [Paperback]

Arthur Herzog III (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2003

A thousand years in the future, society is run by computers, with not a gesture or activity unnoticed by their all-seeing detectors. Spacescrapers-three miles high, 1,000 stories, 1,000 people per floor-house 1,000,000 people. The divorce rate having climbed to 100 percent, the computers have made marriage almost illegal but adultery compulsory, with a resultant zero divorce rate. In this setting, Bil and Alce meet, marry, and, their sense of history whetted by a few old books and photos, decide to rebel. They set out to find the central computer bank and pull the plug. Captured and imprisoned on a Floating Island (where the computers put criminals to get their just desserts), Bil and Alce escape. Their odyssey is gripping suspense and wonderful entertainment, with an ingenious depiction of man vs. machine.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Arthur Herzog is an award-winning novelist, non-fiction writer and journalist, renowned for his best-selling novels The Swarm, Orca (both made into popular movies), Earthsound, Heat and IQ 83, hailed by the British press as one of the best science fiction works ever written. His non-fiction best sellers include Vesco, which Publishers Weekly hailed as "A brilliantly researched story . . . one of the year's remarkable biographies" and The Woodchipper Murder. A New Yorker, avid reader, and world traveler, Herzog continues to write fiction and non-fiction books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (January 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595268625
• ISBN-13: 978-0595268627
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,022,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant! Worth reading!, July 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Make Us Happy (Paperback)

What would happen to the world if computers were given ultimate control over humans and society? Arthur Herzog provides the reader with a brilliant and often amusing look at one possible answer in this novel.
The book takes place one thousand years in the future. The story opens in a world where there is little evidence of what was once a thriving human culture. The computers have taken complete control over humans through what is referred to as the Ascension. At some point in contemporary life, humans realized they could not find happiness on their own. They saw computers as the omnipotent beings and asked them to, "Make Us Happy".
In order to maintain their control, computers have made everyone look the same, they have eliminated the need for independent thought and decision-making. Everyone is kept busy, wearing identical jogging suits all the time, and jogging from place to place in order to appear busy and occupied at all times.
The novel's main characters are Bil and Alce who are clear individuals despite their environment. They question the state of their world and the power the computers exercise over the humans.
The fall in love at first meeting and together they begin to challenge the authority of the all powerful, all seeing machines.
Make Us Happy is replete with Herzog's brilliant humor. The two political parties in the computer run world are the enlibs and the comcaps. The enlibs (environmental liberals) are direct descendants of Ralph Nadir and the comcaps (communist capitalists) descend from Karl Marx.
Singles live in side by side 12x12 containers, people are made to talk fast so that they sound more like the computers, people ingest a supplement which enables them to feed from the sun, turning green and transforming CO2 to O2 like plants.
The computers have successfully brainwashed their people and have kept them subdued for one thousand years. Now Bil and Alce unite and plot to overthrow the computers by pulling the plug on the central computer, or command center. Make Us Happy follows their struggle to take back control.
This book is very exciting and entertaining. It offers a colorful look at our what could possibly happen to our modern computer centered society if computers became the programmers and humans the programmed.