Three by Ira Levin [Hardcover]

Ira Levin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1985

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL " ...." KISS BEFORE DYING " , AMONG MANY , YOU WILL FIND THREE GREAT ONES HERE--" ROSEMARY'S BABY " , " THE STEPFORD WIVES " , AND ONE NOT SO WELL KNOWN ..." THIS PERFECT DAY "....This is a science-fiction futuristic novel about a post-modern age society where disease, deformity, discrimination and any other social ill have been cured. A giant computer controls breeding, marriage, career and every other conceivable aspect of life.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 485 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394545125
• ISBN-13: 978-0394545127
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,371,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare Levin novel and two of his most popular as well, August 2, 2001

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Three by Ira Levin (Hardcover)

I am not a fan of Rosemary's Baby, and anyway, it's been reviewed plenty o' times. And you know about the Stepford wives, But...

If you haven't read Levin's This Perfect Day, the third novel in this collection, you are in for a big treat. This is a science-fiction futuristic novel about a post-modern age society where disease, deformity, discrimination and any other social ill have been cured. A giant computer controls breeding, marriage, career and every other conceivable aspect of life. For those areas of human nature not controllable by computer, there's indoctrination and "treatments." The treatment is a weekly hypospray of immunizations, birth control, hormones and LPK, a lithium-based tranquilizer that dulls the baser human urges and promotes peaceful behavior. And if anyone experiences even the slightest "friction", there is your personal advisor to monitor your behavior, and adjust your meds.

The hero of the book, Chip, is a square peg in a round hole. He meets a few other such misfits and the novel is off to a wonderful adventure. The theme is individual freedom, overweening power and a dysutopian society where peace and prosperity come at a high price.

Worth reading. Don't miss it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trust No One, March 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Three: by Ira Levin (Hardcover)

I loved This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. It is the one story that has me thinking that we should not trust government, computers and drugs. This shows what happens when we forget who we are and what happens when we don't question what the people we trust are doing. Find this story if you can it is well worth the search!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three works of Genius, December 9, 2004

By 

Danny T (Allendale, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three by Ira Levin (Hardcover)

I was given a copy of this volume by my father, who found it at a yardsale. I started off cautiously with "Rosemary's Baby"--which scared the hell out of me several successive nights in a row, but it still had me gripped, I must've ploughed through the last half of it all in one sitting.

"Stepford Wives" is also good and a standard classic by Levin, but it paled in comparison to "Rosemary's Baby" and, what I considered the real masterpiece of the work, "This Perfect Day."

I am a huge fan of "1984" and "Brave New World," but, honestly, I think both are nothing compared to "This Perfect Day." The work is just so amazing and more emotional that Orwell or Huxely, it's stranger in ways, perhaps even a little more disturbing and, for most of the work, seems even more hopeless (at least things seemed to be going good for Winston and John the Savage in the other dystopias!). It is beautiful, wonderful, chilling and thought-provoking. I have reccomended this book to almost everyone and wish it were back in print so they could all get it more easily. The other two books in this volume I may only mention as afterthought.