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Trouble With Lichen

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We currently live in a society where people feel like they have to do everything before they're thirty. This is largely due to such depressingly self-evident phrases as "life's too short" or "you're only young once". But what if we had more time?

Francis Saxover, a respected biochemist, discovers a way to slow the ageing process, making it possible to live a couple of extra centuries. With a discovery of this magnitude, there are bound to be far-reaching implications, and Saxover tries to keep the miraculous cure (which he calls Antigerone) under wraps. Because the supply of Antigerone is limited, it's a question of deciding who gets the treatment. Who would use the time most wisely?

The benefits of most scientific advances are usually limited to the rich at first. But this changes over time. "Trouble With Lichen" is a satirical novel which poses some questions on the pros and cons of an increased lifespan. One obvious con is overpopulation. As we know, Earth is a planet of finite resources, a planet overburdened by an immature species contending with famine, disease and habitual war. At first, Antigerone is unlikely to alleviate this problem. On the other hand, if Antigerone did become widely available and people could live longer, they wouldn't feel the pressure to marry and have children as quickly as they do now, in order to pass on the family name. In fact, one could put off starting a family until they're in their early nineties. What about the rise in umemployment as people take longer to retire? One possible way around this would be to make people stay in school longer. At the moment twelve years is scarcely adequate for a full, comprehensive education. The learning process would be far less stressful if it wasn't so rushed. Can you imagine starting high school at fifty?

It would be nice to think that the longer we live the more wisdom we would gain. The pace through life would be much more leisurely and happy, not fraught with a feeling of dashed hopes and time slipping by.

It might have been interesting to actually see how the characters' lives unfold over the next two hundred years or so. But Wyndham leaves this to conjecture, which is a bit of a pity. Nevertheless "Trouble With Lichen" is certainly thought-provoking.

In this innovative novel Wyndham faces todays most intrusive problem, old age, and its cure. A good example of one of the first science fiction novels that aren't merely a diversion but also a peek at the moralities that might follow those discoveries that at the moment only exist in our imagination. Even though the end is a disappointment, it is appropriate for those who love science fiction as well as those who have under-rated this expanding corner of fiction.

One of John Wyndham's best. Diana Brackly, along with Francis Saxover, discover the cure for ageing and the problems it faces. Read it- you'll like it.