Return to Mark/Space
ISBN 0-06-015801-8 (US hbk)
non-fiction, pollution, toxicity, environment, birth defects, cancer, immune system
"Suppose you read a science fiction novel in which you learned that atmosperic pollution was much more dangerously extant than anyone dreamed; that toxic waste -- including deadly dioxin -- is as commonly found in the air we breathe as in isolated dumpsites; that appalling birth defects, a striking increase in cancer, and an epidemic damage to the immune system is coming about as a result; that airborne DDT and other banned chemicals are arriving from other countries on the jet stream and are destroying some of our most beautiful and remote areas and causing hideous deformities in thousands of animals; that atmospheric pollutants are combining in a process known as synergism to create more compounds... so that 1,000 pollutants become 10,000 of unknown characteristics?
"Would you find all that quite plausible? Would you believe it could come about?
"And one more question. Suppose you found out that it wasn't a novel at all. It was non-fiction. It was all quite true and it was happening now... In that case, how would you feel?...
"I cannot impress on you too vigorously how important this book is. The situation is not one of mere inconvenience to us; it is not a matter of a slight and regrettable increase in the incidence of cancer. It is far worse. If I go on about this, you will dismiss me as an alarmist. Instead, read the book. Mr Brown is no hysterical alarmist. He is not a paranoid.
"I am very much afraid that Mr Brown is simply right." --John Shirley (in Science Fiction Eye , Volume 1, Number 3, March 1988).
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