First published in 1968, SoZ gives us a detailed picture of the dystopian future world... of 2010. Earth's population has reached over 7 billion. Cannabis is legal, but tobacco is illegal. Most countries have eugenics legislation. There is greater acceptance of the LGBT community.
To give us a broad view of this dystopian world, SoZ has four categories of chapters: 'Continuity', which tells the main storyline; 'Tracking With Closeups', which give insights into the lives of minor characters; 'The Happening World', which give samples of conversation, news headlines, announcements, facts, etc; and 'Context', which gives detailed background information.
SoZ is certainly impressive in its ambitious scope, but I found it disappointingly dated and dull.
There is a lot of irritating fake slang: 'codder', 'shiggy', 'sheeting', 'whatinole', 'dreck', etc. The only female characters are either sex objects or a sinister elderly businesswoman. 'The Happening World' chapters often felt like printouts of Facebook news feeds: occasionally there is something interesting, often it's drivel. The main plot advances extremely slowly, and features uninteresting characters.
At the halfway point I was resolved to give up, but the main plot interested me just enough that I genuinely wanted to know what happened. I failed to find an online summary to save me the effort. I decided to persevere, skipping many of the 'Context', 'Tracking With Closeups', and 'The Happening World' chapters, and only skimming the 'Continuity' chapters to get it over with quickly. It wasn't worth it.
SoZ gave me greater certainty that our present reality is a dystopian future, a more interesting dystopian future than the one presented in this 'masterwork' from 1968. Read SoZ if you're interested in the history of science fiction, but if you want a detailed picture of a dystopian world, you'd be better off reading the news, National Geographic, or New Scientist, and occasionally scrolling through Facebook or Twitter.
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