Make Room! Make Room!
Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! is a classic dystopian novel about overpopulation. It takes place in New York City in 1999, where 35 million inhabitants compete over water rations, living space, and "soylent" burgers. The story mostly follows a detective who is trying to track down the murderer of a notorious city racketeer. Meanwhile, city water rations are shrinking, power generators are failing, and street protests and general unrest seems to be rising, especially when government bodies threaten to legislate population control. A thoughtful work that became the loose basis for the 1973 film Solyent Green by Richard Fleischer, which starred Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young and Edward G. Robinson (in his final role). The film deviates quite a bit from the book, though, by famously introducing cannibalism to the plot. Originally serialized in Impulse magazine, this first edition was first published by Doubleday Science Fiction in 1966 and is increasingly difficult to find.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth binding. "H18" date code on lower right margin of page 216. New York: Doubleday, 1966. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (50). #10554.
Two faint stains on the lower front panel and fold of the jacket, only discernible on the verso side. Otherwise, an exceptional very fine copy in dust jacket. Scarce.