The Edict

The Edict is a 1971 overpopulation dystopia set in a future where Earth's population has reached ten billion and food shortages have produced riots and cannibalism across the globe. A world government called WorldGov responds by broadcasting an edict via satellite decreeing that no child may be born for the next thirty years. Violating couples and their children will be executed. Citizens who report illegal children are rewarded with extra food rations. Into this surveillance state, Carole Evans and her husband Russ, caretakers of a preserved twentieth-century museum home, secretly conceive and attempt to raise a child. The novel follows their increasingly desperate attempt to keep the child hidden as the state closes in. Written as a novelization of the 1972 film Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth), co-authored with screenwriter Frank de Felitta. This Science Fiction Book Club edition is the true first edition


Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, dark red boards. Code "B40" p.181. New York: Nelson Doubleday, Inc, 1971. #11260.
Fine in fine dust jacket.