Children of Men by P.D. James

The premise of this 1992 futuristic novel is very intriguing--suddenly and all at once, all human sperm becomes non-viable, even that previously frozen in sperm banks. No more babies. The book opens in 2021, when the last children born are 25 years old and hope has died for a solution to the problem. The possibilities for plot development and speculation are myriad. How would people behave if they knew that humanity was doomed to extinction in 60 years or so? How might the youngest ones react, knowing that one among them may be the last person left alive? And what about the older people, as they realize that nobody may care to help them in their final years? Would civilized behavior go out the window?

Unfortunately, this novel does not examine many of those issues, concentrating instead on one middle-aged professor and his transformation from a detached observer with a seeming inability to love anyone into a loving human being capable of love and self sacrifice. Neither his abrupt change nor the actions of the other primary characters seem very logical.

For example, the most dramatic development is the pregnancy of a young woman with its implication for the salvation of mankind. Rather than revealing herself and the father with living sperm to the world, she insists on delivering her baby in secret in less-than-ideal circumstances, because she does not want the Warden of England (whom she considers to be evil) present at the birth.

And then there's the plot about the 5-person rebellion of sorts against the Warden of England, who has brought a measure of peace and order to the country, suggested not to exist in other countries. His pragmatic solutions appear to the dissidents to be evil, but most people welcome his rule and would vote for him if given the opportunity. (An examination of whether or not a benevolent dictatorship is sometimes a better solution to a dire situation than democratic chaos might have been interesting here.) Particularly illogical is the group's complaint that the mandatory government checking of male sperm is demeaning to the tested. Really? We are talking about the survival of humanity here and they find testing to be demeaning?

Ultimately, I was disappointed in this book because I believe the author could not decide whether it was a dystopian survival novel or an examination of one person's redemption through love. Perhaps these two themes could be combined successfully, but James did make either strand believable.