This image is the cover for the book The Crowded Earth, Classics To Go

The Crowded Earth, Classics To Go

This Crowded Earth is one of the early entries in the overpopulation subgenre. It begins with Harry Collins in that far-future year of 1997, and follows him through various adventures to 2065. Harry is one of the growing number of people who can't stand the over-crowded cities. He lives in a cramped bachelor's apartment -- he could upgrade to a larger one if he'd get married, but he'd also have to add an hour to his commute each way, bringing the total to six hours. One day he suffers a mental breakdown and is sent to a bucolic clinic in the country, where he soon enters a relationship with a nurse. Or so he thinks. A doctor at the clinic approaches him with the truth -- the "nurse" is another patient who was instructed to deceive him in order to start a tryst. They're both, in fact, part of an experiment to solve the over-population problem. The doctor is apprehended by the Powers That Be at the clinic, and Harry is told the man's a nut. But soon his "nurse" disappears and he ends up in a relationship with another ... and then another ... and another. Bloch plays coy about what exactly the experiments are about, but we eventually learn that they're part of a project to end overcrowding by breeding midget babies. (Goodreads)

Robert Bloch

Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917 – September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatised for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation, aged 17. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.

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