Nature's End

Fine hardcover w/nf dj, Copyright 1986 by Wilson & Neff and James Kunetka, BCE 6472. 404 pages by Whitley Strieber & James Kunetka, authors of WARDAY. The authors of the best seller Warday ( LJ 4/1/84) depict in powerful detail a 21st-century Earth with devastated environment and rampant overpopulation. A rich and comfortable elite coexists with malnourished, pitiful billions, ``the victim generation.'' The rich enjoy youth preservation treatments and other biomedical wonders while the rest just endure the toxicity and pollution. Hero John Sinclair and a few rich companies fight to thwart the leader of a burgeoning Depopulation Movement that would have each third person poisoned to ``solve'' the population crisis. Readers will follow with grim fascination these struggles to survive in a dying world. Sobering message eclipses story, and the book should strike home with a variety of informed citizens. Strongly recommended. William A. Donovan, Chicago P.L.