Everyone stand on Zanzibar

At the beginning of the twentieth century, someone calculated that the entire population of the Earth could fit on White island, putting everyone shoulder to shoulder. By 1968, when John Branner released his romance, this purpose would already be required by the island of Maine, whose area is four times larger. And after several decades, by the time the action of the novel unfolds, the number of inhabitants of the Earth reached such limits that they did not have enough space even on Zanzibar.

The planet is suffocating. The population goes crazy with crowding, poverty and lack of prospects. People are tightly sitting on drugs legalized by the government to reconcile citizens with their joyless being. After all, even quiet family joys are now available not to everyone. In developed countries, there is strict legislation prohibiting people with an imperfect genome to have children.

For the majority, a full -fledged family becomes an unattainable and infinitely desired dream.

And so everything would have gone, if not for the invention of an Asian scientist who gave hope for healthy offspring even to those who do not have ideal physical and mental health...