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Title: Very Out-of-date in most respects
Review: It is interesting to read the "Terminator-esque" fears of 19th century scholar/writers like Butler. Unfortunately, in the face of today's depleted oil supplies, such fears of machines taking over society may be a bit out of date. At any rate, what surely is out of date is Butler's writing style, which is all "tell" and no "show"--the complete opposite of, and in this case vastly inferior to, the Hemingway style of the 20th century. There is only a thin veneer of story here, a thin and slight excuse of a story and then Butler hits us with page after page of philosophical dystopian diatribe. Orwell may have learned a lot from this book which helped him write the masterpiece "1984", but Orwell did it much, much better. Orwell's story, as well as his dystopian diatribe, were much, much sounder and more described and more plausible.
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