Nebula Award Finalist: A "brilliantly crafted, engrossing" dystopian
novel of environmental disaster by the Hugo Award-winning author of
Stand on Zanzibar (The Guardian).
In a near future, the air pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas
masks. The infant mortality rate is soaring, and birth defects, new
diseases, and physical ailments of all kinds abound. The water is
undrinkable--unless you're poor and have no choice. Large corporations
fighting over profits from gas masks, drinking water, and clean food
tower over an ineffectual, corrupt government.
Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The "trainites," a group of
violent environmental activists, want him to lead their movement; the
government wants him dead; and the media demands amusement. But Train
just wants to survive.
More than a novel of science fiction, The Sheep Look Up is a skillful
and frightening political and social commentary that takes its place
next to other remarkable works of dystopian literature, such as Margaret
Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and George Orwell's 1984.