This is such an interesting story that I was quite disappointed that it lacked an ending.

Or rather, lacked a climax. I had the feeling the story was going somewhere, and then it… didn’t. Not really.

Still, I absolutely love its very well thought out future. Bits of it seem slightly old-fashioned, but for the most part, it was a future that seemed believable and interesting, written with enough grit and light cynicism to be realistic without being depressing.

I could take issue with the whole “peace and safety are boring” notion. That’s a hackneyed science fiction trope that I don’t think stands up to scrutiny at all. From the point of view of someone from the turn of the 20th century, we of the modern world live in unimaginable luxury and comfort, and they might conclude “oh, what a boring future that must be!”.

But it isn’t. Human beings create their own challenges, goals, structures, and so on. In a world of unending material prosperity, people’s activities would simply move higher up on the hierarchy of needs.

Seems obvious, doesn't it? And yet...

Sure, a civilization might arise that gives us all a great deal of material comfort, physical pleasure, sex droids and worker robots and all of us living like lords of the manor.

But what of friendship, family, people to respect, people to respect us, and so on? People will still need all those higher order things, and hence will be motivated to go out there into the world and find love, start families, seek the recognition of their peers, and so forth and so on.

That aside, though, I quite enjoyed the story.

Isn’t Maslow’s hierarchy beautiful? So simple and yet there is so much truth in there.