Strictly No Shakespeare - Rated 
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894 and saw his first novel - "Crome Yellow" published in 1921. He is best known for his anti-utopian novel "Brave New World", which was first published in 1932.
"Brave New World" set in the year 632 AF - 632 years after the first Model T Ford has rolled off the production lines. (Henry Ford has, it would seem, become the world's main deity, and the "Sign of the T" is commonplace). The 'civilised world' has become a radically different place - although everyone is, technically, happy it's cost a certain amount of 'free will'. The family unit no longer exists, with children now being created in a laboratory. Since the overwhelming majority of women are 'created' sterile, the entire population's physical and intellectual development can be carefully controlled from conception. This level of control ensure that - with only very few exceptions - people are happy fulfilling their pre-determined role in society. (Members of the 'Epsilon Minus' class are bred for menial labour, while - at the other end of the scale - members of the 'Alpha Plus' class are bred for their intelligence). Promiscuous sex and recreational drug use is encouraged, and only a deviant would consider abstaining from either. Similarly, spending time alone is considered abnormal, while monogamy is practically a perversion. One of the book's key characters is Bernard Marx - an Alpha-Plus, who has some rather dubious tendencies. He's planning on taking a rather unusual trip to a "Savage Reservation" : in these places, the primitives who live there have children and raise families in the time honoured fashion. They also grow old and don't consider cleanliness to be "next to fordliness".
I've slightly mixed feelings about "Brave New World". I was a little disappointed - though, with the constant comparisons to "1984", I think my expectations of it were maybe a little off. The elements of the book dealing with indoctrination, conditioning and bio-engineering are certainly relevant to today's world - however, the book just didn't make the impact it could have. Part of the problem, for me, was that the book's focus shifted so often from one character to another - next to Winston Smith, the characters that appeared here were a little flimsy. Similarly, I didn't find Huxley's Brave New World quite inspiring the same depth of feeling as Orwell's Oceania. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth reading, and I can see why it's so highly thought of.
Brave New World - Rated 
This book is a classic and for very good reason. It has some powerful themes and is written in such a gripping way that you can't put the book down until you've finished. It doesn't have the darker, totalitarian, hyper-surveillance overtones of Orwells '1984', but gives an equally disturbing view of the future. The ideas of social conditioning and recreational drugs are especially chilling and makes you look at the world around you in a whole new light. I found the ending a touch lack lustre (hence the four stars), but the journey getting there is marvelous and will make you uncomfortable at times as you consider what life you'd prefer, the drugged easy utopia ,or the feeling savage lands. I guess that's a debate that we ask ourselves spiritually or in our everyday lives to some degree anyway, (simply getting by or feeling deeply and rocking the boat). This book is just an amplification of that. Overall a great read, with stirring themes that will play on your mind for some time to come and well worth the time taken to read it. One of those books that leaves your life richer for having read it.
Does Brave new world stand the test of time ? - Rated
Hailed as a true masterpiece and an intriguing criticism of the evolution of mankind and so well known its title has even become a cultural reference in itself, I was really curious to discover whether Brave new world had stood the test of time and thus purchased and read it.
To summarise the story for those of you who haven't read it (spoilers coming up) : somewhere in the future (around 2540 or so) society has changed dramatically. People are not born anymore but are being grown in test tubes and are being subjected, literally from day one, to physical and mental conditioning in order to fit them within one of the five castes society is made of (alphas, betas, gammas, deltas & epsilons). Each cast has its own characteristics, its own tasks and own types of pleasure, with all members of society sharing but one thing : being happy that they are belong to their cast (which is a result of the aforementioned conditioning). There is no such thing as fear, anger, war, disease or other unpleasanteries anymore, due again to the conditioning, but also to the fact that families and one-to-one relations have been banned. Hedonism is the norm and all members of society are entitled, supposed even, to make love to any other member of society without any true relations being formed. And should anyone still have a bout of blues, he or she should just take some soma, i.e. the widely available drug which makes you hallucinate and forget all your worries instantly. But all this is about to change, when Bernard Marx, an Alpha, travels to one of the very last reserves on the planet where people live unconditioned and like "savages". His encounter with one of them will change quite a few things ...
The book was, I must say, a pleasant read and delivers some poignant reflexions, which made me ponder. Even if our society is quite different from the Fordian society (read the book and you'll see what I mean by that), part of our evolution undeniably presents similarities with Brave new world. I would recommend it from a literary point of view (even if it's not a must read).
Did it stand the test of time though ?
Well, being a science fiction fan myself and nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the answer to that question would be mostly negative, for two reasons.
First of all, the technological evolution as described in Brave new world is truly naive by the current standards of science fiction. Whenever one thinks of the human society some 5 centuries in the future, one would be thinking of robots; transporter beams; fully integrated computers in, well, everything; people living up to 300 years of age; advanced space travel; artificial intelligence; etc.
None of this is to be found in Brave new world. Sure, it foresees that 500 years onwards people will all have their own mini helicopter; that cinemas will have "feelies" (whereby you'll feel whatever happens on the screen); and that people will be cloned instead of born. But at the same time, according to Brave new world, in order to avoid becoming pregnant, women still will have to take a pill (while surely by then medicin will have sorted that problem out); buildings will be huge, i.e. only some 30 floors high (no comment needed there); and people will ... still pick up a telephone ! No trace of artificial intelligence, computers, molecular devices, nano technology, space related topics and the likes.
Brave new world comes off as incredibly naive in this respect. 500 years on you would think that society will have evolved quite a bit more than the way it's described in Huxley's work. It's not really disturbing, although the description of the guy who picks up a telephone did distract me (I was thinking "come on, it's the 26th century !").
Secondly, there is what I'd call a "plot hole". Indeed, since society is solely made up of people who are not born anymore, but are conditioned from day one, since every member of society is unknowingly part of a huge controlled scheme to avoid any riots, wars and other types of disturbance, how could there still be such a thing as a "reserve" in which "savages" roam freely ? Surely, by then the whole planet should have been colonised ? It's worth barely a couple of lines in Brave new world, but basically it's stated that some area's are so barren it would be too expensive to actually build thereon. Come on ! Again, we're some 500 years in the future and Huxley tries to paint an advanced society. By then, humanity would have invaded every last bit of earth and no part would be "too barren" anymore. Quite clearly Huxley needed a way to fit in the existence of the reserves and came up with that excuse. For me, however, it's more of a plot hole than a valid explanation.
Am I nitpicking ? Am I disgracing a masterpiece of modern literature ? Should I be able to read it with 'artistic' glasses and dismiss these 'technical' glitches ? No, for each reader has his own experience, his own preferences and his own set of dislikings. So, feel free to disagree with me, but this is the way I look at Brave new world.
A great book - Rated 
I think that this stands alongside 1984: it is as great a book, but a different man's viewpoint of a nightmarish?/perfect? future. And, despite advances in genetics and transport, etc., BNY does not feel dated. I first read this in the 70's (that ages me!), when hedonism was the name of the game, and it still resonates today. It doesn't matter if characters are 'likeable' or not; the important thing is that they feel right. Bernard Marx is ALWAYS a realistic, and realistically flawed, man. At the end of the book, of course I'm disappointed at his lack of moral fibre, but it was to be expected. Like John, Bernard was condemned before birth to always being an outsider in his decanted/birth society and he has the outsider's Olympus size chip on his shoulder. However, most of us, I think, would ultimately have chosen his path of least resistence/compromise. I find Bernard as tragic a figure as John, and his 'fate' is spot on. John, of course, is the quintessentially 'Greek' tragic figure: a man who is not so much unwilling as unable to fit in anywhere, betrayed and broken by his own 'fatal flaw' of being incapable of compromise. He's almost Christ-like when he throws the Soma away. But Bernard's tragedy is more subtle: one can remove the man from his society in which he's never really been accepted, but how do you remove the society from the man? A great and still profound read.
A close second - Rated
I only gave this 4 stars because in the ongoing debate as to which dystopia more closely describes the direction our world is going I have to say George Orwell's 1984 wins out. But that does not mean that this novel is any less of a read than 1984.
Though the grim vision of Orwell's world hold's true today so does much of Huxley's the concept of soma being used to numb the mind, prevent thinking, it exists in our world. Television is our soma, crass news stories of lost cats or who is the father of who's celebrity baby, it's all mind numbing rot. How much longer before babies are created in tubs of gel and people are bred for specific tasks and castes in our societies. Closer than we think I fear.
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