Fahrenheit is a strange book. Not so much science fiction, more of social fiction. It tells of social fiction, of a world were “happiness” (fun) is the only value and it is forbidden to read (maybe even own) books, because they make you think and in doing this they make you sad. There is a bit of science fiction in the book, like the mechanical dog which can “smell” a specific person’s scent with expert accuracy, find him and kill (or maybe only paralyze him) which a needle which he has on his mouth. And then there are interactive TVs the size of walls, for which you can also buy extra components so that when the speaker talks, he talks your name and acts as if he is talking only to you. But these are minor things.
The major topic of the book are the Firefighters, which don’t extinguish fires, but light them. They are the ones in charge of burning the books. The main character, Montague, is a firefighter who turns against the establishment after having met a girl who seduces him with her vision of the world. And then he finds a book and reads. And this changes him forever.
I didn’t enjoy the book much. The author describes too many things too many times. Long uses of adjectives to describe what Montague feels just get a boring and while the story is already short it could be reduced even more. And reading the Wikipedia entry on the novel, I saw the in truth the book is an expansion of a short novel called “The Fireman”, which itself is a longer version of a short story called “Bright Phoenix”.
Anyway, but it is one of the must-reads for every science fiction fan, and there are some interesting things in the book, so if you want to buy it, do so from amazon
