Logan's Run

Logan's Run is a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, published in 1967. A film version was made in 1976, directed by Michael Anderson. A television version was made from 1977 to 1978, produced by Ivan Goff.

Table of contents

1 Exposition 2 Plot Introduction 3 Plot Conclusion 4 Style

Exposition

"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength.

By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on earth were under twenty-one years of age.

The population continued to climb—and with it the youth percentage.

In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 per cent.

In the 1990s, 82.4 per cent.

In the year 2000—critical mass."

Plot Introduction

In the future, the population's age is limited at twenty-one years. When people reach that limit they commit suicide in a ceremony called Carouselle, in which they believe they may be reborn. A person's age can be told by looking at a life clock crystal in the palm of their hand, that glows a different colour depending on their age.

Runners are people who want to escape this fate. Logan, a Deep Sleep, or sandman who policies the Carouselle process, becomes a runner himself when his life clock is put forward so he can work undercover. Jessica 6, a contact Logan has because he terminated her runner brother, helps Logan to find the mythical "sanctuary," a place of safety for runners outside of the massive cities that the population is centered in.

Plot Conclusion

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers.

Francis, another sandman, catches up with Logan and Jessica after they have managed to escape the cities. He reveals that he and Ballard, a friend of Jessica and Logan who has helped them escape, are one in the same (he was wearing a disguise). Ballard is working from within the system, and he believes that it is starting to die. Sanctuary turns out to be an abandoned space colony near Mars. Logan and Jessica escape to the colony on a rocket from the remains of the John F. Kennedy Space Center. Ballard remains to continue to help others escape.

Style

Logan's Run is fast-paced and at times graphic and sexually explicit for the time in which it was written. Although generally dark (forced self-mutilation, sadistic sexual torture), Logan's Run is also quite broadly drawn, with characters such as a cryogenics and sex-obsessed cyborg, and an army of deadly American Civil War recreation androids.

See also: Euthanasia, Dystopia / Utopia, Body modification, Sexual liberation