The Unit: A Novel – by Ninni Holmqvist

Other Press, 2009 ISBN: 9781590513132

In this dystopian near-future novel, society deals with population control and the use of limited resources by defining anyone over the age of 50 who is unpartnered and/or doesn’t have children, as dispensable.

The story is told by Dorrit, a Scandanavian woman who has just reached her 50th birthday must give up the little house she is so proud of, and worse, her beloved dog to report to the mysterious “Unit.” Residents at the Unit are given small apartments, provided with good meals, entertainment, a gym, an indoor garden — anything to make them comfortable except their own lives. In exchange, they must participate in medical experiments which may or may not be safe, and ultimately they must begin donating organs and skin to the younger population, until they are called to, or volunteer to make their “final donation.”

When Dorrit falls unexpectedly in love, everything changes for her.

Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem

Doubleday, 1998     ISBN: 0385485182

Fourteen year old Pella Marsh and her two younger brothers move with their failed politician father to a new planet following the death of their mother.

The planet is populated by small groups of human settlers, and one human city, as well as by its original occupants the Arch-Builders and the household deer, the former of whom can speak English, and the latter of which are almost ghostly and hard to notice.

The humans take pills to ward off a change related to the Arch-Builders that comes on with puberty, but Pella’s father doesn’t want his children to take the medication, curious to see what will happen.

Thinking that perhaps his political experience will be useful, Pella’s father settles the family into a small outpost community where, despite seeming friendliness, suspicion is more the norm. Pella soon begins to experience some unusual symptoms, and is disturbed by the leading questions and knowing looks from one of the less than pleasant men in the community.

Misunderstandings between species are inevitable, and Lethem’s tale of human interaction with each other and with an alien culture is ultimately unsurprisingly dark.