The World Inside

1971 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg

For the album by Human Drama, see The World Inside (album).

The World Inside

Cover of first edition (hardcover).

Author| Robert Silverberg
Cover artist| James Starrett
Language| English
Genre| Science fiction
Publisher| Doubleday

Publication date

| 1971
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages| 201
ISBN| 0-385-03621-3
OCLC| 148344

The World Inside is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, published in 1971. The novel originally appeared as a series of shorter works in 1970 and 1971, all but one published in Galaxy, including the Hugo nominated novella "The World Outside". The World Inside was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1972,[1] although Silverberg declined the nomination.[2]

On March 2, 2010, Orb Books published this title as a trade paperback edition.[3]

## Plot introduction

[edit]

The novel is set on Earth in the year 2381, when the population of the planet has reached 75 billion people.[4] Population growth has skyrocketed due to a quasi-religious belief in human reproduction as the highest possible good. Most of the action occurs in a massive three-kilometer-high city tower called Urban Monad 116.

## Plot summary

[edit]

War, starvation, crime and birth control have been eliminated. Life is now totally fulfilled and sustained within Urban Monads (Urbmons), mammoth thousand-floor skyscrapers arranged in "constellations", where the shadow of one building does not fall upon another. An Urbmon is divided into 25 self-contained "cities" of 40 floors each, in ascending order of status, with administrators occupying the highest level. Each building can hold approximately 800,000 people, with excess population totalling three billion a year transferred to new Urbmons, which are continually under construction.

The Urbmon population is supported by the conversion of all of the Earth's habitable land area not taken up by Urbmons to agriculture. The theoretical limit of the population supported by this arrangement is estimated to be 200 billion. The farmers live a very different lifestyle, with strict birth control. Farmers trade their produce for technology and the two societies rarely have direct contact; even their languages are mutually unintelligible.

The Urbmons are a world of total sexual license where men are expected to engage in "nightwalking"; it is considered very rude to refuse an invitation for sex. In this world it is a blessing to have children: most people are married at 12 and parents at 14. Just thinking of controlling families is considered a faux pas. Privacy has been dispensed with due to the limited area. Because the need to be outdoors and to travel has been eliminated, thoughts of wanderlust are considered perverse.

The dwellers of the Urban Monad share scant resources and believe that sharing of everything is required in order for people to peacefully coexist in close quarters. The sharing extends to wives and husbands.

Although great effort is spent to maintain a stable society, the Urban Monad lifestyle causes mental illness in a small percentage of people, and this fate befalls two of the book's main characters. "Moral engineers" reprogram those who are approaching an unacceptable level of behavior.

Given the extremes of life in the Urban Monads, law enforcement and the concept of justice employ a zero tolerance policy. There are usually no trials, and punishment is swift; anyone who threatens the stability of the Urbmon society (a "flippo") is "erased" by being thrown into a shaft that terminates in the building's power generator. This gives one of the book's characters the idea that humanity has been selectively bred for life within the Urbmons.

## Characters

[edit]

* Jason Quevedo, historian, scholar who researches the society archives to recreate previous eras
* Siegmund Kluver, specialized in theory of urban administration, consultant to the administration of the building

## See also

[edit]

* Judge Dredd – comic involving comparable harshness in urban criminal enforcement
* Make Room! Make Room!
* Stand on Zanzibar
* "Billennium"
* The Time Machine – 1895 science fiction novella by H. G. Wells involving a selectively bred city population

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "1972 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-11.
2. ^ "Title: The World Inside". isfdb.org. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
3. ^ "Macmillan: The World Inside: Robert Silverberg: Books". Archived from the original on 2010-02-13.
4. ^ "Fiction Book Review: The World Inside by Robert Silverberg". March 2010.

## External links

[edit]

* The World Inside title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
* The World Inside at Worlds Without End

* v
* t
* e

Robert Silverberg

* Bibliography

Novels|

* Revolt on Alpha C
* Lest We Forget Thee, Earth
* Starman's Quest
* Collision Course
* The Seed of Earth
* The Silent Invaders
* Time of the Great Freeze
* Conquerors from the Darkness
* The Gate of Worlds
* Planet of Death
* Thorns
* Those Who Watch
* The Time Hoppers
* Hawksbill Station
* The Masks of Time
* The Man in the Maze
* Nightwings
* Across a Billion Years
* To Live Again
* Up the Line
* Downward to the Earth
* Tower of Glass
* Son of Man
* The Second Trip
* The World Inside
* A Time of Changes
* The Book of Skulls
* Dying Inside
* Shadrach in the Furnace
* Sailing to Byzantium
* Nightfall
* The Face of the Waters
* Kingdoms of the Wall
* The Positronic Man
* Starborne
* Roma Eterna

| Nidonian series|

* The Shrouded Planet
* The Dawning Light

|

Majipoor series|

* Lord Valentine's Castle
* Majipoor Chronicles
* Valentine Pontifex

Gilgamesh series|

* Gilgamesh the King
* To the Land of the Living

Short story collections|

* The Cube Root of Uncertainty

Anthologies edited|

* Alpha series
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* 6
* 7
* 8
* 9
* The Best of Randall Garrett
* Dawn of Time
* Deep Space: Eight Stories of Science Fiction
* Epoch
* Far Horizons
* Legends
* Legends II
* The Nebula Awards #18
* Nebula Awards Showcase 2001
* New Dimensions 1
* New Dimensions II
* New Dimensions 3
* New Dimensions IV
* New Dimensions 5
* Robert Silverberg Presents the Great SF Stories: 1964
* The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964
* Strange Gifts
* Universe 1
* Universe 2
* Universe 3

Nonfiction|

* Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations

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