785    P.D. James’ “THE CHILDREN OF MEN,” unabridged, 1993, 7 cassettes, 10½ hours of listening. Narrated by John Franklyn-Robbins. ISBN: 155690861X. Recorded Books, LLC.   

    P.D. James, best-selling author of the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series, has proven herself adept at writing novels that are suspense full without being gratuitously violent, complex without being complicated. Her characters are convincing and their plights believable, which makes The Children of Men all the more compelling.

    The human race faces extinction. It is annihilation brought not by disease or nuclear war, not by crashing meteorites or colliding stars. Men and women have ceased, simply, to procreate. In 1994, sperm counts hit zero; pediatrics wards were rapidly and permanently depleted. Overnight, it seemed, the human race had lost its power to breed.

    The last generation of children to offer mankind a chance was born in 1995–the Omegas. Coddled and overprotected, the Omegas were the world’s last, great hope. When they, too, reached sexual maturity unable to breed, everyone realized homo sapiens had become a doomed commodity.

    Now, 25 years later, a pervasive lethargy blankets the world. Pornography has been legalized. Massive numbers of people have fled back to the cities, fearful of encroaching nature. Ritualistic suicides are sanctioned by the government as a means of ridding countries of their surplus elderly. Anarchy reigns in the prisons, immigrants are enslaved, renegade Omegas terrorize the land.

    CONDITION: Exceptional for a 29-year-old former library audiobook.