Brain Wave

by Poul Anderson

A fascinating 'what if novel, Brainwave is an exploration into the ways human society is organized and the assumptions that are made about how life is valued. It is also a novel about equality and what happens when the hierarchical structures by which we arrange our daily lives disappear.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Fantasy, Dystopia, Science Fiction Fantasy, Classics

164 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1954

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poul Anderson’s Brain Wave is a novel concept: earth has been existing in a force field that inhibited brain activity for eons. Then, we finally move out of the field and suddenly all animal life, people and animals, experience a radical increase in intelligence.

I enjoy his writing and his approach to this unique idea, but the story itself was disjointed and unbalanced. If this had remained a short story, and if the plot had been more linear, this would have been much better. I did like the none too subtle message delivered that the economy suffered once everyone grew more intelligent, delivering a stinging rebuke to a materialistic, overly commercialized society.

As it is, it is still very entertaining and enjoyable and Anderson’s wonderful imagination is in full form.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prolific Grand Master Poul Anderson earned his place of honor within the hallowed halls of science fiction’s best and brightest. His work may not be as engagingly readable as Asimov, or as accessibly impactful as Clarke. He was never as politically-minded as Heinlein and his prose is not as slick and stylish as Vance or Zelazny. However, I would argue that his product is among the top in so many areas that his wide-ranging competencies, when married to his prodigious ability to spin the “big idea,” make his catalog a required staple for any serious examination of science fiction.

SYNOPSIS:

Brain Wave is the quintessence of big idea science fiction and Anderson explores it with the skill of a veteran spelunker navigating through a vast underground expanse. The Earth, having existed in a neural-dampening field since the cretaceous period, suddenly emerges resulting in a five fold increase in intelligence for every person (and animal) on the planet. Following this life-altering event singularity, society immediately begins to breakdown as the first step of a radical realignment.

You have:

**unskilled workers suddenly disenchanted with the monotony of their daily, yet essential jobs;

**professionals finding their money and status-centric occupations tiresome and unfulfilling;

**large portions of the “pre change” highly intelligent finding nothing but confused madness on the other side of the IQ boost;

**pigs, monkeys and other animals suddenly finding themselves questioning their place in humanity’s world and equipped with the capacity to do something about it; and

**regular joes and janes finding that heightened intelligence does not necessarily mean an end to prejudice, intolerance, fear and self-doubt.


This is a fascinating premise for a “what if” novel and Poul does an admirable job, to the extent he is allowed, to explore the effects on human society and how life reorganizes itself when the age-old hierarchies and social structures are shattered.

THOUGHTS:

I “only” gave this 3 stars (really 3.5). This is not a reflection of the power or skill of Anderson’s novel. There is much of both within. It’s rather an acknowledgement of the shackles placed on Poul by his editors and the marketing gurus of the time, who required the book to fit within the slim 200 page format of SF stories of the time.

I believe this is a story begging to be allowed to breathe and develop and I think if Poul had been given the opportunity, this would be a 500 page, wide net examination of the many facets of what it means to be human. As it is, we are limited to following a handful of individuals: Peter Corinth, a brilliant (by pre-change standards) research physicist; Sheila Corinth, Peter’s wife; Felix Mandelbaum, a union official; and Archie Brock, a mentally handicapped individual.

Within the four individual stories we see the struggles faced by most of the world’s population as they come to terms with the extreme increase in intelligence. To Anderson’s credit, he uses the time he is allotted to tell a compelling story. The tales of both Sheila Corinth and Archie Brock are particularly moving.

It just could have been so much more.

In addition to the unfortunate lack of full idea development, I found the ending, while good, to be not quite as wowza as I would have liked. Still, this is a work that deserves to be read and I think is more than worth the ration of hours it will take to consume it. A lesser known, but quality work by one of the best.

3.5 stars. Recommended (highly).

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept, troubling conclusions. I mean, isn't this what a lot of great SF is all about? A great idea to explore and get really excited about, coupled with a great story for the personal impact?

We've got half of this. I almost squeed like a little girl with the idea that EVERYTHING on the planet got intelligent practically overnight. All the animals jumped in intelligence as well as all the people. We've got the ultimate What If, laying the foundation for the later brilliant book by Keyes, Flowers for Algernon or even the Smart Barkley in ST:TNG to a fairly epic level right off the bat, even laying the epic foundation for Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought, the places in the galaxy where intelligence slows or speeds up to godlike levels depending on where you are, praying that you remain safe.

So what's my problem? Nothing too extreme, but each piles up and annoys until I just had to drop a few stars. Probably the worst is just a feature of 1950 when this came out, namely the assumption and portrayal of women being idiots or lazy or hopelessly enamoured and stymied because of inaccessible men. It drives me crazy. It also happened in Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, which was also a great novel in all respects except this.

Smaller issues? Oh, like the assumption that with great intelligence the desire to prolong your own survival goes away. You know, like maintaining simple commerce or getting things done. I mean, come on, don't you think that if we got smarter we'd see right through that bullshit and roll up our sleeves? I mean, if everyone has broken the scale in intelligence, it's not like there would be anyone TO EXPLOIT. It should be a no brainer that if you want to survive, then get to work.

Oh yeah, and desiring to return to the way things were before? Good grief. Intelligence does not equal unhappiness. I could make a good case that unhappiness in the very intelligent comes from being alone and unfulfilled. So what if the new standard is higher across the board? It means that we're all in the same boat as before, still needing to find meaning and connection in our lives. It doesn't change just because of our IQ.

Other than that, I do think the basic premise is pretty damn awesome and I'd love to see a whole team of authors from all over the world try to tackle this issue seriously and creatively, not just an admittedly awesome author writing from 1950 from a narrow cultural viewpoint.

I'd love to see what everyone else might come up with, because the idea is still fantastic and there can be a ton of really great play, here. :)

I might even say that this novel deserves a full 5 stars just for the concept and its robust beauty and how it continues to spark the imagination. :)

...But the story kinda drags it down, alas. Ooh, the opportunity!

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brain Wave
By Poul Anderson
I had read so many of these author's books when growing up, so when I saw this one, I had to grab it. I couldn't remember reading it, and the blurb sounded fantastic.
The plot and idea were fantastic! A strange wave passed over the earth, and all the creatures on earth started to increase their intelligence. It just kept increasing. The book follows a select few, one of them being a mentally deficient man. Society changes in so many ways. The world changes! I would have thought it would improve. Society would be beyond war, but things are not like that at all! It is very interesting if you like societies and weird changes. Creepy.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like returning to the “classics” of my youth, for I always discover not only something new about the work itself, but something about myself and how I have changed. Sometimes, though, rediscovery is a mitigated pleasure; sometimes I must face that fact that one of my old “classics” isn’t really a classic after all.

Re-reading Brainwave was like that. I still think the premise is a first-class idea: after a period of millions of years, the Earth moves out of a neuron-hampering space field, and suddenly the brain power of all terrestrial creatures—men and women, chimpanzees, pigs, sheep, even bunnies—surges at an alarming rate.

How will the old human institutions, based on on the limited insights of inferior intellects, hold up under new scrutiny? Will the brainy new humans rise to the challenge, or will they collapse under the strain of their new intelligence? And the old domestic animals, the ones no longer too dumb to know any better: how will they react to their inferior status?

Yes, these are good questions, and I remember being intrigued by the way Anderson attempted to answer them. I particularly loved the parts of the book which took place on a recently abandoned farm operated by a mentally-disabled man (now of near-genius I.Q,) named Archie Brock, how he coped with the revolt of the crafty pigs and came to regret the slaughter of the sheep, who were now consciously, creepily, aware of their fate. (For years I remembered a particularly fine passage in which it was obvious that the sheep—with the help of their Lord and Slaughterer Archie—would soon be forming a religion.)

As sometimes happens with re-reads, I discovered I was right about the parts of the book I remembered, for these were the parts that worked well. What I had forgotten about were the parts of the book that didn't work at all.

The “city” portions of Brainwave don't work nearly as well as the "farm" parts. There is a tedious love triangle that slows the action, and Anderson’s attempt to create a new kind of speech for the super-geniuses (a slap-dash fabrication consisting of normal dialogue in quotes, gestural emphases in quotations, and telepathic emotional messages in italics) just seems complicated and—even worse—kinda dumb. Poul Anderson is a smart writer, but the challenge of making a super genius sound smart is a challenge which thoroughly defeated him. (And it has defeated others before and after him too.)

Although the Archie Brock sequences have a few problems of their own (for example, the gun-wielding circus chimpanzees working the farm resemble caricatures of field Negroes), they are extraordinarily successful. Brock’s point of view—that of an extremely intelligent normal man who once was mentally disabled—is both interesting in itself and useful for the narrative. Brock could have provided all the insights into the “brainwave” event that the reader of this novel needed to hear.

Yes, Poul Anderson should have taken the perennial advice given to rural youth since time immemorial: Poul Anderson should have stayed down on the farm.

[Lizz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t writes reviews.

This was an amazing concept! The entirety of sentient life on Earth grows exponentially more intelligent. Then everything falls apart? Why? It seems ridiculous to assume that the world turns to shite while at the same time faster-than-light speed space travel is created in two months. Soviets decide to drop nukes, but a few guys made a huge shield (unbeknownst to anyone) capable of protecting the whole northeast US, again within a very short time period.

Everyone becomes, or are, amplified assholes. I thought the intelligent feel lonely because they are misunderstood, however Anderson keeps that angsty intelligent stereotype going even when EVERYONE is super smart. The one interesting point is the development of communication between people in close relationships. People can say more with less and the understanding is deeper. That doesn’t necessarily sound like a result of hyper-intelligence, but rather intense focus. But really the people are still dicks.

Now you may not know it because I write like I learned English from watching The Love Boat and CHIPS (I won’t hear a word against Erik Estrada!), but I have quite a high IQ. If a world of smarties is anything like Poul’s imagining, I would sign up for the path that the character Sheila takes.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine for a moment that humanity is a race of drooling idiot-children, operating at 20-25% of our brain capacity. (Was that a stretch for you? It wasn't for me, thinking of the US election, sundry pointless wars and the popularity of The Coolest on Kickstarter.) Now imagine that over the course of a few days the intelligence of every human (and every animal) on Earth expanded to four or five times their current level. This is the central premise of Brain Wave.

In Anderson's alternate universe our solar system has spent millions of years drifting through a section of the Galaxy suffused with a field that dampens electrical reactions, including those in animal brains. As Brain Wave begins Earth has finally begun to exit this field, and the world changes overnight. The mentally disabled become geniuses, the average person becomes an intellectual giant and the leading thinkers of the day acquire demi-god-like smarts.

Economies collapse as pointless consumerism ceases. Millions of newly gifted thinkers walk off their unsatisfying jobs, no longer satisfied with tedious toil in pursuit of pointless fripperies. The political system becomes irrelevant and humanity begins to look for new and greater challenges, our collective eyes turning towards the stars. Meanwhile apes join revolutions in Africa while rabbits and pigs use their newly sharpened wits to escape from human traps and cages.

However this sudden smarts-boost brings more than philosophising and higher sudoku scores. Some people lose their sanity under the pressure of their new introspective powers, others join cults, riot and kill. Folks whose limited mental abilities previously excluded them from mainstream society are boosted to genius level, but genius level is childlike in the new world order and these former outcasts are as separate from society as before, but with a far greater capacity to understand their separation and what their impairments mean for them.

Anderson's exploration of the impact of all this extra brainpower is convincing, entertaining and thoughtful.

Surprisingly, Brain Wave has aged pretty well. One of my favourite (and perhaps masochistic) parts of reading older sci-fi works is looking for the anachronistic clangers so common to books written in the mid 20th Century - tape decks being used in far-future century Martian colonies, physical letters being delivered by hand in the year 3026, the nonexistence or subservience of female characters- that kind of thing. Brain Wave is notably short of such bum notes, with only a few 50's style sexist notes (a female character's appearance being entirely judged on her attractiveness to men) and references to intellectually handicapped individuals as 'morons' and 'imbeciles'. Anderson's story holds up pretty well for a 2016 reader.

This isn't a perfect book, or even a great one, but it's good, and the central concept is fascinating. Apparently Anderson felt that Brain Wave was among his best books, and I would add that it is one of the better works of SF from the 1950s that I've read. The central concept was one that I found immensely appealing. Life in a society of geniuses - comprised of a general public able to see through the nasty political propaganda swamping us and the self-destructive work and consumption habits that our society currently champions - sounds pretty good to me.

3.5 stars.

[Apatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The blurb on the front cover of the paperback version reads "A panoramic story of what happens to a world gone super intelligent!". That sums the basic premise up so perfectly it saves me writing a synopsis (hurrah!).

I love high concepts, They make it easier to "pitch" to my GR friends. Brain Wave is about every living creature in the world suddenly having their intellect more than quadrupled. Such a deceptively simple premise, it seems like anybody can write a story about this. However, Poul Anderson is one of sf's all-time greats, and here he managed to spin out a lot of imaginative yet entirely believable ramifications from such an event.

Referring back to that aforementioned blurb again the "panoramic story" part refers to a multiple viewpoints structure which allows the author to create a detailed post-IQ boost world. Here Anderson focuses on a wide range of people, among them some scientists, a housewife, a simple farmhand, and some monkeys. Super intellect - as it turns out - is not desirable for everyone, a lot of people go insane from suddenly thinking and perceiving too much. People who hold menial jobs now find repetition and lack of challenge intolerable so they quit in droves. While this is not a post-apocalypse world it does have a similar feel to it, with government breaking down, people deserting their jobs, and pigs attacking people!

This is a very short novel (175 pages) so not a lot of time is spent on character development, I do like the farmhand plot strand, though, it has a Flowers for Algernon vibe to it (without the tragic ending). The average housewife's story is also poignant. Andersen's prose is as highly readable as ever, his science background is once again put to good use. I like his explanation (not infodump) of how this Brain Wave came about, for Tau Zero fans (often cited as Anderson's best book) there is a little subplot that does something different with the runaway spaceship idea.

This is an excellent little book, well worth anybody's time. It may not actually boost your intelligence but may give it a wee nudge in the right direction!

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book after I finished it. As I read it, it did have all that stuff that Anderson does that sorta irks me from previous books of his, such as overly sentimental soap opera small talk between 'important' scenes. That aside, there are many beautiful descriptive, almost poetic prose at the start of each chapter, setting the scene. The overall premise of the story is absolutely great: We humans and animals here on Earth had been impaired for many millennia by some cosmic field. We have, however, as all other living creatures do on this planet, adapted and in spite of this impairment, managed to evolve as intelligent beings just the same, but as this field moved on, we, human and animal, were flung to super intellect. Pretty darn cool. Much opportunity to speculate how we would cope and how we would exploit such a situation. And Poul Anderson did a first rate job with this (and this, quite early in his career - 1954). As I have mentioned, little slight annoyances, such as a two tier class of citizens - enlightened geniuses who longer feel the need to stay on Earth and the 'gone insane' and somewhat now smarter morons (apes included) those having the pleasure of doing the laborious work such as building and farming and keeping the 'machine' going while the 'enlighten' ones spent their time doing a lot of thinking... This element was a little off for me, tough not entirely. It does reflect a little in a way, our current world; for example, most farming in North America is done by seasonal migrant workers from less affluent countries.

In the end, a good read. An original and well told story. It seems to me that I favour P. Anderson's earlier work over the later stuff thus far - not enough data as he was so prolific and I have but scratched the surface as of yet.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems as if I have read a lot of articles recently on the so-called "dumbing down" of society, and of U.S. school kids particularly. I'd hate to think that these stories have a basis in reality, but still, consider the facts: In the most recent two-hour PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) tests, given every three years around the world to determine students' abilities in reading, math and science, U.S. schoolchildren came in at only the 35th place (among 64 countries) in math skills, and at only the 27th in science (Singapore and Hong Kong came in at No. 1, respectively). A schoolteacher friend of mine was remarking just the other day how poor his grade-school kids are at problem solving; a wave of anti-intellectualism seems to be gaining traction; and I've noticed that half the folks during my NYC subway commute are either playing "Candy Crush" or are engaged in some other video game, rather than reading a book or newspaper, as would have been the case 10 years ago. (And let's not even discuss those hilarious old Jay Leno "Jaywalking" segments!)

How refreshing for me, then, to come across a book that has, as its central conceit, the notion that mankind might someday grow vastly MORE intelligent...and not just mankind, but all sentient life on Earth, as well. The novel in question, Poul Anderson's "Brain Wave," made its first appearance in book form (a 35-cent Ballantine paperback) in 1954, although its opening chapters had appeared the year before in the eighth and final issue of the short-lived pulp publication "Space Science Fiction." In 1997, four years before his death at age 74, Anderson remarked that it is one of the five novels for which he’d like to be remembered, and now that I have finally read "Brain Wave," I can see why.

The book's fascinating central premise is this: For the last several hundred million years, Earth's solar system had been passing through an area of space that contained an inhibitory field of sorts; a field that slowed down the neurons of all living things. As "Brain Wave" begins, Earth is finally emerging from this light-years-wide field, with the result that the IQs of most human beings quadruple, to around 500, and even the animals of the field become vastly more intelligent. Anderson's book tracks the progression of this new era by focusing on a few central characters: Peter Corinth, a physicist at the NYC-based Rossman Institute, a think tank that is one of the first to discover the reason for humanity's great change; Sheila Corinth, Peter's wife, who cannot adapt to her newfound brain power and suffers a literal mental breakdown as a result; Felix Mandelbaum, a labor organizer who rises to prominence after the great change engenders a host of world-altering dilemmas; Nat Lewis, a Rossman biologist; and finally, Archie Brock, a mental simpleton before the change, but now left in charge of millionaire Rossman's upstate NY farm, seeing to the suddenly rebellious pigs and cows (for some reason, those attacking farm animals brought to my mind the similar ferocious domestic critters in the 1956 sci-fi film "Beast With a Million Eyes") with the assistance of some escaped circus animals--an elephant and two chimpanzees!

Long considered a classic of sorts, today, "Brain Wave" seems to enjoy a mixed reputation. Writing of the novel in his "Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," Scottish critic David Pringle tells us the book is "fondly remembered" but that "it has not worn well, and the writing now seems thin and clichéd." On the other hand, "The Science Fiction Encyclopedia" has called it Anderson's "most famous single novel, and possibly his finest." Personally, I tend to agree more with the latter statement, and despite my respect for Pringle's opinions (I have cited him often in my reviews before), must confess that I have no idea what the heck he is talking about here. "Thin and clichéd"? Is he serious? I found Anderson's writing to be almost poetically beautiful in spots ("How heavily the sea rolled! Even indoors, he could hear it grinding against the shore, tumbling rocks, grinding away the world like the teeth of time. It was gray and white to the edge of the world, white-maned horses stamping and galloping, how terribly loud they neighed...."), and found his thoughts on the ramifications of a suddenly brilliant humankind very insightful. In "Brain Wave," humanity initially breaks down after the change due to panicky fear, an upsurge in crackpot religions (such as the hedonistic rage called the Third Ba’al), and the refusal of a suddenly hyper-intelligent populace to perform menial labor. I did not find this last plot point as implausible as some readers apparently have, and indeed, can well identify with a worker who feels that he/she is droning away in a job for which he/she feels overqualified. For me, Anderson's prose was highly moving and convincing on this score; to wit:

"You take a typical human, a worker in factory or office, his mind dulled to a collection of verbal reflexes, his future a day-to-day plodding which offered him no more than a chance to fill his belly and be anesthetized by a movie or his television--more and bigger automobiles, more and brighter plastics, onward and upward with the American Way of Life. Even before the change, there had been an inward hollowness in Western civilization, an unconscious realization that there ought to be more in life than one’s own ephemeral self--and the ideal had not been forthcoming.

"Then suddenly, almost overnight, human intelligence had exploded toward fantastic heights. An entire new cosmos opened before this man, visions, realizations, thought boiling unbidden within him. He saw the miserable inadequacy of his life, the triviality of his work, the narrow and meaningless limits of his beliefs and conventions--and he resigned...."

Anderson fills his novel with many surprising twists, including the construction of mankind's first faster-than-light starship, and the subsequent shakedown tour of the nearby galaxy that Peter and Nat engage in; a budding romance between Peter and his fellow Institute coworker Helga; and a secret cabal planning to construct a device to revert mankind back to its pre-change intelligence levels. Curiously, mankind even manages to invent a new shorthand language for itself after the change, incorporating gestures and other visual cues, and Anderson repeatedly lets us see this new language at work, employing words in parentheses to indicate what is unspoken, and words in italics to indicate what is merely thought. I know that a lot of readers here prefer to listen to audiobooks rather than to read in the traditional sense, but feel that "Brain Wave," for this very reason, simply could not work as an audiobook. I just can't see how any narrator could possibly communicate these parenthetical and italicized elements. (Similarly, I don't believe that Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination," with their various fonts and illustrative typography, or H. Rider Haggard's "She," with its reams of Greek, Latin, Old English, black letter and uncial lettering, could ever be conveyed via audiobook, either.)

Good as it is, "Brain Wave" yet comes to us today with some minor problems. The mention of "Idlewild" Airport and the "Belgian Congo" inevitably dates the book a little, and several plot points (a native revolution in Africa being abetted by superintelligent apes; a Russian revolution being abetted by telepathic "Sensitives"; a Chinese philosopher who walks the land, training the people in the power of the mind) are raised over the course of a few pages, only to peter out and never be addressed again. I am hardly the first reader to acknowledge that the book is a little on the short side, especially for a story so universal in scope and far reaching in consequence. Anderson's book could easily have been twice as long, or--as mankind prepares to leave Earth and reach for the stars--merely the opening salvo in a GREAT CHANGE series. Still, what we have here is fairly dynamite: beautifully written, well thought out, involving, and ultimately, quite touching. Indeed, the final chapter even left me a little misty eyed. Thus, I do highly recommend "Brain Wave" to all readers. You will surely find it more edifying than a game of "Angry Birds," that’s for certain!

(By the way, this review initially appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most excellent destination for all fans of Poul Anderson....)

[David Rubenstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Throughout earth's history, it has been in a region of the galaxy where some sort of force field has inhibited the activity of brain neurons. As the solar system spins around the galaxy, the earth exits this region, and almost overnight, all living creatures with brains are impacted. Brain neurons fire more rapidly, and as a result, they all become smarter. Smart people become geniuses, morons become very smart, and animals gain in intelligence as well.

Society turns upside down. People who previously had an inner purpose in life, some aspiration or goal, use their new boost in intelligence to their advantage, and to society's advantage as well. People who previously had no goals, ambitions, or purpose in life have great difficulties--they still retain their old personalities, their superstitions and prejudices, and become despondent or even violent. The story follows several people through these changes; a scientist, his wife, and a low-intelligence farmhand.

While the premise is brilliant, the execution is not. It bothered me that during the faster-than-light space travel, relativistic effects were ignored--a science fiction writer should at least mention these effects, and try to make the consequences seem plausible. Also, so much of the plot is quite predictable. The dialog is often trite. While some reviewers complain that the book is too short, I am glad that it is not longer.

[Little Timmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this happens sometimes, a writer you have always enjoyed writes a book you just can’t get into. This was that book for me and my love of Poul Anderson. I have always enjoyed his stories but this one I just didn’t enjoy. Odd thing is he considered it one of his top 5 that he had written. Not recommended .

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the mid fifties, this book postulates what would happen if the Earth emerged from a ray that dampens intelligence so we are all suddenly a lot smarter. So are animals. This is pure SF, one of my early reads & the reason I kept reading it. No, it's not perfect, but there is a lot of room for thought here & Anderson does a great job of providing it.

[Wojtek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nagle wszystkim, nawet zwierzętom, znacząco wzrasta poziom inteligencji. Sam pomysł na fabułę świetny. Przez pierwsze pół książki obserwujemy skutki tego wydarzenia, ale w drugiej połowie już niewiele się dzieje. Bohaterowie, naukowcy, debatują nad konsekwencjami posiadania dużego IQ i nad przyszłością gatunku. Czyta się dobrze, ale szybko zaczyna widać, że historia ma braki. Problem został potraktowany dość powierzchownie, a końcowe wnioski rozczarowują.

[Ensiform · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Earth moves out of some kind of force field, and suddenly, all electromagnetic and -chemical processes change; not only do instruments go out of wack, everyone and everything with a brain triples in intelligence. For some individuals, this is liberating, albeit terrifying; some crack under the strain of such a jump. The human race as a whole, indeed, finds itself wondering what to do with itself.

This is a pretty good piece of speculative fiction, the idea taken to its the limit. There are great bits, like intelligent chimps riding elephants and teaming up with African tribes; the story of Brock, the one-time moron, is particularly resonant. Overall, it's certainly a supremely optimistic view. As one character in the book notes, just because people are smart doesn't stop them from doing stupid things like speeding or smoking; nor does intelligence always erase prejudice. Yet Anderson envisions a human race that, due solely to higher intelligence (after a lengthy period of great strife) transcends war, patriotism, and borders — indeed, seems at the end to have formed into some unified collective mind: "the human race is leaving Earth to the animals." I'm not so sure that all this necessarily follows from increased intelligence, even such an exponential leap in brain activity; but I see that Anderson is actually painting humans as the wise celestial visitors that most SF authors depict alien beings as. It's sort of a nice touch.
[Read twice]

[Maria Dobos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cu milioane de ani în urmă, întregul sistem solar a intrat în sfera de influență a unui câmp de forță electromagnetică care a inhibat funcționarea unor tipuri de neuroni, limitând astfel dezvoltarea ulterioară a vieții și inteligenței pe Pământ. Dar iată că datorită mișcării orbitale a sistemului solar în jurul centrului galactic, Terra a ieșit din câmpul inhibitor iar oamenii și animalele au experimentat brusc o creștere explozivă a inteligenței. Deodată, întreaga lume se schimbă. Sistemele politice se prăbușesc, valorile sociale se răstoarnă, oamenii înnebunesc… până și animalele se revoltă împotriva așa-zisei ordini naturale.

…dintr-odată, aproape peste noapte, inteligența umană explodase spre înălțimi fantastice. Un cosmos nou se deschidea în fața acestui om, viziuni, vise de împlinire, gânduri fierbând în el, dar nechemate. Vedea lipsa de scop a vieții, trivialitatea muncii lui, limitele înguste și fără rost ale credințelor și convențiilor la care ținea – și se resemnă.

Așadar, întregul Univers e la dispoziția oamenilor, iar aceștia nu știu ce să facă cu el… Umanitatea și-a pierdut sensul și identitatea, tânjind după inocența dinainte, după speranțe, iluzii, căldură și apropiere.

Dar nu mai prețuim lucrurile din trecut, decât ca instrumente pentru strădania animală de a supraviețui sau de a trăi în confort. Gândește-te la propria-ți viată. Îi înțelegi rostul? Care sunt realizările tale din trecut? Ridicole! Acum poți să citești cu plăcere ceva din marea literatură? Îți mai transmit artele vreun mesaj? Civilizația trecutului, cu știința, arta, cu înțelesurile și credințele ei, este atât de neadecvată acum, încât ar putea să nici nu existe. Nu mai avem civilizație. Nici scopuri, vise, opere creatoare – nimic!

Chiar mi-a plăcut cartea asta - mi-a plăcut ideea (deși e înspăimântător să îți dai seama că, în ciuda inteligenței, oamenii rămân meschini, răi, egoiști și ușor de manipulat), abordarea elegantă a ceea ce definește umanitatea ca specie și omul ca individ; mi-aș fi dorit totuși o poveste mai dinamică și niște personaje mai complexe (și încă vreo câteva sute de pagini ;))).

- Tot ce știu, tot ce simt, e aici, în cap. Totul există pentru mine doar în măsura în care cunosc. Și într-o zi o să mor. – Un firicel de salivă i se prelinse din colțul gurii. – Într-o zi va coborî marele întuneric, eu nu voi mai fi... nimic nu va mai exista! Poate că tu vei mai exista, fiindcă tu... deși cum aș putea ști că nu ești doar un vis de-al meu? Dar pentru mine nu va mai fi nimic, nimic, nimic. Nici măcar nu voi fi existat.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Posit a galactic field that reduced our ability to think. We develop our intelligence & technology under the influence of that field & then we move out from under its influence. Suddenly everyone on the planet doubles their IQ. What would happen to our civilization, to the everyday people? That's the basis that Anderson uses for this book & it's well done.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a LOT of Poul Anderson's SF novels---but not this one. It's one of his best. Earth is affected by a "brain wave" which increases the IQs of all animal life. Anderson explores the effects of this ( and it's certainly not all for the good) and it makes for a very intriguing story.

[Carlex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great classic. If you have not readed this novel yet I recommend it to all the science fiction readers.

[Dziubacz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pierwsza przeczytana książka w tym roku i największy zawód książkowy, bo życiowy to ja mam za każdym razem, jak się budzę na tej planecie.

Opisowi tej książki możecie wierzyć tak samo, jak polskiemu rządowi w 100 konkretów, czyli kurwa w ogóle. Dlaczego? Bo Olśnienie na pierwszych stronach i w opisie zakłada, że będzie to książkach o prostych ludziach i o zwierzętach, a jest to raczej książka, która by była czytana podczas spotkań snobów w pałacu króla pseudointelektualistów.

I wiecie, nie ma w tym nic złego, że pojawiają się tu naukowcy i ludzie uczeni, ale jaki jest sens książki, w której każda istota na planecie staje się super Inteligenta, ALE Cały czas słuchamy tylko o intelektualistach i naukowcach, którzy już wcześniej byli geniuszami, a jacy to oni nie są MEGA inteligentni teraz. ''Mam 400 IQ'' To super gościu, a ja mam tylko 400 zł do końca miesiąca i się tym nie chwale.

Mamy w książce wątek mężczyzny, który był opóźniony rozwojowo, ale z super inteligencją staje się zwykłym gostkiem, który hoduje zwierzęta tylko, że te również zaczynają rozumieć swoje miejsce we wszechświecie. Część z nich nie chce już dłużej pracować ciężko na polu, część zaczyna rozumieć, do czego są hodowane i popada w panikę, a biedny człowiek, stara się dojść z nimi do porozumienia w rozpadającej się cywilizacji. Brzmi super prawda? Problem w tym, że to nie on jest głównym bohaterem tej historii, wiec szybko zostaje zapomniany, tak samo, jak królik, który ogarnął jak otwierać klatkę, chłopiec, który był blisko zostania geniuszem matematycznym, zwykły kowalski, gosposia, starszy pan mijany na chodniku, o takich ludziach powinna być ta książka…

A dostajemy grupę naukowców, którzy ciągle ględzą o tym, jak to ludzka rasa jest najinteligentniejsza we wszechświecie, plus ludzie zwykli szarzy kowalscy, wcale nie zaczynają mieć głębokich przemyśleń i otwierać się na nowe idei, bo większość z nich zmieniła się w bandę dzikusów, oszaleli z powodu przypływu myśli, o których nigdy wcześniej nie wiedzieli, a tylko ci naukowcy są TAK WYJĄTKOWI, że dają sobie rade. Autor miał też jakieś poczucie wyższości, bo kiedy w książce pojawiają się obce cywilizacje, to oczywiście człowiek jest panem świata lepszym od reszty z powodu swojej mądrości

Wale to, w jakim roku ta książka wyszła i w jakich realiach, mógł ja nawet napisać jaskiniowiec, nic nie zmienia faktu, że jest totalnym gównem, rozczarowanie totalne.

[Daniel Bensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah! Scifi! Turns out that since the end of the Mesozoic, the Earth has been in a region of the galaxy where the speed of light is just a wee bit slow. It doesn't make a difference to inanimate objects, and not much difference to bugs and plants, but when you have a central nervous system, emergent effects (such as intelligence) are depressed. So when the Earth passes out of the slow zone, we all get smarter. Pigs included. What happens next? Damn good stuff!

[Andy Coleman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A SIMPLE MAN'S REVIEW:

I have got to start looking at the copyright date before deciding which book to read! Some old sci-fi ages well, but most does not. And this was outright rotten.

Remember in those old movies, the scene where the scientists (white men) smoke pipes while using their powers of deduction to solve the crisis? And the women were sitting elsewhere talking about more womanly issues? This scene literally happens in this book. If only this was the most ridiculous part!

The main idea is an interesting one: what if some cosmic force raised the intelligence of all beings on Earth, virtually overnight? What would that mean for society? Religion? How about the animals? The story attempts to follow this path of inquiry but is too mired in 1950's thinking to do an adequate job. Plus, everyone is so freaking absurd that it's hard to take any of it seriously!

The only positive element of this book was the side story of a farm-hand who went from "imbecile" to "normal" when everybody changed. It has a Flowers for Algernon vibe to it and his interaction with the animals is sweet. But there's far too little of his story to make it worth it.

Skip it!

[D-day · Rating 2 out of 5]

By and large I enjoy Poul Anderson's Fantasy works (Three Hearts and Three Lions, The Broken Sword) better than his Sci-fi novels. Like Anderson's other sci-fi novels (eg. Tau Zero) Brain Wave is based on an interesting idea: what happens when the IQ of all mammmals increases by a factor of five. It's just not carried off well.
Interesting plot possibilities, such as animals 'revolting' against humans are alluded to but never explored. It is a short book because so much seems to happen offstage- riots, revolution war etc. Anderson is a good idea man, but unfortunately not a great writer.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an old sci-fi classic. The premise might seem a bit silly -- Earth suddenly passes through a region of space that causes every living thing's intelligence to increase by an order of magnitude -- but it's your typical "high concept" early sci-fi story. I haven't read it in many years, but I remember it being a good read, with the world truly changing as a result.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The earth has suddenly moved to a field of space where instead of waves from space dampening intelligence, have now disappeared and so now intelligence is enhanced it for everybody, and for animals too. That's the basic premise. So is society now enlightened and better? Of course not! The novel is the working out of how that doesn't happen (written in the context of the early 1950's).

[Gandalf_genialny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Podobało mi się. Ta książka dużo mówi o problemach i dylematach inteligentnych ludzi. O ich aspiracjach, marzeniach i nadziejach. Opisuje też idealny dla nich świat, pełen zrozumienia, szacunku, przyszłości i rozwoju.

[Fantasy Literature]

Brain Wave: A fascinating idea

3.5 stars from Kat and 4 stars from Sandy, read more at FANTASY LITERATURE

[!Leon 🦈 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

wowowowowowow nie sadzilem ze az tak mi sie spodoba i ze ogolnie bedzie takie swietne. pomysl jest super ale balem sie ze cos tam w trakcie nie wyjdzie a doslownie wyszlo wszytsko. sa dwie perspektywy jedna z osob z miasta gdzie jest oczywcir wiecej ludzi i druga z jakies farmy gdzie mamy jednego czlowieka i glownie zwierzeta. ciesze sie ze wlasnie mamy tutaj pokazane jak to wszytsko wplynelo rowniez na zwierzeta i szczrze to bylo o wiele ciekawsze niz druga perspektywa i raz sprawila nawet ze kilka lez mi polecialo. jest tutaj troche przeskokow w czasie ale jakos nie przeszkadzaly mi. podobalo mi sie tez ze bylo pokazane ze nie wszyscy moga sie jakby przystosowac do tej zmiany i doslownie moga przez to oszalec i jakos nie spodziewalem ze takie cos dostaniemy. sam styl pisania jest calkiem fajny i no na poczatku troche duzo imion sie pojawialo to ciezko bylo mi ogarnac i wszyscy tak mi sie zlewali w jedna osobe. ogolnie ksiazka stala sie jedna z moich fav czego kompletnie sie nie spodziewalem

[Eric Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was originally published in 1953 but it doesn’t feel that old. I mean sure, they mention plant life on mars and a couple guys smoke in a spaceship (lol I love it when the old sci fi writers did this) but I think everyone is allowed a couple mistakes when predicting the future.

This book is a huge what if story that has the earth leaving an “inhibitor” zone in space that slowed down every animal creatures mental processes. Aka everyone, including animals, get very smart very quickly and the book is about the impacts of that kind of change.

I really liked this. It feels believable minus a few things. It’s concise, throws out a few fun predictions, has a lot of honestly quotable lines, definitely recommend.

[Ram · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if suddenly within weeks all animal life on Earth becomes about 5 times as intelligent?

Animals get out of their cages and rebel against humans and the whole human world and institutions crumbles and needs to be replaced with a new order. money, economy and centralized government, disappear in North America, while Africans, with the assistance of now well armed gorillas, overcome colonial rule.

The novel goes through the adventures and experiences of various people and non-human animals on Earth in this new environment.

I found the book an interesting mind exercise with no clear conclusion.