History Literature / TheWorldInside

''The World Inside'' is a book by Creator/RobertSilverberg, written in 1971. A science fiction, it's set more than 300 years in the future, in 2381. The setting is a world where we encourage birth, have abolished any kind of birth control, and as a result the population is proudly boasting a figure of 75 billion. The belief in human birth is almost religious in their fervor for it, and any talk of suppressing birth is considered a serious social taboo, worthy in some cases in death by being thrown down an chute where your body will be converted into energy for the buildings they live in. The buildings they live in are the secret to their massive population, 1000 story high "Urbmons" which can house 885,000 people arranged by clusters of 25 self contained cities arranged through the floors, with 40 floors constituting a city. These Urbmons are arranged in constellations, which allow each building to not be in the shadow of another. The theoretical limit of the population supported by this arrangement is estimated to be 200 billion. The compacting of people in Urbmons this way has left seven-eighths of the land mass in the world to be used for farming. The farmers live in small communes and are completely separated from the Urbmon society, even having their own language and customs.

* PopulationControl: Inverted in ''The World Inside''. In the year 2381, most of Earth's 75 billion people live in three-kilometer-high (9,000 feet) "urban monads", where they start their ''large'' families around ''puberty''. One man has four children. It is considered shamefully low, but his wife is infertile due to an accident during surgery. He is considering taking another.

* EverybodyIsSingle: Inverted in that everyone is normally married and should be trying to have children by 13-14, as soon a puberty starts.

* WritersCannotDoMath: The human population is 75 billion, increasing by 4% per year. At that rate, they will hit the 200 billion limit in just 26 years. Alternatively, the writer may have been fully aware of that and it's just a case of WhatAnIdiot by the characters, who are unwilling to face the Malthusian disaster they've engineered for themselves (though with limitless energy available, they'd just need to forget the farmland and start building several agricultural urbmons for every residential one). Conversely, the status quo cannot be very old, as working backwards would result in a population less than today's just 50 years prior to the events in the novel. Though again, there could have been wars or other disasters that did indeed reduce the human population, and the current obsession with making babies really is a relatively recent fad that took on a life of its own.

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Micheal and Michaela are seen as this. They are exact twins and Jason Quervo even thinks that if he were looking at one from behind, he would be hard-pressed to figure out which one was which until he tried to have sex with them. He comments on Micheal's long hair, similar to Michaela's, the similar bone structure and stature, and how Michaela, (his wife) has very small breasts, allowing for confusion between them and pecs.

* FreeLoveFuture: Most of the novel is set in a huge skyscraper (Urban Monad or [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture Urbmon]]), in which men are expected to go "night walking", wandering into other peoples' homes for sex, and it's unthinkably rude for a woman to refuse an advance. Silverberg goes into a bit of detail as to how such a society would produce unique sexual hangups of its own. One character is trying to make her husband jealous, which he points out is ridiculous. Meanwhile, she mocks him for sleeping with a woman because he's attracted to her brother--instead of sleeping with the brother.

* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted as a plot point, but it's in the subtext, since on several occasions characters talk about how their culture "values life",[[note]]Interestingly, it anticipated the Catholic Church's "culture of life" rhetoric by at least a decade[[/note]] and particularly fertility, with the strong implication that contraception (see DeliberateValuesDissonance, above), much less abortion, would be unthinkable. "Good girls" in this novel get married at the age of 12 and within a decade have usually had several children, possibly by men other than those they are married to since all men are required to "nightwalk".
* HumansThroughAlienEyes: Often you feel like this reading the book, as the thoughts and customs of the Urbmons are completely alien to the "modern" person, trying to abandon ambition, space, freedom, the outside, and self-determination.
** Lampshaded in the book through the interactions the characters have with the visiting socio-computator from the colonies on Venus, where it is implied that humans still live more as the modern reader does.

* IncestSubtext: Micheal and Michaela show this throughout their chapters. Michaela admits that she experimented and may have had intercourse with her brother when she was younger, but has stopped at least a decade ago. Micheal still fantasizes about his sister and has multiple fantasies as he escapes from the Urbmons, imagining them having sex in the sea.
** It's also stated that it's seen as perfectly normal for brothers and sisters to have their first sexual experience with each other. "''Everybody'' tops their sister", one male character says to another.
* LadyLooksLikeADude: See DudeLooksLikeALady
* LikesOlderWomen: May be true of Siegmund Kluver, as he is claimed to be in a quote by Charles Mattern when he finds him in bed with his wife, Principessa (who is 13 years his senior, Siegmund Kluver being 14)

* WritersCannotDoMath: The human population is 75 billion, increasing by 4% per year. At that rate, they will hit the 200 billion limit in just 26 years. Alternatively, the writer may have been fully aware of that and it's just a case of WhatAnIdiot by the characters, who are unwilling to face the Malthusian disaster they've engineered for themselves (though with limitless energy available, they'd just need to forget the farmland and start building several agricultural urbmons for every residential one).
** Conversely, the status quo cannot be very old, as working backwards would result in a population less than today's just 50 years prior to the events in the novel. Though again, there could have been wars or other disasters that did indeed reduce the human population, and the current obsession with making babies really is a relatively recent fad that took on a life of its own.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: One chapter is about a man who become jealous that his wife is possibly having sex with her brother ({{Twincest}}), meanwhile is actually having sex with one of the administrators in order to inspire him to have more ambition.

* BreakTheCutie: Remember how Siegmund Kluver is only 14? And yet he has multiple, children, and is obsessed with helping the Urbmon community until he realizes all the popel up top don't care that much and spend much of their time partying and having sex instead of trying to help their building. This slowly breaks him to the point where [[spoiler:he can't take in anymore and kills himself by jumping off a building trying to "find God", as a priest suggested]]

* IHaveBoobsYouMustObey: Aurea tries this on Siegmund to get him to keep her and her husband from being forced to move to the newest urbmon, even though she knows it is unlikely to succeed in a society where anyone is anyone else's for the asking, sexually.

* FreeLoveFuture: ''The World Inside'' is set in a huge skyscraper (Urban Monad or [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture Urbmon]]), in which men are expected to go "night walking", wandering into other peoples' homes for sex, and it's unthinkably rude for a woman to refuse an advance. Silverberg goes into a bit of detail as to how such a society would produce unique sexual hangups of its own. One character is trying to make her husband jealous, which he points out is ridiculous. Meanwhile, she mocks him for sleeping with a woman because he's attracted to her brother--instead of sleeping with the brother.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Everyone lives in gargantuan apartment blocks ("Urban Monads" with names like [=ChiPitts=]) and never goes out. The entire human race is obsessed with having as many children as possible -- one protagonist is ashamed of having only four. It is seen as selfish (and therefore, criminal) to refuse sex to random strangers. And everyone is really, really happy all the time... because the ones who aren't happy are either lobotomized or dropped down the recycling chutes.

* FreeLoveFuture: ''The World Inside'' is set in a huge skyscraper (Urban Monad or [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture Urbmon]]), in which men are expected to go "night walking", wandering into other peoples' homes for sex, and it's unthinkably rude for a woman to refuse an advance. Silverberg goes into a bit of detail as to how such a society would produce unique sexual hangups of its own. One character is trying to make her husband jealous, which he points out is ridiculous. Meanwhile, she mocks him for sleeping with a woman because he's attracted to her brother--instead of sleeping with the brother.

* PatchworkStory: Robert Silverberg's The World Inside was expanded from about five short stories set in the same universe.

* GenderIsNoObject: Jason Quervo is forced to talk about a fantasy he was thinking of where he embraced Michaela for intercourse, but found Micheal instead (in the company of Micheal and his wife at dinner one night). He tells part of it, saying he was imagining if a man was to go out nightwalking and instead of finding Michaela, he finds Michael. Michael's wife then comments, " so what? he might be mildly surprised at first but then he would take Micheal regardless, wouldn't he?"

* CreatureofHabit: One character, after secretly fleeing the Urbmons to try to find the sea, gets caught by a farmer village. The lack of technological cleanliness ( he feels "primitive" to be using water to bathe) makes him feel as if bacteria are burrowing under his skin and he comments on this and other homesickness symptoms as a result of this.

* WorkHardPlayHard: Everyone in Louisville is apparently like this, as Sigmund Kluver learns once he goes to a party at the top floors, which are essentially a giant orgy and drugs party. [[spoiler: He becomes disenfranchised because of this and eventually kills himself]]

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Micheal and Michaela are seen as this. They are exact twins and Jason Quervo even thinks that if he were looking at one from behind, he would be hard-pressed to figure out which one was which until he tried to have sex with them. He comments on Micheal's long hair, similar to Michaela's, the similar bone structure and stature, and how Michaela, (his wife) has very small breasts, allowing for confusion between them and pecs Micheal and Michaela are seen as this. They are exact twins and Jason Quervo even thinks that if he were looking at one from behind, he would be hard-pressed to figure out which one was which until he tried to have sex with them. He comments on Micheal's long hair, similar to Michaela's, the similar bone structure and stature, and how Michaela, (his wife) has very small breasts, allowing for confusion between them and pecs.

* BreakTheCutie: Remember how Siegmund Kluver is only 14? And yet he has multiple, children, and is obsessed with helping the Urbmon community until he realizes all the popel up top don't care that much and spend much of their time partying and having sex instead of trying to help their building. This slowly breaks him to the point where [[spoiler:he can't take in anymore and kills himself trying to "find God", as a priest suggested]]

* WorkHardPlayHard: Everyone in Louisville is apparently like this, as Sigmund Cluver learns once he goes to a party at the top floors, which are essentially a giant orgy and drugs party. [[spoiler: He becomes disenfranchised because of this and eventually kills himself]]

* LikesOlderWomen: May be true of sigmund kluver, as he is claimed to be in a quote by Charles Mattern when he finds him in bed with his wife, Principessa (who is 13 years his senior, hSigmund Louver him 14).Sigmund