This Perfect Day

This Perfect Day is an anti-utopian science-fiction novel by Ira Levin.

The story is set in a seemingly perfect global society - called "The Family" - whose genesis remains vague: "Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei led us to this perfect day" is what schoolchildren learn to chant.

Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language and all ethnic groups have been eugenically merged. There are only four personal names for men, and four corresponding names for women. Instead of surnames, individuals are distinguised by a nine-place alphanumeric code. Everyone eats, drinks and wears the exact same thing - every day.

The world is ruled by a central computer called UniComp which has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check. People are continually drugged by means of regular injections so that they can never realize their potential as free agents. They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce and which job they will be trained for and work at. Everyone is assigned a counselor who acts somewhat like a mentor, confessor and parole agent; violations against 'brothers' and 'sisters' by themselves and others are expected to be reported at a monthly confession.

Everyone wears an unremovable identifying bracelet which interfaces with access points that act as scanners which tell the "Family members" where they are allowed to go and what they are allowed to do. At 62, people die; whether this is from one last dose of the monthly medication or perhaps a long accumulation of poisons, is unstated.

Even opposition against such a life by those few who happen to be resistant to the drugs, or those who purposely change their behavior to avoid strong doses of some of the drugs in the monthly treatment, and who consequently wake up to a day which for them turns out to be anything but perfect, is dealt with by the programmers of UniComp. These long-lived men and women, in their underground hideaway, constitute the real, albeit invisible, world government. Their ideology seems to be basically communist, but at the same time they live in absolute luxury and choose their own members through a form of meritocracy. In part, people who choose, through evasion and modifying their own behavior, to leave the main Family are subtly re-directed to 'nature preserves' of imperfect life on islands. These, however, have been put in place by the programmers as a place to isolate trouble-making Family members. The top minds among the outcasts are further manipulated into joining the programmers to help them maintain the equilibrium in the "perfect" world of UniComp and The Family.

Even the basic facts of nature are subject to the programmers' will - men do not grow facial hair, women do not develop breasts, and it only rains at night. Reference is made in the story to interstellar space exploration, but how Unicomp's control will extend to the star colonies is left unresolved.

The narrative follows the struggles of one member, Li RM35M4419 (or Chip, as he likes to call himself) to free himself from this tightly programmed and controlled world.

See also: World government