I've discovered that Lionel Shriver has a knack for picking out topics that I find interesting, and twisting them into amazing novels that I love and hate at the same time.

In her novel, "Game Control," Shriver's lead characters are a thirty-eight-year old woman who works with a family planning organization in Africa and a disgraced researcher of population control who is plotting ways to drastically alter the steep incline of growth in the Third World. The material presented is dense, with Shriver having conducted extensive research in demography, family planning, and population studies; however, it is skillfully presented, with dialogue and arguments flying such that you may agree with both sides at the same time without realizing it.

Although this novel will not be as generally engaging as "Kevin" or "The Post-Birthday World" due to its content and the issues addressed, it is definitely worth a read, especially for those who see the problems of an expanding human population, and who may sometimes give thought to the future of humans as a specie. ( )

I am used to being challenged by Lionel Shriver's books: they are always full of intelligent insight and dense prose. But there is usually a compelling plot driving thing along, and in this particular novel I felt the balance between plot and analysis, however intelligent, had been tipped too far in the wrong direction.

There can't be many novels written entirely about demography so top marks both for originality and research. It got me thinking about a school geography project I did 35 years ago - among the topics to choose from was population, and I immediately homed in on it, the idea of pages of numbers appealing to my aspergic tendencies. It wasn't long before I realised this topic was literally all about sex. What a shock that was to my queasy 12 year old self and I promptly abandoned it in favour of coastal erosion. But what's wrong with a book all about sex when you're an adult? Absolutely nothing, except that this one was full of people theorising out loud and avoiding having sex. The central character, beleaguered family planning worker Eleanor, is merely a conduit as she visits first one intellectual who regales her with his theories about population control, then she visits another who presents the opposite point of view. A meeting between the two opposing intellectuals ensues and they argue wordily with each other about population control. And repeat.

Stick with it and a plot with major dramatic potential does emerge, but it does take persistence. Arriving there was like reaching the summit of Everest: you want to stand and look around for a while and reflect on just how few people have stood where you are. It is clear from the author's afterword that this wasn't a massive commercial success, and that indeed its published form is some one hundred manuscript pages short of its original length ("so readers count your blessings" she comments sardonically). A book to read for the sake of completeness and for the thought provoking points it puts forward. I can't deny that I'm far better informed about demography than I was when I picked it up. ( )

another well written novel by Lionel Shriver who also wrote "We Need to talk about Kevin". This novel did not grip me like the "Kevin" novel did. It is a good commentary on the hypocrisy of bad ideas, the idea being put forth by Calvin Piper to reduce overpopulation by eliminating masses of people with a deadly virus. ( )

Again, Lionel Shriver shows her mastery of character study. You feel like you know these people. Unfortunately, I’ve dated guys like Calvin Piper. (Hopefully, they were only exploiting my low self-esteem to get me to do their homework and not plotting mass murder) ( )