This Crowded Earth

Bloch, Robert, 1917-1994Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 217K words
Chapters: 22

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.This Crowded Earth by Robert BlochAuthor: Bloch, Robert, 1917-1994,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 13, 2008

Editor's review

This Crowded Earth is an English-language science fiction work by Robert Bloch, released free of charge through Project Gutenberg. Bloch is known for psychological suspense and fantasy, and the title directly addresses the classic science fiction theme of overpopulation, readily evoking issues of scarce resources, social control, and the individual's predicament. The significance of the Gutenberg edition lies in bringing this work into the public reading domain, making it easy for readers to encounter early science fiction narrative in electronic form. Its value as reading lies not in offering real-world policy solutions but in presenting an imaginative vision of population and order through fiction; it works well as supplementary reading in the science fiction genre and as a way to observe how twentieth-century English popular literature handled social anxiety. While reading, focus on how the setting drives characters' choices and how conflict unfolds around space and rules, rather than judging it by the technical detail of hard science fiction. For English learners, the length and language difficulty are relatively manageable, making it suitable as extensive reading material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy early English-language science fiction and want to broaden their genre reading
Readers interested in science fiction motifs such as overpopulation and social order
Learners who want to practice extensive reading with shorter English works
Digital reading enthusiasts interested in Project Gutenberg public-domain ebooks

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking rigorous scientific argumentation or hard science fiction technical detail
Readers who only want contemporary bestselling science fiction and have limited patience for early works
Readers who rely on a complete Chinese translation or word-by-word annotations

Reading tips

Read through the whole text first to grasp the setting and conflict, then revisit key passages to trace how social rules affect the characters.
Treat it as a sample of genre literature and note how the image of "crowding" in the title is concretely presented in the plot.
English learners can read in sections and summarize each in one or two sentences to ease the burden of long sentences.
Read alongside science fiction short stories on the same theme and discuss how different works imagine population issues.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a Chinese book? What language level is needed to read it?

According to the information, the book is in English, by Robert Bloch, and released as an electronic edition by Project Gutenberg. Reading requires basic English ability—enough to understand narrative text—but no specialized scientific background. Readers with less English reading experience can proceed section by section with a dictionary.

Is this book suitable to read as hard science fiction?

The information provided does not include specific plot or technical details, so the rigor of its scientific detail cannot be confirmed. Given Bloch's background as a writer, it is better regarded as science fiction narrative with social imagination rather than hard science fiction centered on technical extrapolation. Readers can focus on the setting and the characters' circumstances rather than testing scientific feasibility.

What are the reading characteristics of the Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides free ebooks; this book is a public-domain electronic text, easy to obtain on a computer or e-reader. Electronic editions are usually presented as plain text, suitable for searching and excerpting, though formatting and annotations may be less rich than in commercial publications. Readers can mark passages themselves for easy reference.

Do I need to know the author's other works before reading this book?

No. The information only states that the author is Robert Bloch and gives his birth and death years; readers are not required to have background on his works. You can start directly from the book's title and narrative. If you become interested in the author's other writing afterward, you can look up further material then.

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About the author

Bloch, Robert, 1917-1994 Author · American · 1917–1994

Robert Bloch (1917–1994) was an American novelist. He is best known for his psychological thriller Psycho, which was later adapted for the screen by director Alfred Hitchcock and became a classic of thriller cinema. Bloch excelled at building tension through psychological suspense, using his characters' mental and emotional states to drive the narrative, so that the chilling effect comes less from external violence or grotesque scenes than from the probing of the human mind and the accumulation of unease. The library holds one of his works, This Crowded Earth. Public information about his life and writing career is limited, so this note relies only on the available facts, focusing on the themes and style of his work and on the wide influence of Psycho in both literature and film.