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From: The Spectator
Date: 20071103
Author:Dexter, Gary

THE FIXED PERIOD (1881) by Anthony Trollope

The Fixed Period is the most un-Trollopian thing Trollope ever wrote. It is a firstperson futuristic narrative set in the state of Britannula, an island somewhere near New Zealand, in the year 1980. The President of Britannula, John Neverbend, decides to institute a fixed term of 67½ years for the life-span of his citizens, after which they will be dealt a painless and compulsory euthanasia. The Fixed Period is similar in style to a book published a few years earlier, Samuel Butler's Erewhon; in film perhaps its closest kinship is with Logan's ...

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