Soma

I've just finished reading Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Here's a summary:

The world the novel describes is a utopia, albeit an ironic one: humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy due to government-provided stimulation. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things that humans consider to be central to their identity ? family, culture, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially soma, a powerful psychotropic taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies.

I really recommend this book.