Rating: 
Summary: Forget the movie - prepare for serious SF adventure
Review: Just as most any book made into a movie, you can expect the original book to blow the movie away and in the case of Logan's Run, this is a serious understatment. The concepts presented in the movie are amplified 10 fold in the book. There is more hard core science fiction and even more action. The book reads fast but begs you to pause to consider a concept presented. The movie may be dated today, but the book still reads fresh
Rating: 
Summary: What it does, it does very well.
Review: Logan's Run is one of my favorite novels from a standpoint of plotting, back story and general premise.For those unfamiliar with it, Logan's Run is about a society in the future where no one is allowed to live past the age of 21. A person's age is determined by the color of the small crystal flower in the palm of his/her right hand. When the crystal starts to blink from red to black, it means you have 24 hours to report to a Sleepshop for mandatory euthanasia. At the end of this grace period, your flower turns black, and you become quarry for the DS men, an elite squad of police whose sole purpose is to eliminate the fugitives, or "Runners" as they are called.As I mentioned before, the book is a crackerjack example of plotting, and can be read in an afternoon. What makes it special is how each of its plot points is included for thematic or symbolic reasons. In other words, each episode in the novel is included because it reflects on the society in which its characters live, which in turn is a comment on its general premise.The premise in question is that a society cannot sustain a culture without wisdom, experience, and tradition. Those things, it argues, come with age. When the novel was published back in 1967, it was seen by some as a finger in the eye of the emerging youth culture.Like all good speculative fiction, it takes current issues and extrapolates them to their extremes. I'm pleased to say that this aspect of Logan's run hasn't lost any of its bite. We continue to live in a society where youth is equated with beauty, where the old are locked away and forgotten, and by a media-driven feeding frenzy over all things materialistic and fashionable. "Be young, have fun, drink Pepsi", indeed... Logan's Run picked these as important thematic concerns. Sadly, they are still with us.Important to the novel is the concept of a gigantic computer web that regulates every aspect of people's lives. In the novel, it is slowly dying. Since nobody lives long enough to learn anything complex, nobody knows how to repair it, or even knows that anything is wrong with it at all. The overall implication, is that runners or no runners, whether Logan fails or succeeds in his quest, the society depicted in the novel is eventually going to fall, and fall hard, due to its built-in inability to sustain itself. Where the novel falls short is in its characterizations and in its dialogue, which feels like it could have used a rewrite or two. In my opinion, a second or third draft for dialogue could have played the characters more subtly and believably. Instead, characters say things in very flat, unconvincing ways (especially Logan and Jessica, in their first real conversation together)that do help move the action forward, but don't make them very believable people.Still, all quibbles aside, a ripping read, full of action, suspense, and intriguing ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't get more bizarre than this
Review: Ok...most people over 30 (ironically) have seen "Logan's Run", and basically know what it's about.Now picture this...there are no domes, and the life expectancy of the citizens is 21. There is no carrousel, people just have to show up to the local 7-11 on the last day of their lives to die. Logan (3, not 5) visits a drug clinic (the opposite of what you're thinking of), a brothel made of glass, and a "fire gallery". To get the book started, Logan meets his contact at sort of a party for peeping toms. Sound bizarre? You're right, it is kinda strange, and it reads like it was written over a weekend. But it's compelling enough to option a script, and you can imagine how many rewrites it suffered to get to the screen. Keep running, Logan.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't get more bizarre than this
Review: Ok...most people over 30 (ironically) have seen "Logan's Run", and basically know what it's about. Now picture this...there are no domes, and the life expectancy of the citizens is 21. There is no carrousel, people just have to show up to the local 7-11 on the last day of their lives to die. Logan (3, not 5) visits a drug clinic (the opposite of what you're thinking of), a brothel made of glass, and a "fire gallery". To get the book started, Logan meets his contact at sort of a party for peeping toms. Sound bizarre? You're right, it is kinda strange, and it reads like it was written over a weekend. But it's compelling enough to option a script, and you can imagine how many rewrites it suffered to get to the screen. Keep running, Logan.
Rating: 
Summary: good movie, ok book
Review: The author was trying for fast-paced adventure here, I hope, and nothing else. Because that's what this book is. Actually, it moves so fast, it somehow gets a childish feel to it, as if a teenager wrote it. The lack of characterization is almost shocking considering how good the movie was. The book is just a rapid series of pointless and not very exciting adventures in which Logan meets a foe, defeats him, moves on, and so on and so on and so on. In all honesty, I have seldom been this disapponted in a book.
Rating:
Summary: Trust no one over 21! (Until you're 22)
Review: The future Earth Logan-3 lives in has decided to exercise population control, as perhaps Earth now might well consider before it comes to such drastic measures as the people of this book have come arrived at in the 23rd century.
The premise is, essentially, life is well provided for in the future, provided you die on your 21st birthday, (a big difference from the liberally apportioned life-hood in the film, where you can live to your 30th). The book, therefore, deals with some subjects the film cannot; namely, early teenage sexuality. 'Sandmen', of which Logan-3 is one, are policemen who enforce the rule that people depart on their 'lastday' should they choose to hang out longer. The crystal flower imprinted in everyone's palm shows their progression-blinking from red to black on 'lastday'.
Logan-3, (Logan-5 in the film version), is on his lastday, as is the woman whom he (eventually) falls in love with. She is the sister of his last kill as a Sandman. He decides to follow her around in an attempt to find 'santuary', where 'runners (people not prepared to die) can go and live longer. She wants to live longer, Logan pretends this is his purpose as well, but in truth wants to destroy 'sanctuary'. The book contains their adventures in search of Sanctuary, travelling all over the world on the short 'lastday' in a maze built by the enigmatic 'oldest man alive', 42 year old Ballard. Logan and his companion are relentlessly chased by Francis, another Sandman.
The book is essentially a pulp-styled invention that moves along in breakneck speed from scene-to-scene and place-to-place. It contains several good scenes that were mixed together to form the film. The action is very good, and the cliffhanger endings of each chapter make the reader want to continue reading. An enjoyable read I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: This is a good scifi novel
Review: The movie version does not follow the novel. In the novel termination is at age 21 not 30. Also there are several cities that are connected throughout the country. The movie gives the impression that there is only one. The novel centers around a post apocolyptic paradise. The only catch is that life mandatorily ends at age 21.The persons age is indicated by a lifelight on the the palm of one hand. The light flashes red on the last day then goes black. Logan, who is a sandman, shoots a runner ( someone trying to escape the mandatory termination). Logan is puzzled by the man's willingness to die for this place called sanctuary. He finally is connected with a group of runners, One being the sister of the slain man. They then set out on a quest to find the man who knows the secret of sancuary. This man's lifelight did not turn black when he reached 21, so therefore he was able to live pass 21 and leave the city. Logan and a small group of followers find sanctuary, which is a space ship that is set up to take them to a colony on Mars.
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Summary: A bit sensationalist, but a classic Sci-Fi book with futures
Review: The Nolan-Johnson collaboration of the 70's produced a remarkably popular tale about life in the fast-lane, with drugs, sex and rock and roll. The future youth-crazed culture goes to the ultimate extreme and people voluntarily (more or less) go to their sweet rest at the age of thirty. A liquid crystal time-out device in the palm of the hand (presciently anticipating RFID implants) shows the world where you are on the short time line of life. Logan is a Sandman, a government agent charged with the task of retrieving Runners, people who neglected to volunteer their fair share of suicide. But Logan is also getting on in years. When he is faced with LastDay, an orgiastic ritual ending in the culturally-acceptable demise, he balks. Thus, Logan's Run. What follows is a romp through the post-Apocalyptic, Hippy-fest of drugs, crime, sex and dangers, ending with a surprise. This novel is not exquisitely written, but it gets the job done, with plenty of excitement. A classic and worth reading, though not great literature by any means.
Rating:
Summary: Great post-apocalyptic story
Review: This book was a welcome change from all the crappy college text I've been reading lately. I am a huge fan of the movie - but this book really does develop more interesting details about Logan's run for freedom. For those that don't know, it came out BEFORE the movie, so you aren't getting some lame book adaptation either. I hope I can get all my friends to read this book just like I got them to watch the movie. Ahhhh Sanctuary.
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Summary: Youth Obsessed Society
Review: This is a fast paced, well written story about where a youth obssesed culture could lead us. Using overpopulation and a nuclear war as a springboard the authors weave a tightly knit story about a society living in self-contained domed cities where everyone's favorite past-time is the pursual of pleasure. Sounds good until you realize that implanted at birth into the palm of every citizen is a life clock crystal that glows with a different color for each seven years of life. On your twenty-first birthday your life clock turns from red to black, it's time to volunteer to be put to sleep for the good of Society. Logan is a Sandman a modern day police officer who tracks down those citizens who have decided they want to live longer than 21, these are called "Runners". The myth whispered is that you can live to become 'old' in a place called Sanctuary. Logan's search for Sanctuary with a Runner named Jessica sets the pace for the rest of the story. Entertaining Sci-Fi at it's best.
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