SF Masterworks 25: Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Charlie Gordon is a floor sweeper. Algernon is a lab rat. ‘Flowers for Algernon’ is the tale of how these two lives become inextricably linked. It is powerful, beautifully written and one of the most moving stories I have ever had the pleasure to read. Charlie Gordon has an IQ of 68; he is stupid, educationally subnormal, slow, Special Needs, whatever you want to call him. He is also tender, warm hearted, caring and trusting. He has reached, through blood, sweat and tears, the pinnacle of his educational ability. Charlie has gone to night school, in Miss Kinnian’s class at “beekmin colidge center for retarded” to learn how to read, write and count, but, ...  Read the complete review

Charley is not as bright as most people, but he's a very sweet man, incapable of thinking ill of anyone. When he is offered ground breaking treatment that will turn him into a genius, Charley is desperate to get it, because he wants to be like everyone else. He had no way of knowing what would happen. With a growing intellect, and the emotional development of a child, Charley is thrown into a new and unfamiliar world. Written in the form of progress reports, Flowers for Algernon charts the intellectual rise and fall of Charley and the fate of Algernon, a white mouse who has undergone the same process. It is a very moving and inspiring piece, that asks questions ...  Read the complete review

'Flowers for Algernon' is certainly one of the greatest science fiction books ever written, and well deserves its place in Millennium books' excellent SF Masterworks series. The story began as a Hugo Award winning short story, and was later expanded by the author into this Nebula-award winning novel. It has also been adapted into an Oscar-winning 1968 film, "Charly". Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, sweeps floors in a bakery for a living, and is gently teased by his co-workers. That is, until an experiment enhances his intelligence phenomenally. However, when Algernon, the mouse that first successfully received the treatment, dies, Charlie has to ...  Read the complete review