The Forever Formula

by Frank Bonham

A 17-year-old lying in a hospital bed wonders if he has a brain tumor or is suffering from hallucinations. The truth is startling and incredible and, most of all, dangerous.

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Dystopia

186 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Frank Bonham (February 25, 1914 – 1988) was an author of Westerns and young adult novels. Bonham wrote 48 novels, as well as TV scripts. Bonham was born in Los Angeles. He was a UCLA graduate. Bonham was known for his works for young adults written in the 1960s, with tough, realistic urban settings, including The Nitty Gritty and Durango Street, as well as for his westerns. Several of his works have been published posthumously, many of which were drawn from his pulp magazine stories, originally published between 1941 and 1952. Durango Street was an ALA Notable Book.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book from a grade school book fair when I was 8 or 9 years old. Not sure why, but it's always stuck with me. I'm now 37 and the plot seems to pop into mind any time something even remotely related comes up. Vividly remembering a novel 29 years after reading it doesn't happen with many books. :-)

It's too bad Frank Bonham isn't on GoodReads. I'd like him to know how much I appreciate his work - both as a kid, and today.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifically detailed world-building, gracefully revealed (no annoying info-dumps). Definitely all about the Sense of Wonder and What If for which I read SF. The main character is indeed 17, but I believe that children as young as 10 would like this, and adults who grew up on the works from the Golden Age of SF.

Ok done. Nice 'double whammy' ending. Brief author's note. Highly recommended.
I almost want to save and reread it, but really I do have to get books out of the house before our next move. So, I'm offering it up on paperbackswap.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank Bonham started writing this book 40 years ago, eventually publishing it in 1979. The main character, Evan, is a teenage boy from 1984. Yet the book doesn't feel dated at all. Bonham was extremely prescient about the future; he's written a dystopia almost of aThe Hunger Games variety, but more a thinker rather than full of action packed violence. His ideas about a permanent older class living longer and longer, with a younger class working to keep them happy and healthy, and dropping birthrates adding to this problem, is something that's happening now in several countries throughout the world. His changed climate crashing down upon the earth, devaluing the dollar and changing the politics and economies of the world, was also eerily farsighted; this is beginning to happen as well. All of this thought provocation in a 181 page book, with an actually riveting adventure little thriller as a backdrop. 25+ years ago, my 16 year old self enjoyed this book, enough that I remembered parts of it vividly all these years later. With a new cover, I think this could come back into print and sell pretty well. It's still very good!

[Mary Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when I was in elementary school and images from it have stayed with me. Impressions upon rereading: I have always loved me a good dystopian novel!! Interesting discussion about aging and what it means to live a full life, especially strange for a YA novel. Quite cinematic. The writing is a bit stilted and the plotting simplistic, but I had fun revisiting this one.

[SBC · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars from me. Although there were many aspects I questioned, it was thought-provoking, and kept me thinking about it for a few days - which is a good thing for any book!

Eric (or Moose as he is known to his friends) lives is a rural area with his parents, has a girlfriend who is a cheerleader, and does gardening work in his spare time for Dr Rawlins. The book opens with Eric trying to make sense of the last moments he remembers and where he is now (a hospital with nurses that all look alike but aren't the same). He learns that he has been frozen for nearly 200 years and is now in the future. It's a fairly bleak future. Eric's Dad, Walter Clark, created Rejuvenal, which allows people to live to 200 or so, but this has created many problems - overpopulation, and a culture in which anyone under 100 is 'Juvenile' (they go to high school till at least 64!) and has no prospects and lives in poverty and squalor. The older folk are nicknamed 'Guppies' because while Rejuvenal prolongs life, it does not prolong youth, and they are aged with thin skin. The powers that be are rather evil (single-minded and self-centred) and want what they think is in Eric's mind - his father's other formula, one which was destroyed, and which prolongs youth. Eric falls in with the Juvenile Resistance, led by a pest-controller, and hi jinks ensue.

Some of the issues I had (but things that got me thinking!) included:

1. Somehow two amazing scientists (Eric's dad and Dr Rawlins) happen to live in the same town, and make amazing discoveries at their home labs. Eric's Dad finds out how to prolong life with Rejuvenal and Dr Rawlins finds out how to freeze people in suspended animation to help those who have diseases find cures (something that doesn't work out as although cures are found the world is so overpopulated no-one wants to wake them up).

2. The old are depicted as out of their mind with the tedium of living, yet still don't want to let go of life. When they are given the new formula and returned to youth it's a kind of teeth-gritted 'we will enjoy this despite ourselves' sensation. That I bought, but I didn't find it convincing that every person who lived that long had done everything and was bored with life. There is so much to do and learn in the world. The old weren't working on projects, doing scientific research, exploring art and music, other languages, revelling in their areas of expertise or learning new ones, etc. They were playing lawn bowls and TV games. No wonder they were bored. I would have found it more convincing if Rejuvenal was messing with their drive to learn and succeed, but instead we're just told it's tedious to live that long.

3. Eric's nurse, Eliza Tertius, is a clone - the clone of a nurse who was dedicated to her job. Therefore, her clones don't date. Later in the novel that seems to segue into an understanding that all clones don't date and clones are incapable of human emotion. It didn't really make sense as if they were so overpopulated, why have clones? If it was to have workers who would do exactly what the PTB want, then surely they would have had to be raised in a particular way, but we don't learn how the other clones were raised, only that Eliza Tertius was different because she was born to an IVF couple who were allowed to raise her as their child and maybe that 'gave her ideas'. The novel ends with Eric determined to prove to the world that their ideas about clones are wrong (through his shared love with Eliza Tertius). Which brings us to 4.

4. Halfway through the story Eric is suddenly in love with Eliza Tertius, which was too sudden and, although we know that Eliza has always been interested in him as a historical figure and cares about him as a patient, not at all clearly reciprocated. We get some narration from Eliza's point of view and she is a naive and confused soul.

5. The environment - it's not clear if it's due to overpopulation or other factors, but the world has too much carbon dioxide, which is why people now generally live in domes (although Eric had no trouble living in his home for several weeks, maybe because as a national park there were more trees?) We also didn't get to see how people outside of America (or even outside of California and San Francisco) lived.

6. Pests! Pesticides were banned because they needed plankton to make oxygen. As a result, people (even in these secure domes) were overrun with pests in the form of insects and rats. Completely overrun, to the point where the government is held over a barrel by the leader of all pest control when he threatens to stop work. I found this level of pests a bit weird; unless the pests have all evolved due to the new environment, I can't see why they would be such an incredible concern just because pesticides had stopped. People in historical times without pesticides weren't in such dire straits!

Oh, and of course, the treatment/representation of women in the book is a product of its time rather than the future. But it's well worth a read. I think I would have really enjoyed this as a teenager - I certainly enjoyed it as an adult.

[London Heady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some fun concepts floating around, but it's just so short and never actually explores it's concepts. Chapters are between TWO and four pages usually and it feels like cliff notes for its own self. First half was still relatively engaging but the final stretch of the book goes exactly where you are expecting and it's a drag to get through, even though the book in its entirety only took me maybe two and a half hours. Just another example of decent sci-fi ideas being shattered by the execution of those ideas.

[Jamie Marfurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun dystopian story that also leaves you thinking. One of my recent favorites. Definitely want to read more by this author!

[Pat Buchanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I read as a youth. I still remember it today, which I can't say for many other books. Well, other than The Stand. Pieces of this story still pop into my mind now and then.