Implosion (novel)

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Cover of the first edition, published by Hart-Davis. ImplosionNovel.jpg
Cover of the first edition, published by Hart-Davis.

Implosion is a science fiction novel by British writer D. F. Jones, published in 1967, set in a United Kingdom just attacked by an unnamed minor Eastern Bloc country. The weapon used, 'Prolix', is a chemical sterilant, that, once ingested, renders most women sterile.

The protagonists are the Minister for Health, Dr. John Bart, M.D., and his wife Julia; he soon finds his Ministry is the most important government entity in the new, post-attack Britain, while his wife is one of the country's few remaining fertile women. In the end, as the Minister for Health, Dr. Bart finds himself creating a new society where fertile women are herded to concentration camps, to spend the rest of their lives reproducing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world are shooting Prolix at each other, gradually reducing their populations to Britain's circumstance. At story's end, mankind learns that the genetic quirk that kept some women fertile allows them to only bear boys, thus dooming humanity to extinction.

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Calendar-based methods are various methods of estimating a woman's likelihood of fertility, based on a record of the length of previous menstrual cycles. Various methods are known as the Knaus–Ogino method and the rhythm method. The standard days method is also considered a calendar-based method, because when using it, a woman tracks the days of her menstrual cycle without observing her physical fertility signs. The standard days method is based on a fixed formula taking into consideration the timing of ovulation, the functional life of the sperm and the ovum, and the resulting likelihood of pregnancy on particular days of the menstrual cycle. These methods may be used to achieve pregnancy by timing unprotected intercourse for days identified as fertile, or to avoid pregnancy by avoiding unprotected intercourse during fertile days.

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