I read it in 1959, when South Africa was becoming more and more totalitarian, and so it was one of the scariest books i had ever read. I had recently read [b:Brave New World|5479|Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited|Aldous Huxley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331315450s/5479.jpg|39947767], which was equally dystopian, but it concerned the distant future, and so felt more like a remote threat. The menace in [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1532714506s/40961427.jpg|153313] was immediate.