It's the far future, Earth has become a crowded place whose technology allows for supporting an enormous population, but whose geography makes this difficult. The solution? Use "stoning" technology, which freezes people (or anything else) into ageless solids, to freeze most of the Earth's population. Then unfreeze them on a schedule, so each person gets to live but one day of each week, sharing living space with six others. Such is the premise of Farmer's Dayworld, a story that spins out from this premise, asking what people who dislike the status quo might do. The tale is told through the perspective(s) of a daybreaker, someone who lives seven different lives on seven different days as an operative for a secret organization (that also has a serum for extended life) working to free people from the oppression the government wields with its benevolent dictatorship. A few thoughts: Dayworld is pretty good, but not really all that compelling. Perhaps part of it is that Farmer does such a good job re-casting the main character as he shifts from day to day that we have trouble maintaining our interest in him. An explanation late in the story helps establish how he can be so different each day, but it strains credulity a bit. Farmer's real strength in the story is how he develops the wide-ranging ramifications for the seven day world. I especially like the notion that each day's culture would be distinct, so people would have different fashion styles in each day. At one point, our main daybreaker is caught in the wrong day's clothes, and he suspects the ruffled collar will give him away. The technology in the story is interesting, with the "strips" serving sort of like computer screens and televisions in one. But these are never described in much detail, so it's hard to imagine how they work and somewhat irritating for all that. The main "miss" in this aspect is the idea that one kind of communication system--the "strip"--would completely edge out all the others. Farmer suggests a few changes to gender politics, including multiple marriage not unlike the family marriage in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (though including, apparently, thrice-nightly consummation). He also mixes up name types to suggest that some male names would trend female and vice-versa. I suspect that he didn't research this idea much, as he didn't propose any major changes to gender relations that would allow female names to trend male. In present society, the trending is only male to female. See Alan Berliner's The Sweetest Sound for more on this.and some play and earn big bucks with the FAR FAR AWAY HISTORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM ...AND SOME PLAY WITH DAYS AND DAYWORLDS

Each person lives only 1 day in 7. Monday people live only from midnight to midnight Monday. The rest of the time they are “Stoned” a process that stops all functions and turns the body to a stone like material that cannot be damaged. A person can be stoned indefinitely with no ill effects.

What arises are 7 distinct societies overseen by a central government. Monday’s society is not the same as Friday’s and so on. Each job is done by seven different people. Poverty and want have been eliminated. The government seems to have evolved into a form of benevolent socialist state. Among this day world is a secret society called the “Immers.” The society was founded by a scientist called Immerman who had found a serum for eternal life. Its mission was to change the government by infiltrating it in various aspects while keeping the secret of immortality restricted to the people the society judged sound enough to handle the burden of eternal life. Because this society is found in all days of the week some Immers are called “Day Breakers”, people who take on a new aspect for each day of the week so they can pass messages throughout the week. Jeff Caird is such a man.

Because Jeff is forced to live as a different person each day of the week, what develops is a sort of conscious dissociative state or to use the layman’s term, a “split personality.” Jeff Caird doesn’t just pretend to be “Bob Tingle” on Wednesday, but the Bob Tingle personality takes over the body, although at some level both “Jeff” and “Bob” are aware of each other.

All this creates one of the most unusual and engrossing sci-fi novels I have ever read. It was amazing to me to watch the psychological struggles Jeff Caird experienced when the order of his seven separate lives get thrown into chaos by events out of his control. The event that destroys Caird carefully structured lives, is the escape of a fellow “Immer” named Castor who has gone insane and believes he is God and Jeff, who was instrumental in his original capture and subsequent incarceration, is the devil and must be destroyed. Castor has started to Day Break and is hunting Caird down in all his various personae’s, thus Castor is endangering Jeff’s physical being and all his secret lives. Although some reviewers have complained that the various characters were not well developed because the reader is only introduced to them for one day each, I did not feel that was the case.

The novel was full of action and chase scenes, but was full of psychological drama as well. Jeff Caird was not only forced to fight for his physical life, but was also having an internal battle with all the other personalities.