Huxley’s 1931 classic imagines a sterilized future in which war and illness are all but obsolete — but they come at the expense of art, creativity, and emotional expression. Citizens keep unpleasant feelings at bay with mind-altering drugs, natural reproduction is replaced by genetic engineering, and consumerism is the only religion, until one outsider speaks up and upsets the whole system. Modern Library ranked Brave New World at No. 5 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.