(Found) Looking for a book i read in the 80's

[NapoleonsBird]

Hello, i'm looking for a book set on earth, no aliens involved and some kind of catastrophe leaving a meat shortage had occurred. Humans had remedied this by breeding other humans for food. To disguise the fact that people were eating human meat the government called the food humans by another name. To replenish the breeding stock people were told about a fictional utopia. So when the government people came to each town and took the healthiest boys and girls everybody was happy to go.
I remember the food humans being locked in cages like animals and being treated like cattle. The main character slowly realises this is what happened to his sister.
If anyone remembers this or sends me off in the right direction to find it (in spite of my crappy description, spelling, grammar and punctuation) you're a bloody saint and will make me a happy woman.

 

[chrispenycate]

Breeding people specifically for food, rather than using available stock? How barbaric, and inefficient.

I know Piers Anthony was writing one; he published the human dairy farming one, but I believe drew the line at the abattoir. Or there's quite a bit of cannibalism around (Anthony Burgess in "The Wanting Seed" even cans them) and a number of alien races raising humans for sport and gastronomy, but I can't think of any cases where humans destined other humans to the cook pot. After all, it's so much easier to raise pigs or goats or something, and much less risky as regards disease transmission…

Mind you, they give excellent sport.

 

[NapoleonsBird]

Yep very barbaric. I think stock animals didn't exist which is why humans were being used, something happened to the earth, the animals died and left human technology set back to pre-electricity leaving long distance communication difficult and the human stock programme easier to cover up.

 

[merritt]

Through Darkest America by Neal Barret maybe

Creepy, my wife wishes she never read it :0)

 

[ghost8772]

dunno if it ever was a book, but Soylent green also has a cannabilism slant to it. Actually I think it was a book, maybe Phillip K. Dick as Author...

Okay, did a quick look, that movie was based of the book Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, but don't know if thats the story you seek.

 

[NapoleonsBird]

Thankyou every one for your help, the search is over.

 

[NapoleonsBird]

Through Darkest America by Neal Barret maybe

Creepy, my wife wishes she never read it :0)

Thankyou thankyou, this is the one it has sort of haunted me for a long time. I understand how your wife feels.

 

[Danny McG]

I spotted this thread few weeks ago and managed to get a free download of this book and its sequel "by dawn's uncertain light". As stated a bit of a dark read, I think the initial book was superior, by book two it was remiscient of a typical slave and underground railway yarn