23. Poul Anderson, Brain Wave* (cover by Richard Powers)

This was an interesting novel and is well reviewed over on Olman's Fifty.  One day the world wakes up to find that the IQ of all organic life forms has increased by up to two fold and is continuing to rise.  The symptoms of this change come in many different forms:  a rabbit figures out a way to let himself out of the trap that he has inadvertently stepped into; farm animals attack the farmers for their freedom; black Africans form an alliance with indigenous apes to attack the white man; people who cannot deal with their new found intelligence find themselves devolving into schizophrenics; and scientists begin to work industriously on new theories, explanations and technologies.

The increase in intelligence also results in the breakdown of society which begins when workers who had previously been content to work on farms, in factories, on subways, and in other menial jobs decide that those jobs are no longer interesting and quit.  This means that food is no longer mass produced, there's no more transportation, there are no more policemen among others.  All of this ultimately results in violence.  The societal breakdown is further manifested by fringe religions that emerge into the mainstream and advocate violence against the state.

The story focuses on a group of scientists working at a private, New York based, research facility called the Institute.  These scientists collectively bring a semblance of order back to at least the New York area, develop a theory of what has happened, and build a spaceship that can travel faster than light.

One of the Institute's scientists suggests that the earth, and the entire solar system, has been traveling through a dampening cone for the past two millennia which reduces the firing frequency of certain neurons attached to the grey matter portion of human brains.  The day when people became smarter was the same day as the earth emerged from this dampening field.  The spaceship made by the Institute's scientists goes out to validate this theory.

This book could have been three or four times as long as it was (hell, it should be turned into a video game) if the author had taken the time to really explore each of the issues that he superficially raises in his novel.  The kernel of the story is fascinating but the fact that the author did not develop it in more detail really left me wanting.