This is, I think, one of the finest science fiction books ever written, taking a relatively new technology of Orwell's own time and positing a world where the use of that technology is ubiquitous, deadly, and capable of being a political tool of great and prophetic effect. Everyone has their own private collection of seminal texts, the ones you go back to over and over, that have had a towering influence on the way you think about life, and for me 1984 is one of those books. It's thoughtful and compelling in its ideas about language, it's absolutely uncompromising in that hideous, terrifying ending... and yes, it is entirely responsible for my unshakeable rat phobia. (Oh, if only my adolescent self had had the sense to stop reading!) Horrifying, heartbreaking, and vicious.