I just finished reading this by some amazing coincidence. George Orwell actually said it was an influence on his work, whereas Aldous Huxley denied it. The similarities to Orwell's 1984 are easy to spot, but it has many differences. It is much further in the future. The society is an aftermath of a 200 year-long war, whereas Orwell has ongoing wars which are used to instill nationalistic fervor. There is the 'Green Wall', with the feral people living outside. The society is, in my opinion, more totalitarian than 1984. The 'powers that be' know the precise movements of every person - a future prediction of tagging, or because every building has been made out of glass? - whereas 'Big Brother' simply has a kind of cctv camera everywhere. The 'pink tickets' and dreamless sleep, and the 'Great Operation' to remove 'imagination' are not designed to keep everyone happy, but to make them conform to some notional society norm. The use of mathematical principles applied to social norms even actually made some weird kind of sense. There was a lot about 'time and motion' studies which was the current rage in industry when it as written. I felt that the 'Great Benefactor' was a more powerful figure than 'Big Brother'. The 'Benefactor' really existed, and was in charge of the system called 'One State', whereas 'Big Brother' was the system. But there was none of Orwell's 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' in the propaganda of the 'Great Benefactor'; it purely about efficiency and mathematics. Also, I think that D-503 is a much more passive victim than Winston Smith. I wanted to shake him, a very intelligent man who was the prime builder of the Integral, and wake him up.