Brainwave
What if we're all designed to be smarter than we actually are?  That is, in short, the premise of master science fiction novelist Poul Anderson's 1954 debut work, Brainwave. Unbeknownst to its inhabitants, the solar system has, for millions of years, been caught in a force field that has had the effect of suppressing intelligence.  When, in the course of normal galactic movement the solar system finally breaks free of the force field and its inhibiting effects, a remarkable change begins to sweep across the earth. In fact, the entire world is turned upside-down, and Anderson's novel is devoted to detailing the sometimes-surprising, sometimes-chilling aftereffects of this watershed event.  In one of the novel's opening scenes, Archie Brock, a mentally disabled man, finds himself suddenly awash in new kinds of thoughts as he looks up at the night sky.  In another scene, a young boy on summer break works out the basic foundations of calculus before breakfast.  Human life is dramatically transformed, as people with IQ's of 400 find themselves living within social structures and institutions designed for people of considerably less intelligence.  There are also those who refuse to accept what has happened and band together to rebel against the new order.  In another interesting twist, human relationships with other creatures on the planet are also thrown into upheaval, as animals rediscover their native intelligence.  Archie Brock, for instance finds working on a farm with intelligent animals a frustrating, comic and confounding experience, as some animals band together and escape while others befriend their former masters.A fascinating "what if" novel, Brainwave is really an exploration into the ways human society is organized and the assumptions that are made about how life is valued.  It is also a novel about equality and what happens when the hierarchical structures by which we arrange our daily lives disappear.
Fiction in English, Intelligence levels, Fiction, Literature, American Science fiction
Poul Anderson, Tom Weiner
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.

Source: Goodreads