During the wild 60s, Brunner wrote an amazing novel about overpopulation, corporatocracy, everyday terror, and permanent infodump by news media and coDuring the wild 60s, Brunner wrote an amazing novel about overpopulation, corporatocracy, everyday terror, and permanent infodump by news media and corporations and described a setting that became astonishingly true in many details.
Reread 2022 with extended review
Dark social sci-fi Sure, he was a bit too optimistic regarding genetic engineering and too pessimistic regarding totalitarian tendencies, but some passages could be out of a present time history book. More social sci fi than focused on action, Brunner describes a complete unleashed market, PR- and commercial industry in a dystopian world as a mixture of Huxley and Orwell with a focus on showing the most perverse and extreme manifestations of such social constructs.
Extreme detail It´s a long read with many worldbuilding details and all these amazing news reports, news flashes, and hundreds of integrated mini-stories that help to push the narrative forward and give depth and extra layers to it. They´re also part of the creepy predictive power, because some could really be seen as 1 to 1 real news reports of past or current events.
Skim and scan Some passages are far too long, some plots unnecessary, and the newsflashes could mostly be ignored. But these details are part of the fascination of the work, so each reader can decide if she/he wants to just go with the main plot and thereby reduce the length or enjoy the full picture of the madness.
Language and wit The humor definitively isn´t for everyone, it´s as dark as the work itself, quite explicit, and for less borderliny readers than me maybe a bit too sick, but there are some hard laughs hidden in the abysses of this universe. Part of the fun makes the Clockwork orange style fantasy language that especially shines in dialogues with its strangeness, often combined with preposterous settings and characters' motivations.
Style and impact in the genre My favorite elements are the very detailed descriptions of how the system works, be it by plot or characters, the mentioned many tidbit mini comments, the reactions and motivations of the government and management level, and the complex geopolitical constellations. Not so well known as other Sci-Fi authors, Brunner might have given inspiration to William Gibson and the Cyberpunk genre in general by correctly predicting the development of highly complex societal and global power structures and their long term degeneration.
Mario the lone bookwolf
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Books:
brunner-john
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