Why oh Why are cynics, skeptics, pessimists and satirists such good oracles. I know things are nowhere near that bad, but there are a lot of good predictions there with a whole lot of counter culture sprinkled all over. And now John Brunner is correct about the Chinese being the first to start editing the human genome, we have the technology to create Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere (deep fakes) and us leaving more and more decisions for AIs. The books main cynic Chad C. Mulligan is even temporarily def...

Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up were two of my favourite books at university, and the covers even appear in my Master's Thesis.Brunner wrote a few truly awful sci-fi books early in his career, and then "something happened (LSD?)", and then he wrote these two masterpieces. Truly Awesome books!Set in 2010, note that the book features a president named "Obomi" !!Full size image here

This is not a proper review. I just want to share my opinion.One of the fictitious nation on this novel, Yatakang, is a good analogy/shadowing of Indonesia at second half of 1960s period condition. Maybe that helps me to give high rating for this book. There isn't many SF books that picturing the Indonesia as details as this book. Until now, this is the best that I have found so far.

Some novels should only be read once. On my second read, I wanted to downgrade my estimation of the novel by a star.I felt sad.Sure. Shalmaneser was and still is my go-to model for a hell of a kick-ass supercomputer developing true intelligence and will, with all of it's concomitant problems, such as addiction and hallucination. (How very 1969 of a novel, Mr. Brunner.)And yes, when I first read this back in 1990, I was surprised and oh so pleased by all the counterculture, drug use, clandestine

Astonishing. Eyeopening. Among the most prescient novels ever written.Published in 1968 but set in 2010, Stand on Zanzibar by British author John Brunner accurately predicts an entire host of profound changes that have taken place in our early 21st century. To note a baker's dozen:1. The population of Earth will exceed seven billion around 2010, enough people the island of Zanzibar's 600 square miles would be needed for the world's population to stand shoulder to shoulder.2. A small computer in

Some love this book and some hate it. I find myself more in between, because this is a serviceable novel, with occasional exciting and insightful bits, but not one that coheres or gels in a satisfactory way. Yes, the narrative technique Brunner used to tell his story was, I guess, unique at the time it was written, but I believe its "experimental" nature has been grossly exaggerated. Basically, there is a definite plot in the middle of all this, a rather dull one, but it is interspersed with adv...

This psychedelic novel, is set in the far distant future, 2010! When we can look forward to picture phones, holographic t.v. sets , Moon bases looking down on the poor, struggling, threatened Earth, and battery powered cars everywhere, (can't wait) but no cell phones or internet, the book was written in 1968, which shows how useless forecasting the future is, if the obvious has to be stated again... The happening man is Mr.Norman Niblock House, he lives in a domed Manhattan, the rest of New York...

That was 600+ pages of sheer eccentricity! Not in a bad way, but wow. I love books like this, that push the boundaries in some way, play around with indirect narrative. As long as they know why they're doing it. This one did.Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

This was impressive!Not so much the plot, which is somewhere in the background and not really that exciting. No, this book is much more about the detailed worldbuilding, the narration choice of mixing chapters of background information, hectic news/add chapters and the plot itself into a whole that masterfully illustrates a world of overpopulation and anxiety. It feels like an artificial creation, but one that really works.Above all for a book from 1968 Brunner writes in a tone that today still

During 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 reviewDark 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...

Definitely one of the best SF dystopias, which IMHO deserved more attention. OK, it's fair that "1984" and "Brave New World" received greater critical acclaim - there's no doubt that they are better. But there must be a hundred people who have read them for every one who's read Zanzibar, and that's not an accurate reflection of the difference in quality. Brunner has some interesting things to say that you won't find in either of the other two books, and he writes quite well.By the way, in case y...

6.0 stars (One of my All Time Favorites). A staggering novel. Rich in characters, a superbly crafted story that moves very quickly and deals with some very important issues. I absolutely loved this book and consider it one of the true classics of Science Fiction. Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1969)Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1969)Winner: Britsh Science Fiction Award for Best Novel (1970)

I bought and read this book in 1968, it is without doubt one of the most amazing Sci-Fi books of all time. All these years later the foresight Brunner had is alarming. "Muckers" for example where people who went inexplicably mad in public places, indiscriminately killing as many people as they could, in 1968 it was unheard of, by 2017 it has happened on numerous occasions. I love the way he describes when the book was based - In 1968 the entire population of the World crammed together would occu...

:: Stand on Zanzibar is one of my favorite novels :: a) Stand on Zanzibar is about overpopulation. if the entire world's population were to stand on Zanzibar, it would sink.b) Stand on Zanzibar is about information. how is it processed? what does it really mean?c) Stand on Zanzibar is about the evils and cupidity of corporatization. it is about how a corporation may be able to do a good thing, despite itself.d) Stand on Zanzibar is about the evils and stupidity of the State. it provides many

Friday afternoon, messaging with my work-husband (who has, more accurately, been my long-distance-work-husband for 18 months).Me : “I can’t wait for the end of the day, I just want to go read on the couch. Just me, the cat, and this sci-fi novel, written in the 60s about a dystopic world where overpopulation has led to food, climate and housing crisis and corporations own the government... oh wait, that's the newspaper!”Work-husband: “LOL”Me: “I’m actually joking about the newspaper; it’s a real...

Reading this before discovering Dos Passos' 'U.S.A.', I was mightily impressed by Brunner's originality of technique. Discovering 'U.S.A.', I was even more impressed by Dos Passos, of course, but did not fault Brunner's employment of the other's proven methods for painting an enormous, richly textured picture of a possible future.The book was anxiety-provoking in 1969. The accuracy of many of Brunner's predictions makes one wonder about the increasingly large subgenre of science fiction books wh...

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner is an amazing book. First of all, the title comes from the idea of putting all the people on the planet in one place. A nineteenth century commentator speculated that if everyone were to stand, and have maybe a couple feet square around him or her, then everyone could stand together on the Isle of Wight. Some time later this concept was expanded due to population increases to speculate that the same experiment could be done on the Isle of Man. Brunner, setting h...

So I'm going to have to let this one marinate for a while... I will say it's incredibly, depressingly prescient. My second book by Brunner. It wasn't a fluke, clearly the man is a soothsayer with his prognostications on population growth, race, LGBT, mass killings, legalization of marijuana, population control (one child policy), Artificial Intelligence, wars fought in skirmishes, terrorists, price increases 6 fold since the 60s, European Union, China as our biggest economic rival, the loss of m...

A difficult to read. Difficult to rate. It's a masterpiece.Many others have summarized it brilliantly. I wouldn't even try.However, it is an outstanding and unique work from a guy who, until then (1967) primarily published - as did PKD - in Ace Double paperbacks.It's a book about everything, and written in a very unusual and clever fashion with simultaneous overlapping segments: Context. The happening world. Tracking with closeups. Continuity.The bulk of the "actual novel" is in the "continuity"...