'Stand On Zanzibar' John Brunner

I haven't read it, but I have read Jagged Orbit, which, I believe makes a trilogy with The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar. John Brunner is an excellent writer. That's what I can add right now.
 
Even though it's been some years since I read it (so my memory may be a bit hazy), I'd love to... So... what points would you like to discuss? (And so it does, Addy, this order: Zanzibar, Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up....)
 
Brunner was ahead of his time, in more senses than one.

Many of his favoured themes, such as the denuding of the Earth's resources and the hardship humanity would suffer as a result, were present in his 'lessser' works, eg The Dreaming Earth (1963) and The Long Result (1965) -- both excellent in their own right -- but it was in his 'dystopian quartet' that these themes really crystalised. The three already mentioned, plus The Shockwave Rider, form a wonderful, fascinating, deeply enjoyable and darkly prophetic canon of work for which Brunner is justly remembered.

Of these, the first -- Stand on Zanzibar -- is arguably the best. A convoluted and quite magnificent work... Discuss? Where to begin? :confused:

The other sense in which Brunner was ahead of his time was that Stand, from his point of view, was four or five years too early. Brunner made very little money from this, his 'masterpiece'. Had it been published to such acclaim at the end of the 60s rather in the middle, he would have earned very nicely from it.

I never had the 'pleasure' of meeting John Brunner (knowing him was not always the easiest thing, by all accounts), which is something I deeply regret. Fortunately, I have a couple of friends who knew him well and so often hear anecdotes of the man.

Brunner was quite simply one of the greatest SF authors the UK ever produced.
 
I had a lot of trouble with this book and put it aside. The story line was indeed convoluted, with little bits of filler interspersed with the main story to paint the dystopian over populated back drop. I guess I got frustrated because I couldn't see where it was going. I also felt it was a bit mysoginistic in its attitude towards women, which probably was both a reaction to and extension of some of the social mores of the 60s. I hope I will get back to it some time.
 
Actually, I'd argue that the perceived mysoginism has more to do with his depiction of the society, with its mysoginistic attitudes (something that is dealt with in subtle ways in the novel, as are several other aspects of the society he posits), which was inherent in the society's attiude about others-vs.-self in general, but taken to a harsher degree concerning women. Even the best of of the characters are not untinged with this, being products of their society.

As for the structure... it is very clinical, in a sense... a literal cross-section of the society, taken layer by layer -- just as one would take a series of slides -- allowing one to see the convergence of the root system into a vast organic whole which (to carry on the metaphor) proliferate, foliate, in its implications...
 
Stunning Book, it's funny, but it has a sense of Urgency about it too, It's one of the few books I've wanted to read again as soon as I'd finished it, since I feel you can't really take it all in in one reading

Fab Book
 
I read it in the 1960s. I was impressed, but didn't actually enjoy it much - dystopias aren't my thing...
 
The Wanderer said:
Stunning Book, it's funny, but it has a sense of Urgency about it too, It's one of the few books I've wanted to read again as soon as I'd finished it, since I feel you can't really take it all in in one reading

Fab Book
Click to expand...

Glad you liked -- if that's the proper word:rolleyes: -- the book.... Yes, there's an awful lot going on there, on a lot of levels; so it's not something you "get" all in one go... it's one of those pieces of "literary steak" rather than candy floss... takes some mental mastication to begin with, and is also something you can revisit time and again and garner more riches with each time around....
 
I read it many years ago and no longer have the book. I always liked Brunner stories. With many authors, I can (after a number of years) remember having read a particular work, but can't tell you what it was about anymore. With Brunner, the theme doesn't fade. His environmental message still stands out for me.
 
I found the early part of this book tough going, but my persistence really paid off. About a third of the way through, I really started liking it. It took me awhile to warm up to the characters and to get used to some of the more dated elements. I ended up liking the main character and the story line a lot more than I expected in the beginning. The overall story holds up quite well for its age. I’m sure it was even more powerful when first published. I can see why it won the Hugo for 1969. I have the rest of the trilogy in my TBR pile.


 
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