{"id":318,"date":"2013-11-01T15:52:01","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T15:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=318"},"modified":"2013-11-21T11:42:26","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T11:42:26","slug":"%ef%bb%bfjohn-brunner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=318","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffJohn Brunner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tsr2\"<\/a>I just finished reading Stand on Zanzibar<\/em> (1968) by John Brunner<\/a>. To save you looking it up, the title comes from the fact that at the time of writing, the World’s population would have fitted, shoulder to shoulder, on the Isle of Wight. By 2010, when the novel is set, it would just fit onto the island of Zanzibar. In fact Brunner was about right, estimating the population at about 7 billion.<\/p>\n

These days you don’t hear much about Brunner; he died, aged 61, of a stroke while attending a SciFi convention in Glasgow. The SciFi criticism I have been reading doesn’t mention him and Brian Aldiss’ (1986) history of the genre is only mildly enthusiastic about his work, but then Aldiss is less than flattering about Day of the Triffids<\/em> (\u201ccosy disasters\u201d), so his opinion isn’t that reliable. Anyway, I find this situation sad because some of Brunner’s work is brilliant [Note 1], especially the four novels he wrote between 1968 and 1976, which, according to Wikipedia, are known as the Club of Rome quartet.<\/p>\n

I first read Stand on Zanzibar<\/em> when, as a teenager in the mid 1970s, I was Hoovering up SciFi. Like his near contemporary Mike Moorcock (my hero), Brunner was one of the New Wave writers who created proto-cyberpunk novels written in a non-linear, some would say \u201cpost-modern\u201d style. Again Wikipedia attributes this style to imitation of John Dos Passos<\/a> USA trilogy (which I haven’t read, yet), but you could equally cite Alain Robbe-Grillet (who I also haven’t read). But who cares, as Borges says, writers create their own precursors (see The Borges Matrix<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Brunner’s 2010 is nothing like 2010. For one thing he foresees a great deal more racial tension and overt prejudice than actually exists today. For example, in The Jagged Orbit<\/em> (1969) the USA is segregated into all black and all white regions that eye one another with suspicion. A vision that, presumably, only the Tea Party would embrace. Equally, in The Sheep Look Up<\/em> (1972) his predictions of ecological disaster are a bit premature [Note 2]. But as Neils Bohr is reputed to have said \u201cPrediction is very difficult, especially about the future.\u201d [Note 3]. But if you are looking for predictions that come true, read The Shockwave Rider<\/em> (1975). Here Brunner’s protagonist is a kind of anarchist hacker and fugitive who continually uses what is effectively the internet to reinvent himself. The novel also includes computer viruses. Of course Brunner was not the first to predict the rise of the net. Many people attribute this to Vannevar Bush in his article \u201cAs We May Think<\/a>\u201d (1945). But one could as easily cite E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops<\/em> (1909) or, in particular, Paul Valery’s essay \u201cLa conqu\u00eate de l\u2019ubiquit\u00e9\u201d (1928) which is well worth a read.<\/p>\n

Although they are are uncanny, perhaps Brunner’s predictions are less important than his style and his concerns. John Brunner was a socialist, a fact that has led one commentator on a blog<\/a> to write:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Brunner, while a gifted writer, was also a raving socialist, and couldn’t keep his politics separate from his fiction. It made for a bitter brew in his novels.<\/p>\n

He was an active supporter of CND and, apparently, even wrote them a song. As another raving socialist, I admire Brunner’s insertion of politics into his fiction. \"the_iron_dream_hitler_swastika\"<\/a>Indeed, what marks out all of the New Wave writers such as Moorcock, Ballard or Norman Spinrad, is that their work is political, in contrast to both the neutral pap that came before (and since), or indeed the raving right wing efforts of the likes of Heinlein and Jerry Pournelle (co-inventors of Reagan’s Star Wars initiative<\/a>). Indeed, Heinlein serves a target for mockery in both Spinrad’s The Iron Dream<\/em> (1972) and (as far as I’m concerned) Verhoven’s film of Starship Troopers. Whilst I admire the work of William Gibson, who incorrectly gets the credit for cyberspace, his work is largely neutral in political terms, except for its oblique satire on the excesses of Capitalism. Brunner and the other New Wavers, on the other hand, embraced the zeitgeist of the 1960s (and Moorcock’s editorship of New Worlds) to come out fighting.<\/p>\n

And indeed there were battles. Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron <\/em>(1969), serialised in New Worlds, provoked questions in the House of Lords and a ban from the shelves of W.H. Smith. His Iron Dream<\/em> was also banned in Germany, but this largely for the depiction on its cover of Uncle Adolf Hitler riding a motorbike. Similarly the Sage of Shepperton’s (1970) The Atrocity Exhibition<\/em> was, according to Wikipedia; \u201cthe subject of an obscenity trial, and in the United States, publisher Doubleday destroyed almost the entire print run before it was distributed\u201d. This is perhaps unsurprising given the chapter \u201cWhy I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan\u201d.<\/p>\n

John Brunner’s work wasn’t, as far as I know, banned, but it should have been. Because his dystopias, whilst they are not here yet, are surely on their way. We can, as of 2013, only just fit on Zanzibar.<\/p>\n

Coda<\/h2>\n

I could have stopped there, but feel the need to mention a couple of Brunner’s other novels that are worth a read. The Dramaturges of Yan<\/em> (1972) offers an interesting analysis of the relationship between the individual and society by positing a world in which an entire race can combine into one individual and do a lot of stupid things (I referred to it in my PhD thesis). This book and also Total Eclipse<\/em> (1974) may be of interest to archaeologists in that they both use xenoarchaeology as their basic theme. Indeed Total Eclipse<\/em> (which in some respects resembles Lem’s Solaris<\/em> 1970[1961] or Fiasco <\/em>1987) is an archetype of people doing the archaeology of aliens, a theme that comes up again and again; c.f. Alistair Reynolds (2000) Revelation Space<\/em> or numerous episodes of Star Trek TNG (Picard being an amateur archaeologist). Not to mention (but I will) Dr Who, in particular The Daemons<\/a> (1971 my all time favourite) and The Stones of Blood<\/a> (1978). I should write a book about it…<\/p>\n

…I am.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/h2>\n

Note 1: Brunner is often described as prolific, which means that as well as good novels he also wrote crap, including early stuff for the pulps.<\/p>\n

Note 2: Since writing this I have reread The Sheep Look Up<\/em> and yes its predictions are premature, but in many ways not far off. As usual Brunner seems to have been pretty well informed, e.g. about the dangers of PCBs in the water supply.<\/p>\n

Note 3: The attribution of this quote to Neils Bohr is disputed<\/p>\n

References<\/h2>\n

Aldiss, Brian 1986 Trillion Year Spree<\/em> Gollanz<\/p>\n

Ballard J.G. 1970 The Atrocity Exhibition<\/em> Cape<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1968 Stand on Zanzibar<\/em> Doubleday<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1969 The Jagged Orbit<\/em> Ace<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1972 The Sheep Look Up<\/em> Harper and Row<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1972 The Dramaturges of Yan<\/em> New English Library<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1975 The Shockwave Rider<\/em> Harper and Row<\/p>\n

Brunner, John 1974 Total Eclipse<\/em> Doubleday<\/p>\n

Forster, E.M 1909 The Machine Stops<\/em> Penguin<\/p>\n

Lem, Stanislaw 1970[1961] Solaris<\/em> Walker<\/p>\n

Lem, Stanislaw 1987 Fiasco<\/em> Harcourt Brace Jovanovich<\/p>\n

Reynolds, Alistair 2000 Revelation Space<\/em> Gollanz<\/p>\n

Spinrad, Norman 1972 The Iron Dream<\/em> Avon<\/p>\n

Spinrad, Norman 1969 Bug Jack Barron<\/em> Walker<\/p>\n

Valery, Paul 1928 La conqu\u00eate de l\u2019ubiquity<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner. To save you looking it up, the title comes from the fact that at the time of writing, the World’s population would have fitted, shoulder to shoulder, on the Isle of Wight. By 2010, when the novel is set, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,64,36],"tags":[65,35,93],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academicy-stuff","category-science-fiction-2","category-xenoarchaeology","tag-john-brunner","tag-science-fiction","tag-xenoarchaeology","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/tsr2.jpg?fit=307%2C475","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7sHEp-58","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":161,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=161","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":0},"title":"Ruins in esrever","author":"slightly","date":"June 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Ruins in reverse is an exhibition in the Project Space at Tate Modern between 1 March \u2013 24 June 2013. According to the rather nice, free, catalogue for the exhibition: \"Ruins in Reverse takes its title from an idea found in Robert Smithson's 1967 essay A Tour of the Monuments\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academicy Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Academicy Stuff","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/k.jpg?fit=448%2C637&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":560,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=560","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":1},"title":"Travels in Annwn 3: Discussion","author":"slightly","date":"April 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction Stalker is by no means the only game which recreates \u201chistoric\u201d places (see Kapell and Elliott 2013). The most notable parallels are the various iterations of Assassin's Creed which represent the 12th century Levant (Damascus, Acre, Jerusalem), Rennaissance Italy (Florence and Rome) and 18th century America (Boston and New\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academicy Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Academicy Stuff","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Assacreed_b02_127","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Assacreed_b02_127.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":516,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=516","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":2},"title":"Travels in Annwn (Part 1)","author":"slightly","date":"February 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't posted on this blog for some time, partly because I have been travelling. Specifically, I have been in north east Ukraine, fighting my way towards the abandoned town of Pripyat. Along the way I have killed and maimed a lot of people, mostly bandits, together with a number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academicy Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Academicy Stuff","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ss_winston-smith_02-15-16_12-39-54_l11_pripyat.jpg?fit=800%2C600&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ss_winston-smith_02-15-16_12-39-54_l11_pripyat.jpg?fit=800%2C600&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ss_winston-smith_02-15-16_12-39-54_l11_pripyat.jpg?fit=800%2C600&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ss_winston-smith_02-15-16_12-39-54_l11_pripyat.jpg?fit=800%2C600&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=8","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":3},"title":"The Borges Matrix","author":"slightly","date":"January 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In June 1993, I found myself in Les Eyzies de Tayac, a village in South West France famous for its numerous prehistoric sites. Though to say that I \u201cfound\u201d myself in the Dordogne is perhaps too contingent an expression. My visit was entirely intentional. In any case, most particulars of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academicy Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Academicy Stuff","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cromagnon.jpg?fit=806%2C1200&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cromagnon.jpg?fit=806%2C1200&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cromagnon.jpg?fit=806%2C1200&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cromagnon.jpg?fit=806%2C1200&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":110,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=110","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":4},"title":"The Final Countdown","author":"slightly","date":"April 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Petrie wiped their mandible. Report of Preliminary Archaeological Survey of Sokar IV Planet is solid mass, mainly silicon with high ferrous content. Volcanism evident from cones and numerous igneous deposits. Drift geology indicate past presence of aitchto-o. There are 10 sites of archaeological interest on planet, all originating from Sokar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Parafiction"","block_context":{"text":"Parafiction","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sokal4site-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C874&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sokal4site-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C874&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sokal4site-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C874&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sokal4site-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C874&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sokal4site-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C874&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":487,"url":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?p=487","url_meta":{"origin":318,"position":5},"title":"The Future is Already Here…","author":"slightly","date":"January 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"...it's just been misremembered The internet is filling up with crap. My personal pet hate is misquotations, or the meme-ing of quotations without citation. Is this because I am a pedantic academic twat, or is it that by this process, crap gets spread around and actually finding genuine information gets\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academicy Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Academicy Stuff","link":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/?cat=10"},"img":{"alt_text":"575477_10201226624607158_660752653_n","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/575477_10201226624607158_660752653_n-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/slightlymuddy.com\/kuriosum\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}