Stand on Zanzibar

This book was written in the late 60s, when everything was breaking loose from traditional values, including writing styles. Brunner did a very good job of anticipating how technology and changing social norms would change the world in the not-so-distant future.

It's all there: sexual freedom, legal drugs, religion, computers, crazy mass killers called muckers, corporate empires, a 7 billion population, global events, and the personalized internet.

I like the way the story was written, a new wave pop art style intermixed with traditional passages blaring out a series of seemingly unrelated events that are strung together by a group… show more.

Another re-read, this one a lot slower and darker. Written in 1968, it depicts a future where overpopulation is rife; genetic engineering is routine, corporations have taken over democracy, technology controls human relationships, and mass-marketed drugs keep billions docile. Sound familiar?

Despite the grim world-building, it's also one of the funniest classic sci-fi novels.

John Brunner became the master of “big society” science fiction, who was a major inspiration for me and my own writing.

He could paint a picture of society at large by cutting between the storylines of individuals caught in the midst of everything going on. By focusing on these personal stories, pitted against the forces of social change, he described future life in a way that had seldom been done before.