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Stand on Zanzibar: The Hugo Award-Winning Novel Paperback – August 16, 2011
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The brilliant 1969 Hugo Award-winning novel from John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, now included with a foreword by Bruce Sterling
Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically---it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him.
These two men's lives weave through one of science fiction's most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of now, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful.
- Print length576 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateAugust 16, 2011
- Dimensions6.34 x 1.07 x 9.3 inches
- ISBN-100765326787
- ISBN-13978-0765326782
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A wake-up call to a world slumbering in the opium dream of consumerisum; in the hazy certainty that we humans were in charge of nature. Science fiction is not about predicting the future, it's about elucidating the present and the past. Brunner's 1968 nightmare is crystallizing around us, in ways he could not have foreseen then. If the right people had read this book, and acted in accordance with its precepts and spirit, our world would not be in such precarious shape today. Maybe it's time for a new generation to read it.” ―Joe Haldeman
“A quite marvelous projection in which John Brunner landscapes a future that seems the natural foster child of the present.” ―Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction writer, born in Brownsville, Texas on April 14, 1954. His first published fiction appeared in the late 1970s, but he came to real prominence in the early 1980s as one of several writers associated with the "cyberpunk" tendency, and as that movement's chief theoretician and pamphleteer. He also edited the anthology Mirrorshades (1986), which still stands as a definitive document of that period in SF. His novel Islands in the Net (1988) won the John W. Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year; he has also won two Hugo awards, for the stories "Bicycle Repairman" (1996) and "Taklamakan" (1998). His 1990 collaboration with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, was an important work of early steampunk/neo-Victoriana. In 2009, he published The Caryatids. In 1992 he published The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, heralding a second career as a journalist covering social, legal, and artistic matters in the digital world. The first issue of Wired magazine, in 1993, featured his face on its cover; today, their web site hosts his long-running blog, Beyond the Beyond.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Stand on Zanzibar
By John BrunnerOrb Books
Copyright © 2011 John BrunnerAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780765326782
context (1)
SCANALYZE MY NAME
Stock cue SOUND: “Presenting SCANALYZER, Engrelay Satelserv’s unique thrice-per-day study of the big big scene, the INdepth INdependent INmediate INterface between you and your world!”
Stock cue VISUAL: cliptage, splitscreen, cut in bridge-melder, Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere depthunder (today MAMP, Mid-Atlantic Mining Project), spaceover (today freefly-suiting), transiting (today Simplon Acceleratube), digging (today as every day homimage with autoshout).
Autoshout cue: “It’s happening it’s happening! SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER—”
Stock cue VISUAL: cliptage, wholescreen, planet Earth turning jerk-jerk-jerk and holding meridians for GMT, EST, PCT, Pacific Conflict Zone Time.
Live cue SOUND: “And it’s six poppa-momma for the happening people keeping it straight and steady on that old Greenwich Mean Time—how mean can time get, you tell me, hm? Zee for zero, bee for base, counting down to one after ess ee eks—sorree—ess EYE eks! We know what’s happening happening HAPPENING but that piece of the big big scene is strictly up to you, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere—or Mr. and Miss, or Miss and Miss, or Mister and Mister, take your pick, hah-hah! Counting down to one after one poppa-momma for that good old Eastern Standard tie-yum, one after ten anti-matter for the Pacific Coast, and for all of you fighting the good fight in lonely midocean one after seven anti-matter—PIPS!”
Clock cue: 5 × 1-sec. countdown pips on G in alt, minute signal on C in alt.
Plug cue: “No time like the present for things to happen in, no better way to keep time straight and steady than by the signal from General Technics’ critonium clock, so accuright it serves to judge the stars.”
Script cue VISUAL: cliptage, splitscreen, excerpts from day’s news.
Live cue SOUND: “And no better way to keep abreast—pardon—than with SCANALYZER!”
Cut autoshout cue. (If they haven’t made it by this time they’ve switched off.)
Plug cue: “SCANALYZER is the one single, the ONLY study of the news in depth that’s processed by General Technics’ famed computer Shalmaneser, who sees all, hears all, knows all save only that which YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, wish to keep to yourselves.”
Script cue: the happening world.
the happening world (1)
READ THE DIRECTIONS
For toDAY third of MAY twenty-TEN ManhatTEN reports mild spring-type weather under the Fuller Dome. Ditto on the General Technics Plaza.
But Shalmaneser is a Micryogenic® computer bathed in liquid helium and it’s cold in his vault.
(DITTO Use it! The mental process involved is exactly analogous to the bandwidth-saving technique employed for your phone. If you’ve seen the scene you’ve seen the scene and there’s too much new information for you to waste time looking it over more than once. Use “ditto”. Use it!
—The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan)
Less of a machine, more of a human being, but partaking of the nature of both, Georgette Tallon Buckfast is largely supported by prosthetics in her ninety-first year.
When the strain becomes TOO MUCH it’s because Hitrip of California bred it to have less stalk per ounce, more clean-queen leaf. Ask “The Man who’s Married to Mary Jane”!
Eric Ellerman is a plant geneticist with three daughters who’s scared because his wife has developed a permanent pot-belly.
“… and Puerto Rico today became the latest state to ratify the controversial dichromatism provision of United States eugenic legislation. This leaves only two havens for those who wish to bear disadvantaged children: Nevada and Louisiana. The defeat of the baby-farming lobby removes a long-time stigma from the fair brow of the Junior-but-One State—a congenital stigma, one may say, since the J-but-O State’s accession to hoodness coincided almost to the day with the first eugenic legislation concerned with haemophilia, phenylketonuria and congenital imbecility…”
Poppy Shelton has believed in miracles for years, but now there’s one happening right inside her body and the real world is leaning on her dreams.
THE DIFFICULT WE DO AT ONCE. THE IMPOSSIBLE TAKES A LITTLE LONGER.
—Base version of General Technics motto
Norman Niblock House is junior VP in charge of personnel and recruitment at General Technics.
“One fraction of a second, please—participant breakin coming up. Remember that only SCANALYZER’s participant breakin service is processed by General Technics’ Shalmaneser, the more correct response in the shorter quantum of time…”
Guinevere Steel’s real name is Dwiggins, but do you blame her?
Do your slax sufficiently convey your natural power—at a glance?
If you’re wearing MasQ-Lines, the answer’s yes. Tired of half measures, we at MasQ-Line Corp. have put the codpiece back where it belongs, to say to the shiggies not kidder but codder.
Sheena and Frank Potter are all packed ready to leave for Puerto Rico because a green and a red light are just lights to him.
“Two participant breakins! Number one: sorree, friend, but no—we are not wrong to say Puerto Rico’s decision leaves a mere two havens for the dissident. Isola does enjoy statehood, but the whole area of the Pacific its islands occupy is under martial law and you don’t get a pass for other than martial reasons. Thanks for asking us, though, it’s the way of the world, you’re my environment and I am yours, which is why we operate SCANALYZER as a two-way process…”
Arthur Golightly doesn’t mind not being able to remember where he put things. Looking for them, he always finds other things he’d forgotten he had.
THE DIFFICULT WE DID YESTERDAY. THE IMPOSSIBLE WE’RE DOING RIGHT NOW.
—Current version of General Technics motto
Donald Hogan is a spy.
“Number the other: dichromatism is what’s commonly called colourblindness, and it is sure as sidereal time a congenital disability. Thank you, participant, thank you.”
Stal (short for Stallion) Lucas is a yonderboy, weighed, measured, and freeflying all the way.
(IMPOSSIBLE Means: 1 I wouldn’t like it and when it happens I won’t approve; 2 I can’t be bothered; 3 God can’t be bothered. Meaning 3 may perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck.
—The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan)
Philip Peterson is twenty years old.
Are you undermined by an old-style autoshout unit, one that needs constant reprogramming by hand if it’s not to call you for items that were descheduled last week?
GT’s revolutionary new autoshout reprograms itself!
Sasha Peterson is Philip’s mother.
“Turning to a related subject, rioting crowds today stormed a Right Catholic church in Malmö, Sweden, while early mass was in progress. Casualty lists suggest a death toll of over forty including the priest and many children. From his palace in Madrid Pope Eglantine accused rival Pope Thomas of deliberately fomenting this and other recent uprisings, a charge vigorously denied by Vatican authorities.”
Victor and Mary Whatmough were born in the same country and have been married twenty years—she for the second time, he for the third.
What you want to do when you see her in her Forlon&Morler Maxess costumelet
Is what she wants you to do when you see her in her Forlon&Morler Maxess costumelet
If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have put it on
Maximal access is no exaggeration when you spell it MAXESS
Style illustrated is “Courtesan”
But you should see “Tart”
What there is of it
Elihu Masters is currently United States Ambassador to the one-time British colony of Beninia.
“Speaking of accusations, Dixierep Senator Lowell Kyte this anti-matter charged that dicties were now responsible for nine-tenths of the felonies committed per anum—sorree!—per annum in his home state of Texas and that Fed efforts to quell the problem were a failure. Privately, officials of the Nark Force have been heard to express concern at the way GT’s new product Triptine is catching the dicties’ fancy.”
Gerry Lindt is a draftee.
When we say “general” at GT we mean GENERAL. We offer the career of a lifetime to anyone interested in astronautics, biology, chemistry, dynamics, eugenics, ferromagnetism, geology, hydraulics, industrial administration, jet propulsion, kinetics, law, metallurgy, nucleonics, optics, patent rights, quarkology, robotics, synthesis, telecommunications, ultrasonics, vacuum technology, work, X-rays, ylem, zoology …
No, we didn’t miss out your speciality. We just didn’t have room for it in this ad.
Professor Doctor Sugaiguntung is head of the Tectogenetics Department at Dedication University in the Guided Socialist Democracy of Yatakang.
“The incidence of muckers continues to maintain its high: one in Outer Brooklyn yesterday accounted for 21 victims before the fuzzy-wuzzies fused him, and another is still at large in Evanston, Ill., with a total of eleven and three injured. Across the sea in London a woman mucker took out four as well as her own three-month baby before a mind-present standerby clobbered her. Reports also from Rangoon, Lima and Auckland notch up the day’s toll to 69.”
Grace Rowley is seventy-seven and going a bit weak in the head.
Here today and gone tomorrow isn’t good enough for us in this modern age.
Here today and gone today is the pidgin we pluck.
The Right Honourable Zadkiel F. Obomi is the president of Beninia.
“Westaway a piece or two, a stiff note was received in Washington this anti-matter from the Yatakangi government, claiming naval units working out of Isola had trespassed into Yatakang’s territorial waters. Officials will be polite, but it’s an open secret Yatakang’s hundred-island territory gives refuge all the time to Chinese aquabandits who sneak out from so-called neutral ports and ambush U.S patrols in mid-ocean…”
Olive Almerio is the most successful baby-farmer in Puerto Rico.
You know the codders who keep one, two, three shiggies on the string. You know the shiggies who every weekend blast off with a different codder. Envy them?
Needn’t.
Like any other human activity this one can be learned. We teach it, in courses tailored to your preferences.
Mrs. Grundy Memorial Foundation (may she spin in her grave).
Chad C. Mulligan was a sociologist. He gave it up.
“Last week’s State Forest fires on the West Coast that laid low hundreds of square miles of valuable timber destined for plastics, paper and organic chemicals were today officially attributed to sabotage by Forestry Commissioner Wayne C. Charles. As yet it is uncertain to whom the guilt belongs: treacherous so-called partisans among our own, or infiltrating reds.”
Jogajong is a revolutionary.
The word is EPTIFY.
Don’t look in the dictionary.
It’s too new for the dictionary.
But you’d better learn what it implies.
EPTIFY.
We do it to you.
Pierre and Jeannine Clodard are both the children of pieds-noirs, unsurprisingly as they are brother and sister.
“Tornado warnings are out in the following states…”
Jeff Young is “the man to go to” anywhere west of the Rockies for the rather specialised goods he handles: time-fuzes, explosives, thermite, strong acids and sabotage bacteria.
“Turning to the gossipy side: once again the rumour goes the rounds that the small independent African territory of Beninia is in economic chaos. President Kouté of Dahomalia in a speech at Bamako warned the RUNGs that if they attempted to exploit the situation all necessary steps to counter…”
Henry Butcher is an enthusiastic proselytiser for the panacea he believes in.
(RUMOUR Believe all you hear. Your world may not be a better one than the one the blocks live in but it’ll be a sight more vivid.
—The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan)
It is definite that the man known as Begi is not alive. On the other hand, in at least one sense he isn’t dead either.
“Also it’s noised that Burton Dent is bivving it again, in that he was seen scorting former fuel supply Edgar Jewel into the particulate stages of this anti-matter. Meantime, Pacific time, it looks like Fenella Koch his spouse of three years may be turning spousiness into spiciness with cream-dream Zoë Laigh. Like the slogan says—why not equals why ker-not!”
Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere are construct identities, the new century’s equivalent of the Joneses, except that with them you don’t have to keep up. You buy a personalised TV with homimage attachment which ensures that Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere look, and talk, and move like you.
(HIPCRIME You committed one when you opened this book. Keep it up. It’s our only hope.
—The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan)
Bennie Noakes sits in front of a set tuned to SCANALYZER orbiting on Triptine and saying over and over, “Christ what an imagination I’ve got!”
“And to close on, the Dept of Small Consolations. Some troubledome just figured out that if you allow for every codder and shiggy and appleofmyeye a space one foot by two you could stand us all on the six hundred forty square mile surface of the island of Zanzibar. ToDAY third MAY twenty-TEN come aGAIN!”
tracking with closeups (1)
MR. PRESIDENT
The Right Honourable Zadkiel F. Obomi could feel the weight of the night pressing on his grey-wire scalp like the oppressive bulky silence of a sensory deprivation tank. He sat in his large official chair, hand-carved into a design that recreated without copying the sixteenth-century style of the master craftsmen some of whom had been his ancestors … presumably. There had been a long interval when no one had time to care about such things.
Both his hands lay on the edge of the desk before him, as lax as vegetables. The left one showed its pinkish palm to the ceiling, with the creased lines that once, when he was a very small boy, had led a woman of half-French and half-Shango breeding to predict he would be a great hero. The other was turned to show its mahogany back, its tree-knot knuckles, as though poised to rap out a nervous fingertip rhythm.
It did not stir.
The deep intellectual forehead and the arch of his nose were probably Berber. But below the bridge on either side the nostrils flared out and the broad flat lips matched the plump cheeks and round chin and heavy pigmentation. That was all Shinka. He had often said jokingly in the days when his life had room for jokes that his face was a map of his country: invader down to the eyes, native from there on south.
But the eyes themselves, that made the dividing line, were simply human.
The left one was amost hidden under its drooping lid; it had been useless since the assassination bid of 1986, and a long scar still puckered the skin of his cheek and temple. The right one was bright, sharp, darting—at present unfocused, for he was not looking at the other occupant of the room.
The dead night suffocated him: Zadkiel F. Obomi, seventy-four years old, first and thus far only president of the former British colony of Beninia.
Not seeing, he was feeling. At his back, the huge empty nothing of the Sahara—the best part of a thousand miles away, yet so monstrous and so dominant it loomed in his brain like a thunderhead. Before him, beyond the walls, beyond the busy city, beyond the port, the early-night breeze of the Bight, smelling of ocean salt and spices from the ships standing to at the harbour bar. And to either side, forming the shackles that anchored his wrists on the desk against his half-formed desire to move them and turn the next page of the sheaf of documents awaiting his attention, the deadweight of the prosperous lands on whom fortune had smiled.
The population of the planet Earth was numbered in many billions.
Beninia, thanks to the slashed-on-a-map boundaries of the colonial government, had only nine hundred thousand of them.
The wealth of the planet Earth was inconceivable.
Beninia, for the same reason, had a little less than enough to save its people from starving.
The size of the planet Earth was … large enough, so far.
Beninia was pitted and pendulumed, and the walls were closing in.
He heard in memory the soft wheedling arguments.
With a French accent: Geography is on our side; the lie of the land indicates that Beninia should logically join the Dahomalians; the river valleys, the hill passes, the …
With an English accent: History is on our side; we share the same common language; in Beninia Shinka speaks to Holaini, Inoko to Kpala, in the same tongue as Yoruba speaks to Ashanti; join the Republican Union of Nigeria with Ghana and be another RUNG …
Abruptly rage claimed him. He slapped the pile of papers with his open palm and leapt to his feet. The other man in the room jumped up also, face betraying alarm. But he had no time to speak before Mr. President strode out of the door.
* * *
In one of the palace’s four high towers, on the inland side where one could look towards the lush green of the Mondo Hills and feel the bleak desolation of the Sahara far beyond, there was a room to which only Mr. President had the key. A guard at the intersection of two corridors saluted him with a quick wave of his ceremonial spear; he nodded and went on by.
As always, he closed and locked the door behind him before he turned on the light. He stood a few seconds in total darkness; then his hand fell to the switch and he blinked his one good eye at the sudden glare.
To his left, resting on a low table adjacent to a flat padded hassock, a copy of the Koran bound in green leather and tooled by hand with golden Arabic script listing the nine-and-ninety honourable names of the Almighty.
To his right, a prie-dieu in traditional Beninian carved ebony, facing a wall on which hung a crucifix. The victim nailed to the wood was as dark as the wood itself.
And facing the door, black masks, crossed spears, two drums, and a brazier of a type only the initiates of the Leopard Claw Brand might see without its disguise of leopard’s fur.
Mr. President took a deep breath. He walked to the low table, picked up the Koran, and methodically shredded each of its pages into confetti. Last, he ripped the leather binding down the spine.
He turned on his heel, removed the crucifix from its peg, and snapped it across. The crucified one fell to the floor and he ground the doll-shape underfoot.
He dragged from the wall each in turn of the masks. He tore away the coloured straw hair from them, poked out the jewelled eyes, broke loose the ivory teeth. He stabbed through the sounding heads of both the drums with one of the spears.
The task complete, he turned off the light, left and locked the room, and at the first disposall chute he came to throw away the one and only key.
Copyright © 1968 by John Brunner
Foreword copyright © 2011 by Bruce Sterling
Continues...
Excerpted from Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner Copyright © 2011 by John Brunner. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Orb Books
- Publication date : August 16, 2011
- Edition : First Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 576 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0765326787
- ISBN-13 : 978-0765326782
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.34 x 1.07 x 9.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,673,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #162 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #306 in Science Fiction Short Stories
- #549 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Customers find the book important and scarily prescient, with one review noting its interesting dystopian vision of the future. The writing style receives mixed reactions - while some praise its formidable technique, others criticize the page upon page of nonsensical jargon. The story quality and storyline also get mixed reviews, with some describing it as a classic while others find it unreadable. The book's era receives negative feedback, with one customer noting it shows its age in spots.
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Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a wonderful and important read, with one customer noting it as one of their favorite science fiction books.
"...Overall a good read." Read more
"Great book....I just didn't like the way it was written....The second novel after this one " The Sheep Look Up"...." Read more
"...This is a fine read. Quite fun with the style utilized by the author. Not exactly linear at all times...." Read more
"This Book is best read in the same staccato , spin the roulette wheel, Forgot my ADHD meds fashion in that it was written. Please just make..." Read more
Customers find the book thought-provoking, with several noting its good ideas and scarily prescient nature, while one customer describes it as a fascinating dystopian vision of the future.
"This book has good ideas, but it's all over the place. It is a story with multiple view points, but only focused on a couple of characters...." Read more
"...It was one of the most prescient books I have ever read...." Read more
"...is spectacularly and forbodingly realized...." Read more
"...I was an impressionable 21-year old college student, but it still held my interest." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the story quality of the book, with some finding it unreadable and describing the writing as strange, while others consider it a classic.
"A classic." Read more
"...This disjointed writing pulled me out of the story every couple of chapters it seemed and in the end, I didn't care about any of the characters or..." Read more
"Powerful and timeless..." Read more
"...i had to weed through the first 100 pages or so to get past the strange language, things that didn't make any sense at all, and no real clear..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style of the book, with some praising its formidable technique while others find it filled with nonsensical jargon that is difficult to follow.
"...Also there was a ton of jargon you had to decipher to get a understanding of what is being said..." Read more
"I was continuously amazed at the formidable writing technique of this author, and I found it to be a difficult but rewarding book...." Read more
"...with this book started on page one, and continued page upon page of nonsensical jargon. As I understand it Brunner intentionally wrote it this way...." Read more
"...I found it very disconcerting...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the storyline of the book, with some finding the characters interesting while others note that the plot and characters feel dated.
"...It is a story with multiple view points, but only focused on a couple of characters...." Read more
"...The Chad Mulligan character is interesting, but to me becomes less so as the book goes on...." Read more
"...To me there are no sympathetic characters. Interesting characters, perhaps but no one I would want to identify with...." Read more
"...The plot and characters are a bit dated, but grew on me as we went along... Brunner's 2010 is not a nice place, but it's worse than we actually got..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's era, with some finding it not dated at all, while others consider it weird for its time period.
"I have to say that I liked the story very much although it was really strange and put together in a very different way from most other stories...." Read more
"Definitely shows its age in spots, but does resonate heavily in others...." Read more
"written in 1968, it is even weird for that time period, i had to weed through the first 100 pages or so to get past the strange language, things..." Read more
"Not dated at all." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2024Sometimes I wonder if these fiction writers of a dystopian future had a portal through time.
While there are many predictions that have not come to fruition, there’s enough accuracy about our present to determine our decline was always clear. The masses just couldn’t see it and the globalists exploited it.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2023Format: KindleVerified PurchaseThis book has good ideas, but it's all over the place. It is a story with multiple view points, but only focused on a couple of characters. Most of the characters introduced only got one chapter and were only mentioned again just to end their story. These characters to me could've had interesting stories, but we're under utilized, and I felt the author did a better job with this similar style in "Sheep look up"; but it was incredible how much world building he did for this book. Also there was a ton of jargon you had to decipher to get a understanding of what is being said (I guess this cryptic language comes with every sci-fi novel), and the stream of consciousness sections of this story were maddening.
I would recommend this book to people who like stories with multiple perspectives, and don't mind a nihilistic plotlines. The novel has a very interesting dystopian vision of the future.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2017Format: KindleVerified PurchaseWhat can you say about one of the most important books ever written in the science fiction genre.
I felt like I had gotten on a runaway train with William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Isaac Azimov, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, and the Merry Pranksters fighting to be the conductors.
It was one of the most prescient books I have ever read. While Brunner didn't get everything right, (this was written in 1967, I believe), and some things aren't even remotely true, what he DID get right was chillingly right.
There is nothing like this book. It has to be read to be believed. And, I urge everyone who has ever had an interest in this field to read it. It really is that important.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2023I read this book when it was new 30-40 years ago. At that time it hinted at some weird future that was interesting and exotic but ...just impossible. NOW it reads like a checklist . This guy is a visionary! What a book!! Buy iit! You'll be blown away
- Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2018Format: KindleVerified PurchaseThe writing style was a shock to most SF readers when the book was published. That is unless they had previously readJon Dos Pasos’s “Manhattan Transfer” first, in which case Brunner’s “avant-garde” stylistics were simply a rip-off. But if you didn’t know better it was impressive.
To me there are no sympathetic characters. Interesting characters, perhaps but no one I would want to identify with. Basically the idea is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and there is nothing you can do about it. By half way through you don’t expect anyone to have a happy or even comfortable ending. I guess that pretty much mirrored how a lot of us who read back in the day felt about the real world which made the book seem profound.
The book also illustrates the hazards of writing SF set in the near future. That “future” has mostly come and gone by the early 21st century so reading it now make suspension of disbelief a considerable chore.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2014If the word prescient means anything to you fellow reader this is the book. Published in 1968 it was part of my teenage sci fi reading binge. The author magically [predicts almost all the major technological devices that are so ubiquitous in our daily lives. Computer processing cell phone tech video chat and the list goes on. This is a fine read. Quite fun with the style utilized by the author. Not exactly linear at all times. I guess even the style is akin to the way we get stories on television. This book will appeal to fans of the genre as well as readers that enjoy literature. Yes literature. This is an important book that grows in stature and greatness as the years continue. Buy this read this enjoy this and then live right.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2014Format: KindleVerified PurchaseThis Book is best read in the same staccato , spin the roulette wheel, Forgot my ADHD meds fashion in that it was written.
Please just make sure you have your AM radio on to a talk-news station for the white noise, your tv set with the sound off
Watching the history channel and some documentary and finally your favorite drink and maybe an e cig. Yeah that should
rip your senses apart enough to set the scene for its choppy blasts of info and background that are full of incredibly insightful
looks into todays dystopian leaning trendiness. Must read for students of Real history as well as Political sciences. Reading
a few full reveiws online will help you meld yourself into this world although it is worth the work.Of note is the missing of the
politcal correctness issue which could NEVER have been predicted in '68
- Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2014Format: PaperbackVerified PurchaseJohn Brunner's pacing is impeccable. In such a medium where it is so hard to get the reader to really *feel* the physical space of what is happening in the book, Brunner achieves it effortlessly. Some of the language is definitely a product of the time it was written in, but I think the language is generally easy enough to gain by context and further helps to wrap you in the reality of the book. The plot is wonderful and remarkably spaced out and staged just right to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. Really a wonderful book.
Top reviews from other countries
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V. WannerReviewed in Germany on September 16, 2007
5.0 out of 5 stars Keine leichte Kost, aber die Mühe wert
Durch die ersten 20-30 Seiten von "Stand on Zanzibar" muss man sich wirklich durchkämpfen. Kurze Abrisse, wie aus einem Bewusstseinsstrom der Weltnachrichten - nur aus einer fiktiven Welt, mit merklich verändertem Englisch und anderen kulturellen Bezugspunkten. Man soll an diesem Punkt aber auch nicht alles verstehen. Tatsächlich erinnert man sich beim Lesen hin und wieder an Teile dieser immer wieder im Buch verstreuten Nachrichtenschnipsel, die zu dem Zeitpunkt noch keinen Sinn machten, aber am entsprechenden Punkt zu wertvollem Hintergrundwissen werden.
John Brunner arbeitet, ähnlich wie z.B. Babel-17 (Auch aus der Millenium SF Masterworks Reihe) sehr viel mit Sprache. Der Zukunftsjargon den er für dieses Buch kreiert schafft eine glaubwürdige Atmosphäre.
Das Geburtsjahr 1968 merkt man dem Buch anhand der etwas sexistischen Untertöne und einer recht naiven Einstellung zu Homosexualität/Rassismus an. Auch die Darstellung der Themen Nationalismus/Patriotismus wirkt nach dem Fall des eisernen Vorhangs leicht angestaubt.
Dennoch bleibt "Stand on Zanzibar" beeindruckend prophetisch im Bezug auf viele Entwicklungen und auch 2007 noch relevant.
Ein klassischer Ableger von Ideen-ScieneFiction, aber sprachlich meisterhaft und gealtert wie guter Wein.
- Don't Panic it's only 42Reviewed in Australia on April 2, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars Standing with titans
Listed as a classic, and it is that at least .
- Bruce S.Reviewed in Canada on July 20, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterwork for its time but particularly relevant today.
It's a bit dated so you'll have to work past the mysogomy (women are calked shiggies and objectified) and racism (actually the whole point of the book) but it raises interesting issues and has some fun characters.
The novel revolves around a giant corporation's attempt to take over an African country with the assistance of a massive AI computer called Shalmaneser. Its involvement in everybody's life is particularly scary.
- Charles RichensReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars Still a relevant story after over fifty years.
Still a relevant story after over fifty years.
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PADHReviewed in France on July 28, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Probalement le plus grand roman de spéculative fiction (sociologique) du XXe siècle
Si j'aime et je conseille et j'offre autour de moi ce roman aujourd'hui oublié, c'est parce que je suis raisonnablement bilingue Anglais/Français et que je suis extrêmement amateur de SF spéculative. C'est aussi que ce livre lu pour la première fois il y a 40 ans, et relu plusieurs fois depuis, m'a plus préoccupé et instruit que distrait. Et ce livre m'a également énormément éclairé sur ce que peut-être une approche possible de la sociologie systémique et la valeur prédictive de certains de ses essais bien documenté. C'est même un des rares romans de SF à ma connaissance à mettre en scène, parmi la foule de personnages principaux, un savant qui n'est ni physicien ni chimiste ni ingénieur, mais sociologue.
Si cela peut faire penser à la série "Fondation" d'Asimov, attention cependant, rien du livre ne ressort de la SF classique rien ici ne ressemble à Asimov !
Inspiré pour la technique d'écriture de John Dos Passos pour sa trilogie U.S.A. (The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932) and The Big Money (1936)), Stand on Zanzibar (en Français: Tous à Zanzibar) a été publié il y a 50 ans (1968) et est supposé se passer à peu près à notre époque. Le texte est complexe à lire en Anglais (ou en Français) vu la quantité de néologismes qui en composent le texte. Mais une connaissance élémentaire des théories de la communication et des médias développées dans les années 1950- 1970 aide beaucoup ! Il me semble que John Brunner était particulièrement bien documenté en matières des théories "dernier cri" qui avaient cours durant ces décennies .
La trame correspond au schéma classique de la spéculative fiction: "que se serait-il passé et que se passerait-il si à tel moment de l'histoire de la terre on constaterait que...." Mais dans ce cas, on est frappé comme les prévisions sont relativement proches de notre réalité.
Le roman explore le sujet principalement des impacts (négatifs) de la surpopulation, la confiance totale (positive) dans un monde connecté à une intelligence artificielle et quelques évolutions écologiques (négatives) sur l'évolution du monde.
La technique d’écriture mélange collage de slogans publicitaires, flash radio ou télé qui par un effet quasi hypnotique fournissent au lecteur un sentiment de réalité (virtuelle) extrêmement vivace. En un sens le livre anticipe également anticipe notre goût actuel et notre facilité contemporaine à nous informer, par court segments vidéos, par courts messages sur les réseaux sociaux, ou flash infos, et diaporama PowerPoint à liste à puces, plus que par de longs articles de journaux. Je pense qu’aujourd’hui les plus jeunes lecteurs ne seront absolument pas dépaysés par le rythme du livre comme ont pu l'être leurs aînés.
Ni dystopie, ni utopie, avec une histoire dépourvue de "grand méchant", le livre une fois terminé laisse le lecteur un peu plus intelligent et avec une invitation à s'instruire davantage sur la partie mécanique et objective du fonctionnement de la société et du monde et des effets de nos mythes idéologiques et politiques, de nos choix et de décisions.
(écrit en français car livre commandé sur Amazon France)