http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1304331...

I first read this a couple of years ago and was unimpressed. But I must have been out of sorts generally because I enjoyed it much more this time. It is set in what is now the very near future - May and the summer of 2010 - and concerns two different projects to change the future of the human race, a massive investment in the African country of Beninia and the genetic experiments of the Asian archipelago of Yatakang. The narrative is broken up with vignettes of daily life in Brunner's future dystopia, where human reproduction is increasingly harshly limited by law, and nobody's motives are above suspicion (and there is an almost sentient computer). It is rather long but surprisingly tightly written given the diversity of material and perspective; rather a dazzling example of the New Wave. ( )

This is not a comfortable or easy read: it's long and sometimes tedious, simply because of the distinctive style Brunner sometimes uses to parody the emergent culture of America-dominated capitalism of the 1960s. All the same, the plot pulls you along, and you won't find a better imaginative bearing in terms of how we came to experience the now ever-present 'End of History', and what might just lead us out of it. ( )

This is not a book as most people would think of a book. Sure, it's got sheets of paper with words printed on them held together between covers. It looks alike a book, it feels like a book, hey, it even smells like a book. But it doesn't read like a book.

Most "books" are about presenting a story. The characters are there to support the story. The places are there for story to happen in them. This book is not about a story or a character. This book is about a world. Every word in the book is there to show off the world. The characters are there to support the world. The plots are there to support the world. Yes, plots - as in more than one.

I'm a sucker for worlds - If I can't believe in the world that's presented, I can't enjoy the story - so this book hit all the right spots for me.

It does mean that this book is difficult to read. There's a heavy use of dialect. There's a large use of montage and background techniques normally used in movies. To see these elevated and used in the written word can be confusing and indeed that the first chapter is such a montage of facts and provides so much "context" in such a context-less way and with in the full dialect that it is easy to be put off by it. Don't be.

The world itself is the 2010 as envisioned by Brunner in the late 60s. Other reviewers have commented on the similarities and differences between his predictions and the reality and whether that detracts from the book, especially given that we are fast approaching the 2010 timeframe of the book. The similarities tend to be the depiction of society and what the world is doing rather than the particular technological advances and I believe that the message or thesis that Brunner was trying to illustrate with this world was a sociological one rather than technological; the final scene is Chad Mulligan working out the reason for the Beninian society functioning the way it does in contrast to societies over the rest of the world.

Talking of Chad C. Mulligan - where can I find his works?

I know I have to read more Brunner and I would urge any of you to read this one at least. ( )

Brunner follows the lives of two men, Donald Hogan, an academic, and Norman House, a VP at a huge tech-corporation, to explore the themes of overpopulation, eugenics, and warfare on 2010 Earth. Hogan is a sleeper agent for the state, and is activated, reprogrammed to kill, and sent off to foment disillusionment and revolution in Yatakang (a parallel to Indonesia during the Cold War). House is charged with bringing a third world country (modeled on post-Independence Benin) into the 21st century, using the artificial intelligence of the supercomputer Shalmaneser as an aid. Alternating chapters of character development, secondary character portraits, brief source material, and snippets of conversations and broadcasts, Brunner builds up the context of the world in which the story takes place, creating a rounded picture of humankind’s desperate attempts to make sense of humanity in an age of decreasing personal space and ever-growing reliance on technology. Explicit language and moderately explicit sex; graphic violence, including murder, suicide, and rape; heavy drug use; positive discussions of homosexuality.

Instablity or urbanity.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/05... ( )