Rating: 
Summary: My favorite sci-fi book
Review: I must have been in high school when I read this book for the first time. It remains one of my favorites. Nothing else I've read by Brunner comes close to this, and only Ray Bradbury equals it.
Rating:
Summary: Acid Sci-Fi: The Larval Stage of Cyberpunk
Review: I read (and reread) this book nearly twenty years ago, and still find it one of the best science fiction has to offer. I am always suprised and somewhat annoyed by Brunner's obscurity: isn't this (and his other "Acid Sci-Fi" books--"Jagged Orbit," "The Sheep Look Up," "Shockwave Rider") the obvious progenitor of cyberpunk? Noone ever mentions this book in connection with "Neuromancer," including Gibson (even though he makes a reference to it--one of the characters in "Neuromancer" is named "Yonderboy"). Brunner is also an excellent writer, far more clever and able than the gang of "hard sf" celebrities. Brunner, unlike any other science fiction author before or since, brought "futurism" right into his medium, chopping the typical linear narrative into a multiplexed, McLuhanesque media barrage, presaging "hypertext." Small minds may find this annoying; I found it courageous and sublime. The book is not without its flaws (it gets a little preachy, here and there, especially with the Chad Mulligan character), but these are dwarfed by its achievements. PS, if you like this book, I strongly recommend "The Sheep Look Up," also by Brunner. Much more scary.
Rating:
Summary: A favorite from previous decades
Review: I've always loved this novel's "kit of parts" approach and the way that it forces you to engage with it. To the more detailed reviews, I would add that "Stand on Zanzibar" is one of those novels like "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" that suck you into an interesting tale told with wild imagination - until the end, when you find it was all a kind of setup for the last lines, which flower in your mind in way that you cannot forget. This one has one of the best lines of closing monolog, a sardonic one-liner that perfectly complements the events that precede it.
Although some may think that there is some kind of contest for SF authors to get the future exactly right, Brunner definitely hits a home run in terms of describing a future that includes sudden, despair-driven violence, gross inequities in wealth, corporations with more political power than individual nations, conservative news outlets that take gross advantage of the prejudices and insecurities of the "little guy," etc., etc.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the most crazy awesome book I've ever read
Review: It's difficult to describe just what sort of book Stand On Zanzibar is. Part of it can be labeled as science fiction/speculative fiction, but the raging torrents of Brunner's book, just as in the world he creates, hold much more depth than one would expect. This book is a sort of chronicle of human responses to familiar problems that have been extended past the crisis stage (overpopulation, environmental damage, disease). But though it is fascinating in this aspect alone, Zanzibar is, at its core, a deep analysis of the persistence and the limits of love in a world which has generated a hate and apathy that has established itself as a dominant force. The way Zanzibar is written fits its purpose perfectly, composed of "scenes" that grant the reader short glimpses into the personalities of individual characters or a terse but accurate explanation of a concept. The interaction of each of the individual threads of the story assemble to create a mosaic that is no less than epic. However, the absolute moral center of the book is Chad C. Mulligan. Mulligan is reminiscent of the character of Jaggers in Great Expectations. In the guise of a radical sociologist, Mulligan strives to wash his hands of all humanity, yet never extinguishes a hidden hope within himself, a beleaguered hope for a better world. The excerpts from his many subversive publications, (i.e. "You're an Ignorant Idiot" by Chad C. Mulligan) help elucidate the workings of this complex character, and the suppressed rages and discontent of a world that is just enough like our own to frighten the reader, but different enough to make it a truly original creation. Zanzibar is, if not the best, one of the best books I have read.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the most crazy awesome book I've ever read
Review: It's difficult to describe just what sort of book Stand On Zanzibar is. Part of it can be labeled as science fiction/speculative fiction, but the raging torrents of Brunner's book, just as in the world he creates, hold much more depth than one would expect. This book is a sort of chronicle of human responses to familiar problems that have been extended past the crisis stage (overpopulation, environmental damage, disease). But though it is fascinating in this aspect alone, Zanzibar is, at its core, a deep analysis of the persistence and the limits of love in a world which has generated a hate and apathy that has established itself as a dominant force. The way Zanzibar is written fits its purpose perfectly, composed of "scenes" that grant the reader short glimpses into the personalities of individual characters or a terse but accurate explanation of a concept. The interaction of each of the individual threads of the story assemble to create a mosaic that is no less than epic. However, the absolute moral center of the book is Chad C. Mulligan. Mulligan is reminiscent of the character of Jaggers in Great Expectations. In the guise of a radical sociologist, Mulligan strives to wash his hands of all humanity, yet never extinguishes a hidden hope within himself, a beleaguered hope for a better world. The excerpts from his many subversive publications, (i.e. "You're an Ignorant Idiot" by Chad C. Mulligan) help elucidate the workings of this complex character, and the suppressed rages and discontent of a world that is just enough like our own to frighten the reader, but different enough to make it a truly original creation. Zanzibar is, if not the best, one of the best books I have read.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: John Brunner's vision of the world in 2010 is similar in style but superior in rendering to most current cyberpunk novels. What makes this truly amazing is that he wrote it in 1968. Very highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Predictions are so close, yet so far away...
Review: Like a golfer that hits incredibly long and straight drives off the tee, Brunner 's predictions must have seen to be stunning in 1968, when the book was first published; but, almost all those long drives(predictions) fall in the sand traps and water hazards protecting the green... he has a knack for making predictions that get very close to the reality of the target year of 2010, but he seems to always get it exactly wrong in the end.
Some examples... PREDICTION: Urban dwellers moving from one partner to another every few months or so; REALITY: Men do the moving around - not women. PREDICTION: State-mandated limit of two children; REALITY: Communist China, not USA... PREDICTION: Powerful computers reaching near-sentience; REALITY: Far more powerful and networked computers than predicted, but which can't even approach reaching sentience... PREDICTION: Terrorism (Muckers); REALITY: Radical Islamists, not a slew of purposeless extreme leftist Unabombers... PREDICTION: Satellite TV; REALITY: Now used by political left for brainwashing (CNN, CBS, MSNBC), not political right (Mr. and Mrs. Everyman in book)... PREDICTION: Sex-enhancing drugs; REALITY: Increased spread of STDs, and orgies not commonplace as predicted.
Finally, he is outright wrong on some defining issues... E.g.; Whales don't die out, the USSR and Communism in general does.
Rating: 
Summary: How to despise humanity in one disgusting lesson
Review: Like most leftists, Brunner despised humanity for being human, and it showed most strongly in his works of this period. "Stand on Zanzibar" wasn't worth a first reading, much less a second.
Rating: 
Summary: A great description of the future of '68
Review: Like most of the science fiction-books that deal with the near future, John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" takes place on an overcrowded dystopic Earth.
The title of the book comes from the fact that by the time of World War I you could stand the whole of the human race on the 147-square-mile Isle of Wight. In the year 2010, when this book takes place, you would need a larger island, like the 640-square-mile Zanzibar. In this future world the government tries to stop the overcrowding by eugenic legislation that minimizes the number of people who can have children and sterilizes you if you, for example, carry the gene that causes colour-blindness.
Neither countries nor corporations can make decisions without asking a huge super-computer.
At any time anyone can turn into a mucker (someone who has been made crazy by the rush and pressure of the society and the drugs that are an accepted part of it) and run amok killing everybody in sight.
Most people are kept passive and happy by the soothing powers of television, where Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere (a computerized couple of characters that can be programmed to look just like the viewer) travel around the world and experience new things for them. "Stand on Zanzibar" is built up by short episodes, jumping between different characters and forming a mosaic of individuals, which describes the world they live in perfectly. There are two main narratives (one of them is about the way the government can turn an ordinary man into a killing-machine, and the other is about the plans of a corporation to buy a peaceful African country) that really don't have anything to do with each other, except for the fact that the main characters of these plots are friends and live together. Although these two characters and plots are the main outlines of the book, they are just parts of the collage of destinies and lives that the reader jumps into for a moment.
There are chapters that are built up by one- or two sentences long scenes that grant the reader short glimpses into the personalities of individual characters or a brief but accurate explanation of a concept. All of these individual threads are weaved together into a massive, impressive and believable description of the future Earth.
I thought the way the book was written was really hard to get used to and understand at first, but once I got it, it made the book even better. The book was written in 1968, but many of the issues it deals with (like the overcrowding, the replacement of real experiences with the experiences of television figures, and the way normal people suddenly snap and turn psychotic (which is particularly noticeable in the USA (for example the murders at Columbine and other high schools), but has started to happen here in Sweden as well)) have to some extent come true today.
The thing I liked most about the book, however, was the feeling of the sixties that floated over everything. Some of the things in the book where clearly influenced by the psychedelic spirit of '68, like the free sex and frequent drug use, but there is something about the sixties that effects the entire book.
I don't really know if it's something about the clothes, the way the characters talk or the furniture, buildings and cities described, but I think it's all of these things and more that subtly mix and make me feel as though the book, if it was made into a movie, would look just like Kubrik's "A Clockwork Orange".
Rating:
Summary: A great description of the future of '68
Review: Like most of the science fiction-books that deal with the near future, John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" takes place on an overcrowded dystopic Earth.
The title of the book comes from the fact that by the time of World War I you could stand the whole of the human race on the 147-square-mile Isle of Wight. In the year 2010, when this book takes place, you would need a larger island, like the 640-square-mile Zanzibar. In this future world the government tries to stop the overcrowding by eugenic legislation that minimizes the number of people who can have children and sterilizes you if you, for example, carry the gene that causes colour-blindness.
Neither countries nor corporations can make decisions without asking a huge super-computer.
At any time anyone can turn into a mucker (someone who has been made crazy by the rush and pressure of the society and the drugs that are an accepted part of it) and run amok killing everybody in sight.
Most people are kept passive and happy by the soothing powers of television, where Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere (a computerized couple of characters that can be programmed to look just like the viewer) travel around the world and experience new things for them. "Stand on Zanzibar" is built up by short episodes, jumping between different characters and forming a mosaic of individuals, which describes the world they live in perfectly. There are two main narratives (one of them is about the way the government can turn an ordinary man into a killing-machine, and the other is about the plans of a corporation to buy a peaceful African country) that really don't have anything to do with each other, except for the fact that the main characters of these plots are friends and live together. Although these two characters and plots are the main outlines of the book, they are just parts of the collage of destinies and lives that the reader jumps into for a moment.
There are chapters that are built up by one- or two sentences long scenes that grant the reader short glimpses into the personalities of individual characters or a brief but accurate explanation of a concept. All of these individual threads are weaved together into a massive, impressive and believable description of the future Earth.
I thought the way the book was written was really hard to get used to and understand at first, but once I got it, it made the book even better. The book was written in 1968, but many of the issues it deals with (like the overcrowding, the replacement of real experiences with the experiences of television figures, and the way normal people suddenly snap and turn psychotic (which is particularly noticeable in the USA (for example the murders at Columbine and other high schools), but has started to happen here in Sweden as well)) have to some extent come true today.
The thing I liked most about the book, however, was the feeling of the sixties that floated over everything. Some of the things in the book where clearly influenced by the psychedelic spirit of '68, like the free sex and frequent drug use, but there is something about the sixties that effects the entire book.
I don't really know if it's something about the clothes, the way the characters talk or the furniture, buildings and cities described, but I think it's all of these things and more that subtly mix and make me feel as though the book, if it was made into a movie, would look just like Kubrik's "A Clockwork Orange".
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