Rating: 
Summary: One of the great modern SF novels
Review: No author of futuristic novels can hit with 100% accuracy, but we are indeed smack in the middle of the world Brunner created. The value of the book is not in the plot, which is middling to good, but in the detailed sense of a non-linear time and place it creates, in much the same way that the movie _2001_ (another work where plot was unimportant) created a sense of overwhelming awe and mystery. But what I remember most, as with other favorite books like _A Conferacy of Dunces_ and _Love in the Time of Cholera_, is a closing line of consummate perfection, the kind you cannot truly understand unless you've read what came before it.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Read it in high school. Changed my life
Rating:
Summary: Stand on Zanzibar stands the test of time
Review: Reread Stand on Zanzibar and it had the same impact on me as it did when read in my teens. The jumbled-up style accentuates the feel of the book; a multimedia, non-linear reality that is not unlike modern life. A sort of William Gibson high on William Burroughs kind of affair.
Rating: 
Summary: A book about the sixties
Review: Science fiction about the future is a window onto the era it was written in. "Stand on Zanzibar" is about the anxieties of the 1960's- overpopulation, crime and chaos. Science fiction from our era is dominated with anxiety about the environment and global warming. Usually these anxieties prove to be unfounded, but they do tell us about what people were worried about. "Zanzibar" is a creature of the sixties, and if you haven't lived through that decade, you'll feel like you have by the end of the book. William Gibson writes about the same sort of future mess, and does a much better job.
Rating:
Summary: A book about the sixties
Review: Science fiction about the future is a window onto the era it was written in. "Stand on Zanzibar" is about the anxieties of the 1960's- overpopulation, crime and chaos. Science fiction from our era is dominated with anxiety about the environment and global warming. Usually these anxieties prove to be unfounded, but they do tell us about what people were worried about. "Zanzibar" is a creature of the sixties, and if you haven't lived through that decade, you'll feel like you have by the end of the book. William Gibson writes about the same sort of future mess, and does a much better job.
Rating:
Summary: Classic SF - A Must Read
Review: Seen and read it all? New to Science Fiction? READ THIS BOOK! Written on a Smith Corona typewriter in the late '60s, Stand on Zanzibar attempts to describe the world in 2010. World views are generally a tall order for any writer, but Brunner is up to the task. In some ways, his story line is far more relevant and entertaining than many recent SF novels, and again, this speaks to the intellect and literary talent of the late John Brunner. Stand on Zanzibar won the 1968 Hugo Award, and 33 years later, it's still on my top ten list of SF novels. The "Innis Mode" style used in the book can be disorienting at first (I was pre MTV), but after a few chapters you'll be drawn into this beautiful and complex dance as the subplots and characters interact. There are laugh out loud vignets, poetry, songs, and scenes that will make your heart ache. From dirt floor huts in Africa, to the edge of space, Brunner's characters will guide, push, and drag you through experiences that reflect on what it takes to be a human being in a society driven by technology and greed. I hope that someday a gifted director will make a movie version of SoZ. If the screenplay captures even half of what's in this novel, it would be a success.
Rating:
Summary: Flash-fast writing in a scary (and scarily accurate) future!
Review: Stand on Zanzibar is a classic sci-fi novel from the late 60s that is, to paraphrase another review, simultenously dated and ahead of its time. Brunner created a future world where overpopulation and overstimulation would drive some people to become murderous "muckers." He may have missed the mark on his predictions about drug use and abortion, but... his central thesis - that people's biggest fear in the 21st century would be simply standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when an otherwise normal-looking person snapped and went psychotic - is such a BULLSEYE in the wake of events like Columbine and 9-11, it's scary! It's not a downbeat as it sounds, mostly because of the creative narrative technique. Brunner's fast-paced writing style predated hypertext and MTV-style jumpcuts. I particularly enjoy the way he uses short paragraphs that each describe what multiple individuals are doing in a single moment across the globe -- a sort of a world's-eye-view technique that was supremely influential on narration of comic book writers like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Brunner's joy of linguistic and narrative technique are apparent on every page, and the results are clever and often bitingly funny despite the downbeat theme.
Rating:
Summary: A novel about surviving the overcrowded future
Review: Stand On Zanzibar is an essential guide for anyone to enter the information age. The mere act of reading the book is itself a test of the reader's ability to disseminate useful information from the flood of noisy, in-your-face multimedia soundbites, television interviews and newspaper columns. It is a guide for survival in the clustered, overpopulated megacities of the future whose only population controls are outbreaks of ultra-psychotic violence. It is a funny, insightful novel written years ahead of its time that shall continue to offer keen observations of our future as though it has already happened
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best
Review: The book throws you off track from the begining to the end. It Picks you up and doesn`t let you down. A I Recomend this book to any Sci-fi fan along with it`s sequals Sheep Looking Up and Shockwave Rider.
Rating:
Summary: Brunner¿s most famous dire warning
Review: The complex, dense narrative style Brunner adopted for this novel is the perfect vehicle for communicating the feel of the story's overpopulated, media-saturated futuristic dystopia. Zanzibar is surprisingly relevant and vital. Brunner understands how drugs and the media enforce social control by creating passive "happy" citizens, allowing the powers-that-be to run things into the ground. "Muckers" - people driven into homicidal rages by intolerable living conditions sound eerily familiar. The plot touches on artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, eugenics, territoriality, and the fallout caused by all of the above. Although the central character, Donald Hogan, is destroyed by his experiences, the ending is ambiguously hopeful. The mechanisms that give the ending its ray of hope are a bit fantastic, and some readers may find them unconvincing and unsatisfying. On the whole, however, Stand on Zanzibar deserves its reputation as a classic. Certainly it is the most fully realized SF novel ever on the subject of overpopulation.
|
