Rating: 
Summary: Frighteningly relevant 30 years later
Review: I read this when it first came out and the images stuck in my mind like a recurring nightmare. I just found it in a box of my old books and re-read it. The fearful and depleted America, controlled by corporate interests, led by a callow president and populated by an uninformed and powerless citizenry, described in Brunner's classic is just as dark but much scarier because it is closer to the way it really is. Read it and weep.
Rating:
Summary: Wish I owned this, Brunner is a visionary
Review: I was able to read this because the University I work at has it in the library. I was tempted to keep it and pay the U for the book and the fines so I could place it on my bookshelf between Stand on Zanzibar and Shockwave Rider. One could consider this, along with Zanzibar and Rider as a trilogy of destruction. With Zanzibar being destruction from over-population, Rider being Destructiong because of ever accelerating societal change and this work destruction from pollution. Unlike the other two books though, this one does not have a happy ending. Others have mentioned that there is little of a plot here. True, Brunner's greatness lies in the worlds he creates and how he presents them to you. You won't really care much about the plot you will be so intrigued at getting glimpses of the inner-workings of the society in a world on the brink of ecological disaster. This is Brunner's genius. We are probably better off ecologically than when Brunner wrote this as he was inspired when driving though an area he saw posted warning signs that a river was a fire hazard. However this book still serves as a very real warning because it would be very easy to throw the hard-gotten improvements of the past 30 years away to satisfy our penchant for convenience and ease. Myself included. With this work and the other two Brunner though writing "fiction" shows himself to be easily the equal of and likely the better of Alvin Toffler and others writing non-fiction about future societal change. He is eminently readable, knows the craft of writing and story-telling and is a master builder of worlds. Should this book become available I will be snatching it from the bookshelves without a though. *UPDATE: Found it in a used bookstore hurrah!!*
Rating:
Summary: Whose prediction do you believe?
Review: In the early seventies, science fiction writers wrote about buying bottled water, no-drink days on public water supplies, smog warnings in large cities, and drug resistant bacteria ravaging hospitals with what used to be innocent infections. Most of these 'radicals' were lampooned, and placed in the same categories as Star Trek, and Buck Rogers. John Brunner was one of these crackpots. He predicted a day where the consumption of organic foods became fashionable. He predicted a day where you might see traffic jams lasting hours which would shutdown large cities. He predicted days where medical waste would close the beaches of Southern California. All of these overly-sarcastic and ridiculous visions of the future have come true. This places us at the beginning of _The_Sheep_Look_Up_. This book should be a must read for everyone over the age of 14, to help us as a society understand the seemingly innocuous consequences of consumerism.
Rating:
Summary: The Companion Piece to Stand on Zanzibar Just as Good!
Review: Like Neal Stephenson`s Zodiac this book gives a detailed account of man`s destruction of his home planet Earth. The Scariest part about this book is that most of its predictions about the future environment are correct.
Rating:
Summary: eerily prescient
Review: Many people nowadays look back on the brief burst of environmental awareness (alarm) and criticism of corporate power which occurred in the 1970's as quaint,naive, slightly ridiculous. One prior reviewer of this work refers to the "hysteria" of the period. What strikes me most strongly about _The Sheep Look Up_, billed as a 'sequel' to his big hit _Stand on Zanzibar_, is not its quaintness but its frightening accuracy. While Brunner guessed wrong on a number of counts -- for example, we haven't *quite* killed all the whales yet! -- there were trends which he read astutely and forecast correctly. In particular he forecast increasing solipsism and isolationism in American politics and cultural life; he predicted a decline in the quality of political life, to the point where the American presidency would be occupied by a semi-literate figurehead whose job is to recite comforting and irrelevant platitudes into a microphone on his way from one glamorous gig to the next. His "Prexy" character seemed like a good fit for Reagan a while back, but the current Bush (the 2nd of that name) is an even closer match. Brunner forecast the dumbing down of media, the intrusion of advertising into the most intimate spaces of daily life. He forecast the sidelining of "healthy lifestyle" products and choices into a yuppie trend (organic food becoming a boutique item) and the demonisation of environmentalists as "terrorists" and criminals. He forecast a degradation of community life, the rise of private security forces, and an increasing gap between (very) rich and (powerless) poor people. He forecast the multiplication of resistant strains of pathogens, though he did not specifically call out the abuse of antibiotics in agriculture as a prime cause. He did not foresee the consequences of synthetic estrogens; and his view of genetic engineering is by and large more positive than it would have been if he had been writing today with the legal shenanigans of Monsanto, Syngenta and their ilk in view (Brunner would have loved the story of Percy Schmeiser -- he might almost have written it himself). He forecast the ubiquitous use of tranquilizers in daily life, but he did not foresee the current fad for pathologizing ordinary behaviours (particularly in childhood) and administering psychotropics to children. The rise to enormous power of the pharmaceutical companies was not on his radar (Mike McQuay, however, took notice of that trend in his own grimly dystopian future private-eye novels). When I first read _Zanzibar_ and _Sheep_ I was just a kid. Now, almost half a lifetime later, I find that the concerns, the anger and grief and bitterness that Brunner articulated so fluently in the 1970's are far from dated. If anything, his work seems fresher and more poignant now than it did then -- I have witnessed 30 additional years of the indiscriminate damage and vandalism we call "growth" in the interim. Many things "date" Brunner's work -- in particular his thoughtless, stereotypically "Seventies" sexism, which becomes wearying to the modern reader after only a few chapters. The core issues of his work, however, have worn well; clearly it was possible as long as 30 years ago to predict many of the negative consequences of a deeply dysfunctional way of life -- overconsumption, overpopulation, concentration of power in the hands of large corporations, irresponsible use of finite resources, and so forth. His work serves as a depressing reminder that even though we may know we are heading in a wrong direction -- and even have writers able to point out the possible consequences -- and even publish those writers -- we can and do continue in happy denial towards the very dystopia that our "out there" novelists predict for us. Today our dystopian science fiction writers, notably the able satirist Bruce Sterling, paint for us possible futures resulting from a world economy destabilized by finance capital, a world climate irrevocably altered by global warming and the irresponsible release of GMOs, and so on. These possibilities will be selectively ignored, one feels, just as Brunner's predictions were ignored in his time. He was considered a raving pessimist, not to be taken seriously. Which of our prophets are we ignoring today, whom we might do better to take seriously?
Rating:
Summary: eerily prescient
Review: Many people nowadays look back on the brief burst of environmental awareness (alarm) and criticism of corporate power which occurred in the 1970's as quaint,naive, slightly ridiculous. One prior reviewer of this work refers to the "hysteria" of the period. What strikes me most strongly about _The Sheep Look Up_, billed as a 'sequel' to his big hit _Stand on Zanzibar_, is not its quaintness but its frightening accuracy. While Brunner guessed wrong on a number of counts -- for example, we haven't *quite* killed all the whales yet! -- there were trends which he read astutely and forecast correctly. In particular he forecast increasing solipsism and isolationism in American politics and cultural life; he predicted a decline in the quality of political life, to the point where the American presidency would be occupied by a semi-literate figurehead whose job is to recite comforting and irrelevant platitudes into a microphone on his way from one glamorous gig to the next. His "Prexy" character seemed like a good fit for Reagan a while back, but the current Bush (the 2nd of that name) is an even closer match. Brunner forecast the dumbing down of media, the intrusion of advertising into the most intimate spaces of daily life. He forecast the sidelining of "healthy lifestyle" products and choices into a yuppie trend (organic food becoming a boutique item) and the demonisation of environmentalists as "terrorists" and criminals. He forecast a degradation of community life, the rise of private security forces, and an increasing gap between (very) rich and (powerless) poor people. He forecast the multiplication of resistant strains of pathogens, though he did not specifically call out the abuse of antibiotics in agriculture as a prime cause. He did not foresee the consequences of synthetic estrogens; and his view of genetic engineering is by and large more positive than it would have been if he had been writing today with the legal shenanigans of Monsanto, Syngenta and their ilk in view (Brunner would have loved the story of Percy Schmeiser -- he might almost have written it himself). He forecast the ubiquitous use of tranquilizers in daily life, but he did not foresee the current fad for pathologizing ordinary behaviours (particularly in childhood) and administering psychotropics to children. The rise to enormous power of the pharmaceutical companies was not on his radar (Mike McQuay, however, took notice of that trend in his own grimly dystopian future private-eye novels). When I first read _Zanzibar_ and _Sheep_ I was just a kid. Now, almost half a lifetime later, I find that the concerns, the anger and grief and bitterness that Brunner articulated so fluently in the 1970's are far from dated. If anything, his work seems fresher and more poignant now than it did then -- I have witnessed 30 additional years of the indiscriminate damage and vandalism we call "growth" in the interim. Many things "date" Brunner's work -- in particular his thoughtless, stereotypically "Seventies" sexism, which becomes wearying to the modern reader after only a few chapters. The core issues of his work, however, have worn well; clearly it was possible as long as 30 years ago to predict many of the negative consequences of a deeply dysfunctional way of life -- overconsumption, overpopulation, concentration of power in the hands of large corporations, irresponsible use of finite resources, and so forth. His work serves as a depressing reminder that even though we may know we are heading in a wrong direction -- and even have writers able to point out the possible consequences -- and even publish those writers -- we can and do continue in happy denial towards the very dystopia that our "out there" novelists predict for us. Today our dystopian science fiction writers, notably the able satirist Bruce Sterling, paint for us possible futures resulting from a world economy destabilized by finance capital, a world climate irrevocably altered by global warming and the irresponsible release of GMOs, and so on. These possibilities will be selectively ignored, one feels, just as Brunner's predictions were ignored in his time. He was considered a raving pessimist, not to be taken seriously. Which of our prophets are we ignoring today, whom we might do better to take seriously?
Rating: 
Summary: Death By Garbage
Review: Ok, I agree with the other reviewers who say this book is an important work that has a strong socioenvironmental message, but don't let that put you off! It is also a gruesome rollercoaster ride of violence and horror with some of the best quality kills presented in literature. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride roughshod across America and the rest of the world! Buy this book and enjoy the ride with them! (Not for the squeamish, however-I guarantee that you will never use your microwave again!)
I would have given it five stars, but Brunner does get a bit preachy and full of himself in places. If he makes you feel guilty, just remember to recycle so you can sleep at night.
Rating:
Summary: Lost classic
Review: Publishers have shown some intelligence by keeping both Stand on Zanzibar and The Shockwave Rider still in print but still show odd lapses of judgement by keeping this book relegated to used book stores instead of reissuing it for all to read. This is definitely better than Shockwave Rider, and more focused than Zanzibar (though not better). It is probably one of the grimmer books to emerge from any genre, I thought On the Beach was depressing, this is even more so. Brunner takes threads and weaves them together to show you a world where the ecology is falling apart, the people who have the money to fix it also have the money to keep themselves above it while the normal people just live with it and can't think that anything will be better. There is a plot, per se, involved with environmental leader Austin Train and his emergence from hiding but mostly the novel is concerned with showing the slow inexorable decline of the world into a polluted and chaotic mess. If you keep reading it looking for some last minute save, some ray of hope, you might as well stop reading because that isn't the point. Brunner isn't showing us how to get out of it (other than an ironic comment made by a character at the very end) but showing us what he thought would happen if we didn't change things. Giving it a specific date dilutes the impact of the book but his message is still as strong as ever and even though we've taken steps to prevent that future, there's still a way to go. Brunner isn't with us anymore and his voice is surely missed, moreso when we read about an oil spill or a forest being cut down for development. Reading his books keeps that voice alive today.
Rating:
Summary: Early ecological anti-utopia
Review: Sheep Look Up is an excellent representative of the anti-utopian genre - an ecologically oriented version of George Orwells 1984. The actions of the characters are credible and the writer has even gone to the trouble of creating non-demonical adversaries to the opposing opinions. Unfortunately this has also forced the novelist to abandon the customary main character composition and therefore the multiple heroes and anti-heroes of the story remain inevitably slightly shallow and do not offer the reader one-size-fits-all persons to assimilate to - which I personally do not consider to be a minus in a book like this. If anything the pronounced lack of easy to spot villains is a big plus as it makes it clear that there are no easy solutions to ecological problems. Like 1984, Sheep Look Up has suffered from the rigidly set timetable - if the book had only been talking about "future" instead of the late 1970's it would retain more of its urgent actuality. Though in hindsight this may seem like an error the writers decision is quite understandable. Written during the period of explosive growth in ecological awearness of the late 1960's and early 1970's the shock value of ecological disaster looming less than a decade away must have been tremendous. And keeping in mind the problems that plagued the world in those days the concept was not entirely unjustified, as demonstrated in several popular publications of the era (e.g. Silent Spring and 1976 - When The Seas Die). It is often difficult for us living in the years of enforced pollution control and concervancy (such as it is) to remember late near-catastrofies like DDT or city pollution of late 1960's. Who can still remember the pictures of policemen directing traffic in downtown Tokyo wearing gas masks? And yet, almost all of the "accidents" described in the book have happened. The air in Los Angeles, though not quite as bad as described in the book, is far from pure - and the situation in Beijing is rapidly becoming similar to the description of the New York of the Sheeps. Antibiotic resistant germs are now widely recognized as a threat, as are pesticide resistant insects.. Even the warfare agents, from the deeps of the seas have taken their casualities in a very similar manner as described in the book. Indeed it seems that the doomsday of the Sheep Look Up may not be a threat we have already passed. It is still coming - not quite as fast as people once may have thought, but perhaps that is the greatest threat of all.
Rating:
Summary: Classic of the Genre
Review: Stylistically, the book reads somewhat like a 1970's made for TV movie. The dystopic vision Brunner presents however - is timeless, and certainly just as poignant today as when I first read this SciFi masterpiece. I recommend having a loaner copy to share with your friends!
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