The Squares of the City

Rating:
Summary: Minor Brunner
Review: Let's strip away the conceit of basing a book on a chess game, and let's strip away the idea of subliminally manipulating people to do what you wish. It didn't qualify as science fiction then, and it doesn't now. It is a minor plot point anyways.

What we really have here is a book of urban class warfare. The haves, have-nots, immigrants and natives, whites and coloreds mixing it up, not always aligned as you'd think, in a cauldron about to boil.

Some parts are well done, and Brunner touches on some of the themes we'd see in Shockwave Rider, Stand on Zanzibar and Sheep Look Up. In fact our traffic analyst protagonist with his detached, no-roots lifestyle is similar to the assumed background of Shockwave Rider's Nick. The tension builds slowly, too slowly I'm afraid, leading to the eventual explosion and denouement.

Though the conceit of having each character be a piece in a chess game is interesting, I found it forced the plot and took away from characterization. That along with the slow pace of the plot made this only an average read for me.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful moves
Review: In the new South American capital city of Vados (think Brasilia or Curitiba) the perfect clarity of its plan is being smirched by peasants trying to get a piece of the good life from which they were designed out. Hakluyt, a worldly traffic planner, is called in to make the new slums unlivable by subtly tweaking the road system. He becomes a center of conflict between the founders of the sparkling city and those who would accomodate the countrymen. Gradually he realizes that the Mayor's party does not want a long-term solution but only the status quo, to chase the settlers out again. He is being pushed around like a pawn to achieve that end against his own best intentions. The two sides here parallel the splits between haves and have-nots in most countries. Whatever the virtues of the two causes-and Brunner is at some pains to lecture on what they are-his preference becomes clear almost from the start, despite developing the "bad" side more fully and interestingly.

This is thoroughly sociological SF, when that was still the coming wave (originally published by Ballantine in 1965). It reflects the contemporary concern with thought control (see The Hidden Persuaders). Brunner takes "subliminal persuasion" from advertising, the original fear, and explores its application to a city government in this story. It is eerily prophetic of the future total dominance of politics by televised sound-bites, advertising, and mass persuasion. (It is lacking only the diversion of war, as practiced by Clinton and Bush.) For example, as the city begins to break down, Brunner writes, "The political atmosphere was of the hothouse kind. The least incident capable of being made to bear political fruit was being nurtured, protected from the frost [of contrary information] and fed with manure until it blossomed out of all proportion." Sound familiar?

Although one of my favorite SF stories, Brunner's prose style now seems a little naive. The fact is, however, you do not feel the plot has been forced to conform to the 1892 chess game on which he based it-and that is its genius (see the appendix for the white and black character-pieces). Unlike much contemporary SF, Brunner adds no graphic sex scenes and constructs the mere underpinnings of what could become Hakluyt's heartfelt love. My one disappointment was the ending, for I really wonder what Hakluyt could do next to retrieve the end-game. But that would have to be another story, not another game, indeed. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: book background
Review: it also bears mention that the book is based around a famous chess game, with each character being a piece on a board and the interactions between the characters being based on the moves of the game...quite in depth, and an interesting idea behind writing a novel. its well done and I recommend this book to anyone, if youre interested in chess or not.

Rating:
Summary: Who is your controller?
Review: Vintage Brunner. Squares of the City portrays a frightening picture of puppet mastery in a modern country. Set in the present or near future in a Latin American state, the story follows an urban planner, called in to remove shanty towns from an 'ultramodern' city, and clean up its image. He starts to suspect that things are not all they seem...

A great adventure, with Brunner's powerful social comment.