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 Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner
reviewed by John McCarthy
First appearance
This SF classic from 1968 was a Hugo winner, and deservedly so.
Long-time Irish SF readers may recall my writing an anguished review in Stargate about 20 years ago, wondering why such a marvellous book was out of print. In the early 80's, a UK publisher brought out an edition (Orbit, I think). but it didn't seem to sell well, and I don't recall ever having seen it being remaindered.
Nevertheless, the Del Rey division of Ballantine Books has recently brought out a new edition. This is a photo-offset of the original, by the way, so it has a complete set of the typographical errors of the 1968 edition.
Looking back with 30 years' advantage, it is somewhat surprising how sophisticated the serious issues which are becoming more topical by the day were handled by Brunner. The main plot of the book concerns the effects on Western society of an announcement by a third-world scientist of an easy and effective way to eliminate hereditary birth defects. There are several subplots (the setting is 2010, mostly in New York City), and some other issues considered are dead letters nowadays (the end of widespread communism wasn't predicted, but Brunner was hardly alone in that; the growth of religious intolerance in the third world was also not predicted). There are many characters as well, most if not all of whom are very well crafted.
The style of the book takes getting used to. Joe Haldeman explicitly acknowledges his debt to Brunner and dos Passos for the style which he adopted for his brilliant novel Mindbridge and for his award winning novella "Tricentennial". Even though it takes a while to get used to, the effort will be well-rewarded.
The world of 2010 will be very different from what Brunner portrayed, for the late 60's was a peak time for apocalyptic SF --Brunner's own The Sheep Look Up is an excellent example of this, though it is somewhat inferior to Stand on Zanzibar. Yet Brunner does have an uncanny knack of prediction: his minor work Born Under Mars seems like a low-budget rip-off of Dune, until one discovers that it predated Herbert's classic. Similarly, one major subplot of The Sheep Look Up seems to be a direct steal of the Patty Hearst kidnapping -- except that the book came first again. Has he done it again here? If so, it will be more than interesting to see which features of his world of 2010 will be part of ours as well
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