John Brunner

The late John Brunner was perhaps as well known for much of his career in the US as in the UK. A leftwing activist, with particular connections to the peace movement, much of his best and most mature fiction is involved in a complex analysis of social trends and where they will take us--novels like Stand on Zanzibar which deals with overpopulation, among other things, and The Sheep Look Up, which is one of sf's most telling presentations of environmental degradation, are also technically innovative with their multiple viewpoint storylines, interspersed newspaper headlines and fragments of author characters' expository prose. The Shockwave Rider is more conventional in technique but was one of the first sf novels fully to understand the information technology revolution. Much of his early work for American publishers consisted of short, punchy space operas like The Altar on Asconel; these go down so smoothly, and show such mastery of genre tropes, that it is only in retrospect that the reader notices how suffused they are with a strong ethical content - these things do not have to be simplistic power fantasies for adolescents. A historical novel to which he gave much of his heart, The Great Steamboat Race, is delightful, and very hard to find.