Product Description
Sir John Brunner, the son of a Swiss schoolmaster who settled in England, was co-founder of Brunner, Mond and Company, one of the great English chemical firms of the nineteenth century and the predecessor of ICI. Always interested in politics, Brunner entered Parliament after his industrial activities had already won for him a reputation as the 'Chemical Croesus'. Unlike most wealthy men of his time, he was a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party and a patron of its Radical causes: Irish Home Rule, disestablishment, land reform, welfare legislation, and naval disarmament. He achieved prominence and wide influence in politics, though never Cabinet rank, and presided over the National Liberal Federation in the crucial years before and during the First World War. Although Brunner was a paternalistic employer opposing socialism, one of his last political gestures was his support of a Labour candidate in the 'coupon' election of 1918. Professor Koss' study is based on a wide range of research, including extensive use of letters and other papers in the possession of the Brunner family. ... Read more

Product Description
Sir John Brunner, the son of a Swiss schoolmaster who settled in England, was co-founder of Brunner, Mond and Company, one of the great English chemical firms of the nineteenth century and the predecessor of ICI. Always interested in politics, Brunner entered Parliament after his industrial activities had already won for him a reputation as the `Chemical Croesus'. Unlike most wealthy men of his time, he was a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party and a patron of its Radical causes: Irish Home Rule, disestablishment, land reform, welfare legislation, and naval disarmament. He achieved prominence and wide influence in politics, though never Cabinet rank, and presided over the National Liberal Federation in the crucial years before and during the First World War. Although Brunner was a paternalistic employer opposing socialism, one of his last political gestures was his support of a Labour candidate in the 'coupon' election of 1918. Professor Koss' study is based on a wide range of research, including extensive use of letters and other papers in the possession of the Brunner family. ... Read more

Product Description
When the star Zarathustra went nova, the desperate survivors spread out in all directions. Those that found habitable worlds were few and after hundreds of years the Zarathustra Refugee Planets were either forgotten or in quarantine. On Cyclops, an advanced world, an ominous political crisis had developed which threatened to oust the Corps Galactica. Something horribly improper was going on. . . something involving its corps of medical wizards. . . something that might have to do with an undiscovered Zarathustra planet. Gus Langenschmidt's job was to save the Corps base on Cyclops. But it proved to be a life-and-death task on a multi-planet scale. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

3rd Zarathustra Adventure
The third in Brunner's Zarathustra trilogy reunites us with the heroes ofCarrig, Madeleina Dos Santos and Gus Langenschmidt. A horrible deception isbeing practised on the inhabitants of an isolated planet.

This is a goodadventure story, but somehow Brunner's parallel plot mechanism didn't carryas much here as in some novels. Perhaps some of the storylines do notdevelop enough before they are brought together.

Zarathustra Trilogy: 1.Polymath 2. The Avengers of Carrig 3. The Repairmen of Cyclops ... Read more

Product Description
Ten stories, each preceded by background information, by a time-honored storyteller and a pioneer of the science fiction genre explore time travel, sentient machines, alternative history, and other perennial science fiction themes. Original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Little Known Science Fiction from Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling? Science fiction? Yes, Kipling did write science fiction. These nine stories can be classed as SF, although some tales clearly span more than one literary genre. (For example, I recently encountered the unusual tale - .007 - in Short Lines, an anthology of classic American railroad stories.)

John Brunner, the compiler and editor, claims that Rudyard Kipling has had more influence on the development of science fiction than either Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. There may be a little hyperbole here, but nonetheless these stories should appeal to readers interested in the roots of modern science fiction. Brunner's introduction to each story is quite helpful.

Rudyard Kipling was an astoundingly popular and prolific author that received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. This collection includes A Matter of Fact (1893), The Ship That Found Herself (1898), .007 (1898), Wireless (1904), With the Night Mail (1909), As Easy as A.B.C. (1917), In the Same Boat (1917), The Eye of Allah (1926), and Unprofessional (1932).

I especially enjoyed Wireless, a tale involving an experimental technology, wireless telegraphy - Morse code transmission without any connecting wires. Kipling interweaves two stories, his enthusiastic account of this pre-radio technology as well as a mysterious transmission across time and space. (Kipling assumes the reader has some familiarity with Keats' narrative poem The Eve of St. Agnes.)

Kipling was fascinated with the rapid advance of transportation technology, especially the modern steam ship and steam locomotive. Two stories - The Ship That Found Herself and .007 - invest machines with some level of intelligence and we readers observe the world from a machine's perspective.

In the two related stories With the Night Mail (setting 2000 A.D.), and As Easy as A.B.C. (August 26, 2065 A.D.) Kipling describes a future world in surprising detail and accuracy, and yet with some surprising oversights. Kipling foresaw great advances in mechanical technology, but he missed corresponding advances in medicine. As Easy as A.B.C. was undoubtedly his most disturbing projection - a world in which democracy was equated with mob rule and greatly feared.

In the tale A Matter of Fact three journalists share in an astounding discovery, so remarkable that their stories are not accepted as fact by any reputable newspaper. The suspenseful story, In the Same Boat, explores the possibility of prenatal influences on later severe psychological disturbances.


The Eye of Allah is a brilliant example of alternative history, or to be more precise, an alternative history that almost occurred. Kipling explores the concept of a biological clock and circadian rhythms (neither term had yet been invented) in the final entry titled Unprofessional. ... Read more

Product Description
Matthew Flamen, the last of the networks' spoolpigeons, is desperate for a big story. He needs it to keep his audience - and his job. And there is no shortage of possibilities: the Gottschalk cartel is fomenting trouble among the knees in order to sell their latest armaments to the blanks; which ties in nicely with the fact that something big is brewing with the X Patriots; and it looks as if the inconceivable is about to happen and that one of Britain's most dangerous revolutionaries is going to be given a visa to enter America. And then there's the story that just falls into his lap. The one that suggests that the respected Director of the New York State Mental Hospital is a charlatan...

John Brunner's brilliant and scathing vision of a society disintegrating under the impact of violence, drugs, high-level corruption and the casual institutionalization of the 'insane' was a powerful and important statement in 1969. It remains a compelling and chilling tour de force three decades on. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

1969 Disaster of the Year
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it seemed to me that you could tell which "oh my god we're all going to die" best seller John Brunner had just read, because every year he cranked out another fictional adaptation of the previous year's coming-disaster best seller. This book is his take on the predictions (in the wake of the Martin Luther King assassination and resulting riots in the US) that rising crime and increasing racial tensions would lead to a breakdown of society, and a general war of all-against-all.

Now, obviously that didn't happen, and the jargon used to describe racial issues seems awfully dated at this late a date, but the rest of this story is the fascinating part, and why it's still one of my favorites of his, and why so much of it now seems eerily prescient. The lead character mentioned above, Matthew Flamen, is a "spool pigeon." What they don't tell you above is that a "spool pidgeon" is a gossip columnist and political analyst who specializes in creating fake digital film footage of real news figures doing and saying what he thinks they said or did; even if the film couldn't possibly have been really shot, in his world he can't get sued if the event (or something substantially similar) actually happened. And if the network's computerized analysis of the news and other gossip sources says that the probability of his guess being right is at 90% or higher and he does get sued, they'll pay for it out of their lawsuit insurance.

The charlatan state mental health director mentioned above? The big revalation about him is that he considers all of society to be insane in some way or other, and aspires to have the entire state of New York (and eventually the world) under psychiatric treatment and control.

So for all that this book was written in 1969, and the main disaster predicted in the book didn't come true, it's still a book that has fascinating things to say about human society, and some of those things are more relevant now than they ever were.

Interesting for the fan of Brunner's more serious work
I cannot recall what I was reading at the time, but the gist of it was that Brunner wrote four challenging and experimental novels in the late 60s/early 70s. Of those four, I had read three and considered two of them to be among my top 20 of all time (Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up; the other that I had read was The Shockwave Rider, which I like and which should be mandatory reading for cybergeeks, but I don't think if has the same impact of the other two). The fourth was this novel, The Jagged Orbit.

Of the four it is by far the weakest and suffers much by time. However, you can see in the characters of Matthew Flamen and Elias Mogshack the seeds of later ones, especially Chad C. Mulligan of Stand on Zanzibar. (I also sense a similarity with Norman Spinrad's Jack Barron, but I cannot recall who come first.) The stylistic changes from his earlier work, and that would make Stand on Zanzibar such a landmark work in SF, are present here mainly in the chapter titles and the structure of the beginning and end. While I hesitate to recommend this to anyone, it proved interesting to me.

John Brunner - need i say more
Jagged Orbit would be a frightening book if it were written now; that it was written 30 years ago ays a lot for Brunner's exceptionalism. Like the sheep look up and stand on zanzibar, Brunner cuts to the heart of society,with a style all of his own. I love Brunner, and would recommend him toanyone who can read. ... Read more

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Ace Double D-421 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good sci-fi story where global overpopulation is presented as a problem
Normally I don't read science fiction, but this paperback caught my eye in a bookstore, so I decided to take a chance and pick it up.It only runs about 150 pages, and I read each half on a recent plane trip.

The story takes place in the future where overpopulation and limitations of raw resources are great problems.The world is more actively run on a global level by the (much publically hated) UN.The ever increasing problem though is with "Happy Dreams", an ultimate hallucinate drug.Despite its widespread use, the government has very little information to go on.It's always sold at a ridiculously low and fixed price, its central dealers or origins can't be determined, funding for research is low, and so little is known about the drug.

Nick Greville, a UN officer who works in the Narcotics department, looks into the happy dreams problem.Along the way he must deal with red tape, crazed users, his own marital problems at home, and all while resisting his own personal temptation to the drug.

The book keeps you reading, as questions beget more questions, until finally a climax of it all is revealed in the last two chapters.If you enjoy futuristic disutopia stories that focus more on the characters and their stories with very little description of their futuristic technology, this one's worth checking out. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Lost in Space
This book brings together two novels and a short story all concerning a loosely defined and articulated "Interstellar Empire". The longest novel "The Altar of Asconel" [1965] is the better narrative. Brunner struggles diligently to fashion a plausible future where the "Empire" is in decay and a trio of brothers restore the lawful ruler to the throne. Not a very original idea, but, nonetheless a good example of mid 60's Brunner space operas. The other novel, considerable shorter, has an odd name "The Wanton of Argus" I prefer the original title "The Space-Time Juggler" [1963]. This is the weaker story concerning the machinations of restoring another rightful heir to a throne. There are a few nice touches but overall the tale is uninteresting and appears to have been written in haste. The short story "The Man From The Big Dark" was found to be unreadable by this reviewer. Surprisingly this collection has been reprinted several times; not recommended.

Interstellar Empire
John Brunner is rightly famous for his dystopic works Stand on Zanzibar (won Hugo for best novel), the Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, and Shockwave Rider but most of his output consisted of science fiction space opera.The novella and two short stories (novelettes?) that make up this volume all take place in the same future world populated by a vast crumbling empire, slaves, and sword wielding heroes.The decadent empire has almost crumbled into oblivion and outer world planets are inhabited by pirates and mutants who seize power and travel across the galaxy with the old Empires' ships and technology.This classic yet unoriginal world is the backdrop to three unoriginal but relatively entertaining stories.The first of the stories is by far the best and the last by far the worst (they chronologically go backward in time which illustrates Brunner's developing talent).

The Altar on Asconel, written in 1965, is a pretty good read and deserves 4/5 stars.As Brunner writes in the little introduction to the volume (On standing on One's own Feet) that this novella was written after the background of his future world was developed and thus, some depth is definitely apparent in his work.The plot fits nicely into the background and is an integral element of the work.In this story, three brother of various professions band together with a rouge telepath to fight a cult from the far reaches of the galaxy who have gathered on Asconel and seized power.Two of the three brothers are very interesting characters while the third is entirely forgettable.Sadly, Brunner likes to kill of his characters that don't fit well into his narrative and especially at the beginning uses the time old technique of dumping the details of the political situation by means of a lengthy verbose lecture (telling the reader instead of showing).However, this story has some interesting ideas, characters, and technology.

The Man from the Big Dark, written in 1958, deserves 3/5 stars.Brunner tells us that he wrote this story while trying to tackle some of the key issues plaguing his invented future.Primarily, why did some technology and ships survive after the Empire crumbled away and the infrastructure disappeared.This story follows in a rambling manner the journey of an ex-space pirate (and a scantily clad woman) attempting to free a world he suddenly "belongs" to from his once allies (space pirates from the Big Dark).The action at the end is way to hasty and many of his decisions do not fit his character and background story.Simply put, this is a good attempt but needs a few rewrites.

The Wanton of Argus, written in 1953 when Brunner was 17, is pure drivel.To quote Brunner himself, "I threw the lot in - every cliché I could think of, from wicked princesses to giant black slaves."Thankfully, this piece of crud allowed Brunner to publish his future works.The great number of characters is detrimental to the short story format and all the characters are empty of character.The story is about a second born daughter and her attempts to prevent the first born daughter who has just returned from slavery on another planet from usurping her control over a younger brother who is king.That said, the ending does have a pretty fun twist that almost makes up for all the other lousy clichés. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a very difficult and frustrating book... but it sticks with you
I read this book fifteen years ago. The reason I am reviewing it now, after all this time, is that I still remember parts of it and it haunts my dreams. This is such an unusual book. You can tell that Brunner was influenced by the 1960's and psychadellic drugs here. The story really has no plot or ending or start. Its just a story of a place without time.

It might be wrong for me to review this book after so long. But if, like myself, you pick this book up and give it a try, I think that you will be rewarded by years of reflection. Not too many books do that.

back jacket summary
from the back cover of the of the Del Rey Dec 1984 paperback edition
Cover art by Don Dixon
First there was the end.After weeks of running from pursuers, Gene and Stacy finally found refuge on an isolated island.But around them the island changed-and so did they.
Each time they awoke from sleep, they lived a different life in a different time.And the farther back in time they went, the more they lost their anchor to their own world.When at last they were found, the people they had become no longer recognized their pursuers.And that was the beginning.

Strangenon linear book
This book doesn't really have a plot.In fact, it is difficult to tell what is going on while you are reading it.The same two characters live the same life over and over at different times in history, and it is more of a series of vignettes than a normal plotted book.

However, the author John Brunner explores some very interesting ideas, and this is what saves it. This quote summarizes the
book fairly well "Why, that on this world which matched his heart's desire nothing was stable, nothing remained the same.Had he only stayed where he found himself at first, he could have enjoyed all the benefits of change without the shock of coming home to a city where he and his mission were doomed to be forgotten..."

The characters are not aware that they are living in different
time periods simultaneously- they have the same physical traits
but no memrories shared between times.This makes for a book with little character development- but some of the time periods are well sketched.

So in summary, this book is wierd.It is glorifying in a strange perception of the world.Do you like to experience bizarre frameworks?If so,you will enjoy it, if not you will have a hard time getting past the second chapter.To conclude, here is another quote from the book:

"'Tell the rest! [of the story]

'There wasn't any rest', she said. 'That was the beginning and the end, endlessly repeated.'" ... Read more

Product Description
Three works by an award-winning science fiction novelist include The Crucible of Time, Children of the Thunder, and The Tides of Time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Frank Brunner Times Three
Omnibus of three SF novels: Children of the Thunder (Del Rey 1989), The Tides of Time (Del Rey 1984), and The Crucible of Time (Del Rey 1983). All three are solid SF reading. ... Read more

Product Description
Rinpoche Gibbs wakes up in the twenty-fourth century and finds a world populated by weird characters, such as Pope Joan II, Sherlock Holmes and his Biker Street Irregulars, and others. By the author of A Maze of Stars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Muddled
John Brunner (1934-1995) was a prolific science fiction writer, one of many from England that had great commercial success in the United States. Muddle Earth was published in 1993.

Admirers of Mr. Brunner's writings, and I count myself as a member of that large community, will, I believe, be somewhat disappointed in this, his last novel. The story is a tongue in cheek satire concerning an individual returned to life - resurrected - after being "frozen" for many years. Not an original story concept by any means but ripe with possibilities. Brunner employees this theme as an opportunity to lampoon just about everything - handled with a sharp barb this approach could be enchanting but Brunner uses a cleaver. There are lots of puns, plays on other science fiction authors names (a medical machine is THEODOR Surgeon, another quack in Wrong Ghoulart and on and on) and a mammoth assortment ofrobots and disguised aliens playing historical persons - and some from Earth fiction - Sherlock Holmes and Watson for example.

A interesting book for the dedicated Brunner fans, but casual readers would be better entertained reading his "The Sheep Look Up" - "Shockwave Rider"- or "Stand on Zanzibar".

Major writer, but a minor work
Brunner's best is pretty spectacular, whether in thoughtful fables like Traveler in Black or crumbling futures like The Sheep Look Up. This, I regret, is not his best. Humorous SF has been around for years. "The Hitch Hiker's Guide" was relatively recent when this came out, and Pratchett's Discworld saga was well under way. Perhaps Brunner felt that he needed to write something in that genre to prove himself as a well-rounded writer.

It gets off to a promising start. There are potentially humorous misunderstandings just before the start of his centuries-long cryogenic sleep, more just before the end of it, and a steady stream that carry him on a wild ride through the weirdness of that far-future Earth. For some odd reason, he wakes from his hibernation with after-effects that initially flatten his emotions. That's a clue, dear reader: the dullness within him goes well with the dullness that drags him from one laugh-track episode to the next. Every skit in the sequence falls somehow flat, from the in-jokes of the 1990s SF world to the outlandish names assigned to hero Rinpoche Gibbs, the faux Tibetan, and Nixy Anangaranga-Jones. Perhaps naming the poor girl for a traditional Indian sex manual was to have been mitigated by the fact that she's genetically engineered for irresistable beauty, but that plan fell flat as well.

It doesn't really end, so much as collide with the back cover of the book, something it could have done long since without losing anything that mattered. I really did read it all the way through out of remembered loyalty to Brunner's finest work, but I'm not sure I should have bothered.

-- wiredweird

madness on lovingly pulped and sliced tree
ahh in the vein of mr adams,monsiour rankin and jimmmy crankie,muddle earth brings together a veritable phalanx of amusing wriggling and splish-splashing in the shallow end shoal of ideas.having never read any of the authors previous work ,I was surprised to find that shockwave rider was among his many classic works.A well funny read that has the added attribute of getting the brain cells cranking over.If this book were a fruit it would be an amusing shaped dingbung.which exists only in my head.ah well thats what imaginations all about i suppose.buy this book.it will do you much good.

This book was confusing and amusing.
Muddle Earth caught my eye because of the title's resemblance to Middle Earth (Tolkien). It kept my eye because it reminded me of Douglas Adams. The book made me laugh while making me think a lot to try to sort thingsout. I really enjoyed it and am planning to read more of Brunner's books. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Polymath Good early Brunner tale
John Brunner's novel Polymath, written early in his career, is a gem and highly recommended. This tale about survival on an alien planet by shiploads of refugees escaping from a home world with a star going nova is not very original. In these types of stories we are confronted with, well, the usual: deadly flora and fauna, hostile climate conditions, boisterous settlers and inadequate resources. Brunner uses these familiar themes to create, yes, a fascinating backdrop, but the interaction of diverse character types makes this book exceptional. John Brunner is, in my estimation, a brilliant writer of Science Fiction whose body of works has disappeared from bookshelves since his untimely death in 1995. This book is an excellent introduction to a very underrated writer. Note to readers: there are two versions of this book one published in 1963 and one in 1974.The edition published in 1963 is shorter and substantially different than the 1974 version. This review is based upon the 1974 edition.

Fluidless plot, unrealized potential
Standard SF fare from 1974. In my opinion, Brunner had his best novels before this time (Zanzibar '69 and Sheep '72, for example). Original idea of stranded unprepared colonists/refugees, which allows for millions of different scenarios to play out. But the written plot feels too molded rather than loose, free-flowing. It was so written that everything was stacked-up to end up the way it did; there was no fluidity or compromise. And again (as it seems to be a key SF ingredient from the 60s-80s), I must say characterization of women through sexualization is a cheap cop out for any writer. Brunner wrote terrible one-dimensional female characters in Polymath. Thankfully, the SF ideas (mainly, the Polymath career idea) were original enough to rescue this book from a 2-star rating.

A Good Survival Tale
Brunner is rightly famous for his masterpieces Stand on Zanzibar, Shockwave Rider, and the Sheep Look Up.However, his earlier pulpish sci-fi such as Polymath is actually a pretty good survival tale on a very interesting planet.Secondly, I did not find its slight disturbing nature annoying at all, perhaps since I have managed to read Sheep Look Up and tons of Philip K. Dick.Yes, Captain Gnomes is unbelievable (but are the villains in 8/9 of fiction?) however Devia and Lex are suprisingly well rounded for characters for such a brief book that probably took Brunner a few months to write.For its one hundred and fifty four or so pages its a suprisingly good read. 4/5

crafty SEVENTIES hard boiled logicisms, no new wavism!
YOU have to pay attention within [this] one, THE simple, you dont want to think much about . SURVIVALthe past [ furrows ]anywasy pondered and ploted WELL tilled, GARDEN OF THOUGHTS,about what would happen,TOMMORROW , and the AWFULL JOBS DONE AND DEEDS DONE TO INSURE,,PRAGMATISED erotised theorised till , nearly death does you indetail stuns , explodes with INSIGHT THE FOLLYS man proabably shall still embrace in the far off tommorrows of yesteryear,BRUNNER MAKES CLEAR AGAIN AND AGAIN ITS CLEAR HE THINKS IT WORTH DOING,ALL THE BRILLIANT CRAP, DONT ME NOTHING IF YOU DONT STIR IN THE ESSENTIALS, its LIKE an EQUATION which the author examines in a plain to TELL you HOME SPUN, good versus, bad SURVIVALIST yarn, future science glory hard boiled collide with the alien NATURAL ..

Lord of the Flies, but less gruelling
Two lifeships crash on an uninhabited planet, and their passengers muststruggle to survive.

The storyline is fairly simple adventure/survival,with lots of detail. It is somewhat like Golding's classic, but lessgruelling, and with a bit more faith in human nature.

First of a trilogy:2. The Avengers of Carrig 3. The Repairmen of Cyclops ... Read more