Stand on Zanzibar

The Hugo Award-Winning Novel

By: Bruce Sterling - introduction, John Brunner

Narrated by: Erik Bergmann

Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically---it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him.

These two men's lives weave through one of science fiction's most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of now, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful.

Critic reviews

“A wake-up call to a world slumbering in the opium dream of consumerisum; in the hazy certainty that we humans were in charge of nature. Science fiction is not about predicting the future, it's about elucidating the present and the past. Brunner's 1968 nightmare is crystallizing around us, in ways he could not have foreseen then. If the right people had read this book, and acted in accordance with its precepts and spirit, our world would not be in such precarious shape today. Maybe it's time for a new generation to read it.” —Joe Haldeman

“A quite marvelous projection in which John Brunner landscapes a future that seems the natural foster child of the present.” —Kirkus Reviews

visionary

I must have rechecked three times, during the reading, that it really was written around the time I was born. This could have been written yesterday. In science, for theory to be considered valid, it must exhibit predictive capacity. And of course, great science fiction is the same. This novel is brilliant in its social predictive capacity. I am sorry to be redundant, but I must write it again. Brilliant! I even bought a copy for my favorite student. I am, dying to see what sar thinks of it.

I didn't love it

the world building in this book is great, but the style (fragmented bits, storylines which are only barely connected, zapping-like segments) is not my cup of tea.
OTOH realizing that this was written in the '60s is mind-blowing, it passed the test of time with flying colors.

Christ, what an imagination I have

I would consider this book a slow burn, as it took me a few attempts to get hooked. The point that really transfixed my attention is when the author's self insert makes an appearance, and is a voice of reason I. an insane world.

The world changed in 1968

They say the world changed in 1968. This book is one writers attempt to determine what 2010 would look like given those changes. The author gets a shocking number of things right in this dystopian view of the future.

Great story of society and what it can become.

There was some points where the narration could have been edited better but other than that this was a great book.