Simon MacDonald
I had just started this book when I discovered that the author had been accused of (and admitted to) sexual harassment. Rightly or wrongly I could not finish it.
The book was written nearly 50 years ago, with the locus of the story set around this time era. It depicts a US society divided by race, colour, and to lesser extent religion. Commercialism controls the media, and the sale of arms and weapons to the public is rampant, and controlled by a Mafia-like organisation. Civil unrest is widespread, and violence is worsening. The President is publicity seeking fool.
John Brunner must have been prescient.
Read this when it first came out. Better than some of his later books. Think I'll re-read the other two.
I had real trouble engaging with this book. I'm not sure why. An interesting plot with good characters; better than the 3/5 I gave it.
Another excellent episode in the trilogy. Increasingly machiavellian political intrigue and lots of action.
A good yarn, but the plot was somewhat weak in parts. The writing style is a bit naive and simplistic, but the story got told and I enjoyed it, despite the lengthy sadomasochism scenes and the spattering of paedophilia....
Shallow characters and the plot only really starts going somewhere as the book ends. “Find out what happens in the next book”. I won't be reading it.
Hum Ho. 2.5 A bit disappointing, in fact it became a little tedious towards the end. Not up to his early stories.
It's strange how you can react to certain books. Whilst this was a well written book, with an interesting concept, I found that it depressed me.
I don't know why.
A rollicking space opera/fantasy with dark necromancy, black humour, and an underlying susurration of repressed sexual tension.
One the best reads I've had for ages
It was OK. A couple of things.
A great deal of violence which would be expected, but unnecessarily descriptive in my view.
The interactions between the various police officers, and departments, came across as inaccurate and confused - not that I'm an expert - but seemed phoney.
An exceptionally well written book. A story of love, life, intrigue and war, and how seemingly random choices impact life. Probably the best book I've read this year.
Considering this was written in 1975, Brunner's knack for prescient writing predicts the Internet, smartphones, and many of the Computing tools we now take for granted. Not much in the way of a plot, and at times, disjointed, but nonetheless awesome.
I really wanted to enjoy the 4 books in this series, but to be honest I found the prose rambling and tediously verbose.
Perhaps it's me but I'm astounded that this is considered one of the best fantasy sequences of all time
I'm normally a hard SF guy. Becky Chambers is the foremost writer of soft SF. A short, beautiful, novella.
More please.
