31 Dec, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 2013 The Man Who Was Secrett and Other Stories is a collection of short stories, most of which feature Mr. Secrett, librarian for Royal Society for Applied Linguistics. Except as otherwise noted, all contents are by John Brunner.
26 Nov, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1993 Muddle Earth is a stand-alone science fiction story. It is also, as far as I can tell, Brunner’s final novel, not counting posthumous collaborations. Various factors conspired against Brunner — actually, that describes his whole career — and his productivity towards the end of his life was affected.
Duckman’s Dumper is the unlikely name of the faster-than-light drive that gave humanity the stars. Other civilizations had FTL drives, but none as inexpensive as the Duckman’s Dumper. Earth licenses the Dumper and the licensing fees have allowed all of the better sort of people to leave Earth for better planets. This has left Earth with humanity’s dregs.
There was a further complication, one that had personal implications for one Rinpoche Gibbs.
29 Oct, 2024
Shockwave Reader
1970’s Good Men Do Nothing is the second volume of John Brunner’s Max Curfew thriller series.
Jamaican-born ex-Soviet agent Max Curfew vacations in Italy. By chance, his route takes him through the town of Giambattista de Belvedere on the day of a religious festival. Curfew plays tourist while the festival is ongoing.
This decision dooms poor unfortunate Maria Salvadore, who greets Curfew by spitting at him.
24 Sep, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1988 Days of March is a stand-alone mainstream novel.
There are many goals that Micky Daws would like to accomplish in 1962. However, to accomplish them Micky needs not to get incinerated in a nuclear exchange. Thus, Micky’s dedication to Liberty, an organization campaigning for nuclear disarmament.
27 Aug, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1987 The Shift Key is a stand-alone novel.
Usually, I start out by telling readers the genre, but in this case revealing the genre would be a bit of a spoiler. Read on!
Weyharrow Goodsir’s name is the oddest aspect of an otherwise unremarkable British village. Weyharrow has no crime-solving spinsters, no outbreaks of murder, not even the occasional alien mass-impregnation events so common elsewhere in the UK. Such crises that Weyharrow experiences are interpersonal, unremarkable, and entirely conventional.
Until the day the town goes mad.
30 Jul, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1983 The Great Steamboat Race is a stand-alone historical novel.
Despite the advanced technology and skilled pilots of the 1870s, the Mississippi was still an often-dangerous river on which to operate steamboats. Prudent men would not exacerbate the hazards with dubious endeavors such as races.
Prudence is a virtue more lauded than practiced. Which brings us to the matter of the steamboats Atchafalaya and Nonpareil.
25 Jun, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1984 The Tides of Time is a stand-alone science fiction novel.
Travelers Gene and Stacy make port and set up camp in a cave on a backwater Greek island. They will be there for some time… centuries, by some measurements.
28 May, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1982 Manshape is a stand-alone science fiction novel.
Jorgen Thorkild oversees the Bridge System, which allows people to step from one world to another, provided only that both worlds are spliced into the interstellar transportation network. Physical challenges now solved, that leaves only cultural impediments standing between all the human worlds and a single, unified society.
30 Apr, 2024
Shockwave Reader
John Brunner’s 1980 Players at the Game of People is a stand-alone science fiction/horror novel.
Godwin Harpinshield is blessed to enjoy a life that is exactly what he wants. He has a fancy car, portals leading to idyllic beaches, opportunities for heroism, and the ability to muddle the minds of authority figures who ask too many questions.
Godwin accepts that there is a price for all of this. He does not fully appreciate what that price is.
26 Mar, 2024
Shockwave Reader
1971’s Honky in the Woodpile is the third and final book in John Brunner’s Max Curfew thriller series.
Dr. Aloysius Small, on track to become the first non-white Member of Parliament since Saklatvala, is shot and killed by a sniper firing from the South African embassy. Protests are immediate. So are attacks on protestors from Britain’s thriving racist community. Unable to detain the killer, the British police turn to a show of force. They immediately begin brutalizing protestors, particularly those of sub-Saharan ancestry.
Retired international man of mystery Max Curfew intervenes to save two black men from a skinhead attack. This earns Jamaican-born Max and his new friends a brief stay in a British jail. Max emerges from the experience battered but alive, and with a new mission.