Author: James John Bell
Date: 08-02-04 03:00
I would agree that John Brunner is not a "long lost" writer, but much of his work has been forgotten. Brunner called PKD "the most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world" (quoted from the back inside page of the 6th printing of VALIS).
Brunner was ultra hot at his peak, which many peg as the early 70's, but wasn't as popular in the US (he's a UK author). This is probably because he depicts American corporations as downright evil, like Enron, and the US government as, well, like the Bush administration. Brunner is the "grandfather" of what became cyberpunk (he called many of his writings 'close-up' sci-fi). After cyberpunk was coined by Gibson folks pointed to Brunner's Shockwave Rider as the "first" of the sub-genre.
The book later became famous when it lead to a college student creating the first internet virus which shut down many computers around the world, including the US government. Scientists termed what happened a "worm" after what Brunner's character creates in the book.
If I was to draw a comparison between Brunner and PKD it seems that while PKD's stories get turned into movies, Brunner's characters seem to become real... like, the radical environmentalists in his 1972 book The Sheep Look Up, a book that the future leaders of groups like Earth First! and Rainforest Action Network carried around in their backpacks during the 70's and pulled from it many of their political actions. It's just been brought back into print with an intro by David Brin, and an afterword by me.
“For the last twenty years at least,” proclaims hacker Mark Pesce, “‘hard’ science fiction has functioned as a ‘high level architecture’ (HLA), an evolving design document for a generation of software designers brought up in hacker culture, a culture which prizes these works as foundational elements in their own worldviews.” Pesce credits Shockwave Rider for creating the mythology of the hacker, much like The Sheep Look Up helped give shape to the mythos and identity of the radical environmentalist. Pesce described the impact of Brunner on would-be hackers of the 1970’s as leading to the “auto-catalytic recognition and formation of community” – Brunner’s books give movements their 'code'.
Brunner may be "lost" to the mainstream (Zanzibar, ShockWave Rider, and Sheep are all that is still in print out of over 80 books! and most bookstores don't even stock those), but his books seem to find an underground audience, much like PKD did.
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