5 books by John Brunner
Requirements: Epub reader, 1.99 Mb
Overview: The late John Brunner was perhaps as well known for much of his career in the US as in the UK. A leftwing activist, with particular connections to the peace movement, much of his best and most mature fiction is involved in a complex analysis of social trends and where they will take us–novels like Stand on Zanzibar which deals with overpopulation, among other things, and The Sheep Look Up, which is one of sf’s most telling presentations of environmental degradation, are also technically innovative with their multiple viewpoint storylines, interspersed newspaper headlines and fragments of author characters’ expository prose.
Genre: Science Fiction
Interstellar Empire
Interstellar Empire collects The Altar on Asconcel, The Man from the Big Dark, The Wanton of Argus/The Space-Time Juggler.
Interstellar Empire is a fixup of a novella & two short stories published in ’76. In his introduction, Brunner explains he wanted to write sword & spaceship stories. To do so, he had humanity find a huge cache of warehoused spaceships left behind by an earlier race. Thus they could have top-notch space travel without the technological development required to invent it. The stories are also set in the waning days of a vast interstellar empire that is crumbling badly, so that some planets are still firmly under imperial control, some are struggling to stay that way & others have gone their own way.
The novella, The Altar on Asconel, concerns three brothers who join forces to try to liberate their home planet after it’s been taken over by cultists from the far reaches of space. The 3nd story, The Man From the Big Dark, concerns the efforts of one man to warn a planet that they’re about to be invaded by space pirates. The 3rd story, The Wanton of Argus, involves a struggle over who shall become regent for a young king after his father’s death. It has a surprising twist at the end involving a time traveler who wants to make sure things turn out right.
Listen! The Stars!
The latest fad among jaded humanity is the *Stardropper,* a simple device, portable like a radio, receiving the screeching sounds from the cosmos which are normally the purview of radio telescopes. People are literally tuning in on the Music of the Spheres! But odd things happen after the fashion has been in place for awhile. First, frequent stardroppers begin to exhibit signs of massive psychosis. And if that isn’t bad enough, people are beginning to vanish!
More Things in Heaven
It isn’t every day that the impossible happens. But when it does, and you’re a witness, you have to start looking for answers. The authorities won’t talk. So you decide to find out for yourself. That’s what Drummond did. And when he found out. it changed the universe!
The Astronauts Must Not Land
It was a time of glory and it was a time of fear. After two years, Starventure, the first spaceship to reach the stars beyond our solar system, was returning to Earth and all the world rejoiced. But it was to be a shallow triumph, for on the day Starventure landed, a huge monster appeared in the sky above southern Chile, and the terror that gripped mankind was the worst in the annals of recorded history.
Scientists were convinced that only the crew of the spaceship could unravel the mystery of the apparition. But, when the ship’s latches were opened it was discovered that the astronauts had been transformed into six-limbed creatures with twisted and warped bodies – and they knew no more about their fate than the terror-stricken people on Earth.
The Infinitive of Go
The first practical matter transmitter was a success, or so everyone thought. In spite of paranoid security restrictions, Justin Williams and Cinnamon Wright, co-inventors of the device, counted on it to revolutionize civilization and gain them an honored place in history.
But the first long-distance field test with a human being—a diplomatic courier carrying a vital message—somehow misfired when the courier killed himself on arrival at his destination.
To prove his faith in his invention—and to escape charges of sabotage—Justin had himself "posted" thousands of miles. He came through unchanged. It was the world that was somehow different…
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