review of
John Brunner's The World Swappers
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 18, 2013

After I read Rudyard Kipling & John Brunner's The Science Fiction Stories of Rudyard Kipling (you can read my review of that here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/443932.The_Science_Fiction_Stories_of_Rudyard... ) I decided that it was time to finally read something by Brunner, a writer I've long since been aware but've never gotten around to until now. SO, I went to a used bkstore & got 5 novels of his another 8 novels by Jules Verne that I'd previously never heard of.

Some of the Brunners & all of the Vernes are published by Ace. They're all the same size & w/in a narrow number-of-pp range: 127-191. In other words, they're written to fit market restrictions. Of course, the Verne's weren't originally written for Ace, they were written for Ace's predecessors. Now, I like Ace, they've published some great stuff. I'm just calling attn to commercial limits that many readers might not think about. It's just like the old days of "feature films": they had to be a minimum of 70 minutes to get distribution.

So what's my take on Brunner? Will he enter my pantheon of SF favorites? Will he join the company of Philip K. Dick, Samuel Delaney, Stanislav Lem, J. G. Ballard, & the Strugatsky Brothers? Not quite.. at least not quite yet.. Somehow, the market restrictions bleed thru a little too much. Of course, Dick was writing under the same restrictions & I LOVE his writing. But, somehow, Brunner doesn't QUITE pull it off. On the other hand, he's not a 'series writer', the ultimate commercial debasement (not INTRINSICALLY, more just-the-way-it-goes). When I ask someone what SF they like & they rattle off the names of their favorite series I tend to think that maybe what they like are soap operas, space soap operas perhaps, but still soap operas.

I'm reading the 5 Brunner bks in the order they were published in, The World Swappers, being from 1959, being the earliest one. In Brunner's bio at the beginning he says: ""I don't regard myself in any sense as a quote creative writer unquote, I prefer to communicate with my audience, not make them puzzled, and consequently am not all that fond of literary obscurities such as typify modern, recognized, literature."" - & maybe that's part of why I sortof find Brunner 'functional' rather than inspired.

W/in the novel, Brunner has a character say: ""Check the school records over the centuries - the infant geniuses have gone on to become business giants and administrators, not social reformers, artists, poets. Intelligence manifested as common sense."" (p 27) Really? I don't think I agree. I'm sure that 'genius' is widely manifested in many possible ways.

Later, when Earthlings & post-Earthlings are confronted w/ the impending presence of another technically sophisticated life-form, the leader of a group trying to control the interface w/ them is in this exchange:

""Tell them to drop what they're doing and come here at once. Maybe someone will think of something."

""And if they don't?" Katya sounded as though she knew the answer to that; Wu gave it to her regardless.

""Then I guess we just have to blow them to bits."" (p 78)

The novel's about the ultimate grandiose, manipulative, & imaginative resolution to this conflict & I think Brunner pulls it off in a competent & somewhat inspired way. But, by his own admission, he's not a "creative writer" - & it shows. One thing I often say about P. K. Dick is that where other, more prosaic, SF novelists (like Brunner) END their bks is just the halfway point for Dick. In other words, Dick is so inspired that he has TWO spectacular surprise endings, he's not just satisfied w/ one. Brunner doesn't go that extra light-yr. ( )

This is a poor work by Brunner. Just didn't work for me. I have read several of his books and with mixed results. ( )

A++ worldbuilding, slightly clunky reveals. C+ actual story suspense. ( )

One of John Brunner's early SF works and the first that I've read by this acclaimed author. Its a decent read, full of ideas, but most of them under-developed. The story follows a secret organization that is trying to prepare mankind for the coming contact with another intelligent space-faring race. In fact in many ways the Poul Anderson book Planet of No Return is an critique of this very idea - that any one organization or person can or should take on the responsibility of moulding mankind through manipulation behind the scenes. ( )