Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar

The Short of It

Plot: 2010 is bleak; overpopulation, eugenics, corporate colonialism, racism, and violence abound.

Page Count: 650

Award: 1969 Hugo

Worth a read: Yes? It's New Wave SF - love it or hate it.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: Minimal
Review: Highly experimental in form, this book is a tough read. Detailed world-building depicted in interesting ways. Hated some of it, but felt like it was worth the challenge. Pretty much everything that comes up has a payoff - even if you don't like the book, you have to acknowledge that it's impressive.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

New Wave Science Fiction as explained by Wikipedia: 

The New Wave is a movement in science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. New Wave writers often saw themselves as part of the modernist tradition and sometimes mocked the traditions of pulp science fiction, which some of them regarded as stodgy, adolescent and poorly written.

It's hard to find a good starting point to discuss this one. Let's examine form. Stand on Zanzibar has four different kinds of chapters:

• Context: Provide background for the world, usually through excerpts from in-universe books.
• The Happening World: Also context, but noisier - a lot of thoughts, newspaper clippings, and so on. Show that there's a lot going on.
• Tracking With Closeups: Close tracking of secondary characters.
• Continuity: The chapters that progress the story itself, mostly focused on our main characters. 

Continuity and Tracking with Closeups tend to follow standard narrative rules; the other two pitch those conventions out the window. This is a small excerpt from one Happening World segment:

I saw scrawled on the corner of a wall scrawawawled on a wawawall caterwauled cattycorner on the wawall what did I see scrawled on the wawl I forget so it can’t be that important KNOW IN YOUR OWN HANDS WITH A POLY-FORMING KIT THE SENSATIONS OF MICHELANGELO AND MOORE OF RODIN AND ROUAULT let us analyse your metabolism and compound for you a mixture that’s yours and yours alone guaranteed to trip you higher further longer by cross-breeding the kaleidoscope with the computer we created the Colliderscope that turns your drab daily environment into a marvellous mystery

This chapter goes on for approximately 950 words. That's the feel of much of the book, thus the uphill battle that is reading it.

Plot is of secondary importance but is nonetheless engaging. Hard not to spoil anything, but a number of different characters each have their own adventures - all of which mesh together at the end. Brunner does an excellent job of setting things up way ahead of time, as well as in the non-continuity segments. The attention to detail is remarkable.

What to say about characters? There are a lot of them. Only a few are vital but many come up more than once, and even some minor one end up being important. How do you feel about keeping a notebook out to make sure you're not missing any details? As for personality and motivations - most of the characters feel extremely similar, and with a few exceptions and varying amounts of PG profanity their manner of speech is the same. There is pretty much no one actually likable within the cast; some elicit sympathy, but that's not quite the same.

Which brings us to the main event: world-building! This is a well thought out and comprehensive dystopia. Brunner has done an excellent job of exploring the different ramifications of overpopulation and the impacts it has on every level of society - from sterilization programs to licensing homelessness to some profanity being built upon genetic conditions. There are also discussions religion, unemployment, technology addiction, drug addiction, international relations, artificial intelligence, state power and corruption, war, affirmative action, fast fashion, abuse of power, prostitution, brainwashing, corporate greed, propaganda, and probably a dozen other things I'm forgetting to mention. It's well done, and it's a lot to take in, and it is relentless. The characters and setting are just a vehicle for showcasing this world. It's worth noting that while his depiction of 2010 is a bit off, the book has aged remarkably well.

You can tell by reading through the book that Brunner is enamored of his own brilliance; some segments feel like he just put them in to see what his editor would say. The way that this story weaves together, it's hard to disagree - but a good number of cuts could have been made.

I was glad to have read this one - it is a far cry from any of the earlier Hugo or Nebula winners. It is also frequently slow, intentionally confusing, and longer than it needs to be. I was against it for the first 50 pages, tolerated it for the next 100, and started enjoying it about a third of the way through. 

If you're up for a challenge and want something totally different, give it a whirl.

Please consider using the link below if you wish to order the book I will get a few cents from it and it will cost you nothing extra I don't think this no punctuation thing is for me.

Hello, I am a link to buy this book!

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

Almost every section of this dragged on much longer than it had to. Books written for the purpose of world-building lose their pizzazz once the world has been built. There is a lot of different stuff that needs to be examined here; but having three different non-plot chapter types is a big ask. Of the 118 chapters in this book, 42, a bit over one third, are "Continuity" chapters. Of course, world-building still occurs in Continuity chapters, and sometimes plot points are advanced in the others - but it is still easily 50% chapters that fall outside of direct plot. 

Most books accomplish world-building within the narrative, without needing to go outside of standard novel format. 

I disliked the Donald-as-spy transformation and development; it felt like a lazy way of keeping the same characters while nonetheless changing him completely. I understand that we're supposed to see the evils of brainwashing, how they can totally change a person - but it felt unearned. What sympathy we felt for Donald disappears when he is nothing like his original self. By the same token, seeing him broken at the end did little for me. I'd already said adieu to the original Donald and Donald Mark II was not a remotely sympathetic character. 

For a book that takes it's time the ending is awful abrupt. Things are going along and then we just slam on the brakes. The Beninia twist came out of nowhere; it is a total game-changer, and completely unexplored.

Introducing Chad Mulligan as a character was fun, and added some flavor to the Context chapters which include his writing. The suggestion that he was dead and then -gasp!- he is not seemed like a waste of page space. We don't care about him when we think he died, and the back and forth of people not believing he's alive added nothing to the narrative. Easily one of my favorite scenes here is Chad talking to Shalmaneser.

Those gripes aside, once I was hooked, I stayed hooked. 

There is not much more to say about this one; there is a lot going on, it's wildly complex, and I will never do it justice here. I was frequently frustrated and had to flip back and forth to remind myself who some of the characters were. Feels like an accomplishment to have gotten through it.

I would need to know someone well before I recommended this one; but for certain people it would be a home-run.

We can stand on any island you'd like, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!