Surtac wrote:

Here's a status report on my re-read of Stand On Zanzibar which, according to my records, I last re-read in 2008.

I'm still enjoying it at about halfway through, and this time around I find myself reading more slowly and absorbing more of the background detail than I recall doing before.  And as I do that, it becomes more and more clear to me that Brunner really did do a good job predicting Gibson's jackpot future that we are currently living in, and he did it a good forty years or so before Gibson.

Sure, he may have got the major driver wrong by focusing on overpopulation rather than climate change, but a lot of the other factors and flow-on effects are surprisingly relevant and familiar even as the details and implementations vary.  Eg., current global geo-politics conflict zones, economics, eugenics, cost of living issues, social de-cohesion, world health concerns, universal access to information in developed countries, ubiquitous communications, entrenched misogyny, inconsistent infrastructure capabilities etc and so on.

And then I saw the following article in my morning news feed and was reminded yet again that the jackpot really has already arrived.

https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/08/mental-health-is-not-a-niche-issue-it-is-the-electorate/

So now I have to re-read some of Gibson's work as well to remind myself of the relevant aspects of the jackpot as described there.

 

Thanks for the update. I last read SoZ about 15 years ago, and it held up well. Perhaps deserves a reread. 
Incidentally, I imagine that article applies to every industrialized country, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers and intensity were more so here…huge issue 

Well, I have finally finished what turned out to be a very slow re-read of Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar.

Why was it so slow?  A couple of reasons stand out.  One, I was deliberately taking it slow to make sure that I properly absorbed all of the supplemental material that the main central storyline is wrapped in - the details of the worldbuilding that I had either missed or not remembered.  Two, events that were happening in the real world made me realise that this book, which was first published in 1969, was even more frighteningly prescient than I had remembered it being when I last read it almost twenty years ago.  I had to put it aside for a few days when I heard about the deliberate power distribution infrastructure sabotage in north-western Germany a week ago, and I had totally forgotten that Brunner also predicted the return of fascism to Israel. 

I think I'll defer a re-read of the rest of the Club of Rome books until I've recovered from this one.  But having said that, and acknowledging what's going on in Britain right now, I'm debating whether to tackle Kingdom Come by JG Ballard before the new China Mieville novel arrives to distract me.

One final note for now:  this is the first book in a while where I've found myself making a playlist of music as an accompaniment while reading or reacting to it.  I won't bore you with details but would like to suggest that Manu Chao's song "Rainin' in Paradise" would bbe the perfect theme tune for a TV or movie adaptation.

To dispel the all-too-real, I'd recommend The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (2026 Hugo for Novella), and Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pat (Hugo for Novelette).  The later is available online at Clarksworld. 

I'm awaiting the new Mieville with some trepidation. It's very very long (over 1,200 pages), and based on a review, a complex perhaps confusing read. So, classic Mieville. 

starexplorer wrote:

One thing I respect about KSR is his insistence on offering ideas that might lead to a better future. That approach is less common in fiction. It remains to be seen whether it’s a truly successful literary project, as a whole. Even if The Ministry for the Future was perhaps his best read crossover novel.

Agreed that KSR seems to have few peers in that regard, of being optimistic for possible better futures.  Some of Ken MacLeod's more recent work might fit (the Beyond trilogy?), and I have seen good reports of the recent BSFA winner When There Are Wolves Again suggesting it may contain some hopefulness, though my copy is as yet unread.

And yes, trepidation is probably the right word to describe the new Mieville as it approaches.  In the meantime, I will attempt to start the Ballard and will investigate the mahe's suggested recent Hugo nomimations
 

I came across a list yesterday of reading resources for a climate-changed world and it included a few novels.  One was KSR's Ministry for the Future, as you might expect, but another is Clade by James Bradley, which is another title I also have unread in The Pile (tm)..

And I have started Ballard's Kingdom Come.  I'm only a few chapters in but my hindbrain has already decided that this book too needs a soundtrack.  This one starts with "Good Morning Britain" by Aztec Camera and continues on to Steven Wilson's song "Personal Shopper".  I have a strong sense of expectation that "London's Burning" by The Clash will feature in a chapter to come.