John Brunner’s Science Fiction novels were a constant presence in ACE Doubles in the 1960s. Later, DAW Books reprinted many of Brunner’s works like Quicksand (1967) and a collection of his short stories in The Book of John Brunner (1976).
Quicksand follows the interaction of psychiatrist Paul Fidler with a mysterious woman who shows up in rural England naked and confused. Fidler has the young woman learn English and learns some incredible facts about where she might be from. As Fidler becomes more involved, he falls deeper in to the quicksand of circumstances surrounding the young woman and her incredible past. GRADE: C
The Book of John Brunner includes five of Brunner’s most unusual SF stories–none of them have previously appeared in paperback. Also included in this volume are five of Brunner’s most significant SF and futurological articles–none of which have ever appeared in book form before. If you’re a John Brunner fan, The Book of John Brunner is worth checking out. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Premumble — Crossword — Limerick #1 — A different kick, or how to get high without actually going into orbit — “Lullaby for the mad scientist’s daughter” — Bloodstream — Domestic crisis 2017 — Hide and seek = cache-cache / by Gérard Klein ; translated by John Brunner — Limerick #2 — The technological folk-hero : has he a future? — “The ballad of Teddy Hart” — Who steals my purse — Excerpt from a social history of the 20th century — Feghoot I — Die spange / by Stefan George — Limerick #3 — Them as can, does — “Faithless Jack the spaceman” — When Gabriel… — What we have here — Feghoot II — The Spartans’ epitaph at Thermopylae (from The Greek Anthology) — Limerick #4 — The educational relevance of science fiction — “The spacewreck of the Old 97” — Manalive (excerpt) — Matthew XVIII, 6 — Feghoot III — Corrida / by Rainer Maria Rilke — Limerick #5 — The evolution of a science fiction writer — “The h-bombs’ thunder — The new thing — The atom bomb is twenty-five this year — Epigrammata LXV / by Decimus Magnus Ausonius — Solution to crossword.
I am of the opinion that any Brunner is a good Brunner. THE BOOK OF JOHN BRUNNER displays his wide-ranging talent effectively. The most interesting part of the book for me is the excerpt for MANAL:IVE, a mainstream novel which Brunner had many hopes for; he felt it would be a major literary and commercial success. Alas, various publishing pixies kept delaying the book’s publication until the book’s time had effectively passed. Although it was written in the Sixties, it was not published until 1988 under the title THE DAYS OF MARCH; it had a small print run and was never reprinted — just one of the several examples in which the publishing world unintentionally did Brunner dirt. Over the next seven years until his death, Brunner would publish only three additional novels.
Jerry, Brunner had Bad Luck with his non-SF books. His massive historical novel flopped and THE DAYS OF MARCH came and went…
Not just with his non-SF books, George. Some bright copy editor at Harper & Row decided to correct Brunner’s 1975 novel THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER by combining two characters, which totally ignored Brunner’s character arc, caused confusion among readers, and basically made the book unreadable. Brunner’s loud complaints about this and some editorial mishandling of his earlier books 9I’m looking at you, Donald A. Wollheim!) put him on the outs with many US publishers and led to the slow decline of the industries acceptance of his work.
Jerry, I’ve heard horror stories of editors “improving” authors’ work. That was one reason Mark Twain did some self-publishing…and made a fortune!
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I’ve only read a few of his short stories.
Jeff, Brunner churned out a bunch of ACE Double stories in the 1960s. Then, he started writing longer, more complex SF novels.
DAW Books had quite a run with their THE BOOK OF various writers…the first one I picked up as a kid was THE BOOK OF FRITZ LEIBER. (I note with amusement that WordPress disbelieves in Leiber’s existence…alas, he is no longer extant…I should check if his son Justin is still with us.) Inasmuch as Ballantine got there first with their extensive series of THE BEST OF various fantasy/SF writers, with THE BEST OF FRITZ LEIBER as one of their first (though Pocket Books were undeterred from doing no few THE BEST OF other fantastica writers volumes…my favorite from Pocket which comes to mind is THE BEST OF DAMON KNIGHT).
Ballantine had already done a fantasy and some sf and horror THE BEST OF ROBERT BLOCH before the establishment of the Del Rey Books imprint there, so when Lester del Rey decided to do a similar horror and some suspense story similar retrospective, as one of the few Del Rey Horror releases,they gave it the mildly Blochian title SUCH STUFF AS SCREAMS ARE MADE OF.
Todd, I have a number of Ballantine Books’ BEST OF series.
Todd, not only did DAW publish THE BOOK OF FRITZ LEIBER, they published THE SECOND BOOK OF FRITZ LEIBER!
They did. It wasn’t quite as good, but I’ve been glad to have it.
That BOOK OF JOHN BRUNNER is certainly an odd conglomeration. I hope it was Brunner’s choice and he got to enjoy having it published, rather than the publisher’s choice and he had to put up with it.
I don’t remember anything about QUICKSAND except that I liked it, having read it when it was first published.
Jeff, I think THE BOOK OF JOHN BRUNNER was a Brunner project with little editorial intervention. But as Jerry points out, Brunner became bitter because of editors’ unwanted meddling.