NP John Brunner

[Otto]

The Sheep Look Up
Brunner, John. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2003. 408pp. $15.95, softcover. ISBN:
1932100016.

review by Davin Heckman:
http://www.reconstruction.ws/BReviews/revSheep.htm

"Originally published in 1972, John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up" is a
dystopian tale whose urgency has only increased in the years since its
debut.
(...)
Part of a trilogy (which includes "Shockwave Rider" and "Stand on
Zanzibar"), Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up" paints a picture of a
not-so-distant future, when our water, food, and air have been polluted as a
consequence of corporate greed. Where a disingenuous U.S. government has
buckled under the weight of industrial mandates, waging wars on the Third
World for scarce resources and protecting big business through cover-ups,
propaganda, and a corrupt legal system. Where a chasm has emerged to
separate the rich, healthy, and privileged from the poor, sick, and
oppressed. Where those with the courage to stand up for justice and equality
are labeled as traitors. In other words, it is a bit too close for comfort.

Aside from the story's uncanny bearing on current events, Brunner's style is
an eclectic, rapid-fire barrage both stimulating and provocative. Scraps of
poetry, bits of narrative, advertisements, and TV transcripts flesh out a
story that is less about particular characters than it is about experiencing
a world in which gas masks, diarrhea, and genetic disorders are part and
parcel of everyday life. The novel attains a certain seamless quality,
weaving in an out of the contemporary media-rich environment, and creating
echoes that resonate with current news stories about biological warfare,
chemical agents, natural disasters, antibiotic-resistant super-germs, ozone
depletion, mad cow disease, mercury tainted seafood, genetically modified
organisms. (...) More than just a science fiction novel or ecological
jeremiad, "The Sheep Look Up" is a skillfully crafted piece of political
commentary that should be read alongside other 20th Century near-future
dystopias like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," George Orwell's "1984,"
and Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" for the imaginative work that it
accomplishes. In putting the unspeakable tragedy of an inhospitable world
into everyday language, Brunner offers us a way to think ourselves out of a
future that we might not otherwise be able to bear the thought of."