Stand on Zanzibar

First published in 1968, John Brunner’s Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zanzibar is released with a new forward by Bruce Sterling (who is?)

Based in 2010, the novel centers around the escapades of two New York roommates, a leader of a high-tech company and a spy masquerading as a student. Brunner shares his predictions of social, economic, and technological trends, mixing story-telling with whole chapters dedicated to world-building, along with advertisements, slogans, songs, and snippets of newspaper articles and books.

Brunner does not write about the future as much as where he sees humanity could go in the future. The fun of reading sci-fi written in the future is seeing how much the author got right. Along with imagining the European Union, the rise of China as a global superpower, and the fall of the Detroit auto industry, Brunner’s future also includes banning tobacco and the legalization of cannabis and same-sex marriage. There are laser printers, video calling, and even a “President Obomi.” Even in the title, Brunner correctly predicts that the world’s population could stand shoulder-to-shoulder: seven billion people in an area of six hundred square miles.

Stand on Zanzibar remains a timeless classic. If you have read it before, it’s time to reread it. It’s a great read if you are looking for an insight into humanity, past, present, and future.