tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3763088504707951697.post5298378704239005085..comments2024-03-19T04:34:51.847-07:00Comments on Smorgasbook: Stand on Zanzibar by John BrunnerMegan Baxterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537170023931826579noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3763088504707951697.post-55436296687902593652017-10-02T12:11:07.591-07:002017-10-02T12:11:07.591-07:00You're right, a lot of what Brunner says has r...You're right, a lot of what Brunner says has resonance today.<br /><br />I disagree with you about Vandermeer's books, obviously, although I don't think we differ on what the books are and are not. It's just that I enjoyed what they are quite a lot, and was not bothered by what they are not.Megan Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537170023931826579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3763088504707951697.post-5415285171786276302017-10-02T12:00:04.095-07:002017-10-02T12:00:04.095-07:00I watched some of the videos of the Oct 2017 Las V...I watched some of the videos of the Oct 2017 Las Vegas shootings, and suddenly, all the details of this Brunner novel popped back into mind, despite me have read the book a very long time ago. Muckers. Brunner's vision, in "Stand on Zanzibar" is of a future (2010) that is not too far off from where we actually are. <br /><br />And I also recently read that awful "Southern Reach" trilogy, (which I see you are promoting) and thought it was absolute garbage - very, very clever writing, with all sorts of fine, tricky techniques to keep a reader engaged - but you end up feeling profoundly cheated - the Vandermeer book is a mish-mash of little more than clever literary trickery, which takes one no-where, and offers nothing - 600 pages of timewaste and hoo-haw, using an annoying combo of J. Le Carre spy-story tradecraft and H. P. Lovecraft Cthulhu-ripoffs. <br /><br />But the Brunner book was brilliant, and has stayed in my mind for so many years. The big AI, Shalmanezer, is on the verge of being built - probably using Google's TensorFlow and a big beowulf cluster. A bit scary...<br />-RHRHastingshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05039594845815541206noreply@blogger.com