''Stand on Zanzibar'' is a

dystopia A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...

n New Wave science fiction novel written by John Brunner and first in part published in ''NEW WORLDS'' in 1967 and in book form in 1968. The book won a

Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year by the World Science Fiction Society for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is ava ...

at the 27th World Science Fiction Convention in 1969, as well as the 1969 BSFA Award and the 1973 Prix Tour-Apollo Award.

Description

The novel is about overpopulation and its projected consequences. The story is set in 2010, mostly in the United States. The narrative follows the lives of a large cast of characters, chosen to give a broad cross-section of the future world. Some of these interact directly with the central narrative, while others add depth to Brunner's world. Brunner appropriated this narrative technique from the '' U.S.A.'' trilogy, by

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. (trilogy), ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a ...

. The main story is about two New York men, Donald Hogan and Norman Niblock House, who share an apartment. House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the powerful corporations. Using his "Afram" (

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six. The two plots concern the fictional African state of Beninia making a deal with General Technics to take over the management of their country, to speed up development from

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

First World The concept of the First World was originally one of the " Three Worlds" formed by the global political landscape of the Cold War, as it grouped together those countries that were aligned with the Western Bloc of the United States. This groupin ...

status. A second plot is a breakthrough in

genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genet ...

in the fictional

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

n nation of Yatakang (an island nation and a former Dutch

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

, like

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

), to which Hogan is soon sent by the United States government to investigate. The two plots cross, bringing potential implications for the world. The title ''Stand on Zanzibar'' is an allusion to a

thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...

in which it was calculated that all the human beings in the world could fit shoulder to shoulder on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

; given population growth, Brunner expanded this to the island of

Zanzibar Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...

Characters

* Norman Niblock House, VP of HR at General Technics * Donald Hogan, "synthesist" and spy * Georgette Tallon Buckfast, "Old GT", founder of General Technics, 91 years old, but looking 60, her body containing many artificial parts. * Zadkiel F. Obomi, President of Beninia * Elihu Rodan Masters, US Ambassador to Beninia * Professor Doctor Sugaiguntung, university department head in Yatakang * Stallion "Stal" Lucas, a yonderboy * Olive Almeiro, baby farmer in Puerto Rico * Jeff Young, vendor of explosives and sabotage equipment * Henry Butcher * Chad C. Mulligan, former sociologist * Jogajong, revolutionary * Pierre Clodard, Jeannine Clodard, siblings, of pied-noir heritage * Eric Ellerman, plant geneticist * Poppy Shelton * Gerry Lindt, draftee * Guinevere Steele, née Dwiggins * Sheena Potter, Frank Potter * Victor Whatmough, Mary Whatmough, married * Sasha Peterson, Philip Peterson, mother and son * Pope Eglantine, Pope Thomas, rival popes * Grace Rowley, 77, early dementia * Arthur Golightly * Bennie Noakes, addict, watches TV * Mr and Mrs Everywhere, construct identities, like the Joneses

Critical reception

Algis Budrys Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, copy editing, editor and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome in collaboration with Jerome ...

declared that ''Stand on Zanzibar'' "takes your breath away", saying that the novel "put itself together seemingly without effort ndpaints a picture of the immediate future as it will, Brunner convinces you, certainly be". James Blish said "I disliked everybody in it and I was constantly impeded by the suspicion that Brunner was not writing for himself but for a Prize. ...A man of Brunner's gifts should have seen ''ab initio'' that ''U.S.A.'' was a stillbirth even in its originator's hands". Thirty years after its publication,

Greg Bear Gregory Dale Bear (August 20, 1951 – November 19, 2022) was an American science fiction writer. His work covered themes of Interstellar_war, galactic conflict (''The Forge of God, Forge of God'' books), parallel universes (''The Way (Greg Bear ...

praised ''Stand on Zanzibar'' as a science fiction novel that, unusually, has not become dated. "It's not quite the future we imagined it to be, but it still reads as fresh as it did back in 1968, and that's an amazing accomplishment!" In a retrospective review for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in 2010, Sam Jordison found the novel a "skilfully realised future dystopia", writing that it allowed Brunner "to express his most interesting ideas regarding corporate ethics, free will, the question of whether scientific progress is always good for humanity and the conflict between the individual and the state". Ursula K. Heise declared that "''Stand on Zanzibar'', to some extent, sets the tone for literary texts from the 1980s and 1990s that re-engage the issue of population growth against the background of a multitude of interacting political, social, economic, ecological, and technological problems". In his 2021 book '' Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe'', historian

Niall Ferguson Sir Niall Campbell Ferguson, ( ; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

lauds ''Stand on Zanzibar'' for foreseeing the future better than more popular novels such as ''

Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 Dystopian fiction, dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" Book burning, burn any that are found. The novel follows in the ...

'', '' The Handmaid's Tale'' and ''

Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...

''.

Yet, on further reflection, none of these authors truly foresaw all the peculiarities of our networked world, which has puzzlingly combined a rising speed and penetration of consumer information technology with a slackening of progress in other areas, such as nuclear energy, and a woeful degeneration of governance. The real prophets turn out, on closer inspection, to be less familiar figures—for example, John Brunner, whose ''Stand on Zanzibar'' (1968) is set in 2010, at a time when population pressure has led to widening social divisions and political extremism. Despite the threat of terrorism, U.S. corporations like General Technics are booming, thanks to a supercomputer named Shalmaneser. China is America's new rival. Europe has united. Brunner also foresees affirmative action, genetic engineering, Viagra, Detroit's collapse, satellite TV, in-flight video, gay marriage, laser printing, electric cars, the de-criminalization of marijuana, and the decline of tobacco. There is even a progressive president (albeit of Beninia, not America) named "Obomi".

In a 2021 article regarding the prognostic ability of novelists, ''The Guardian'' pointed out that ''Stand on Zanzibar'' had also accurately predicted the fall of the

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

auto industry. Jonathan Nolan was partially inspired by ''Stand on Zanzibar'' in developing the content for the third season of the television show '' Westworld''.

References

Bibliography * *

External links

* Ted Goia
"The Weird 1969 New Wave Sci-Fi Novel that Correctly Predicted the Current Day"
25 March 2013 * Stephen H. Goldman

'' Science Fiction Studies'' 16, 1978
"From Technique to Critique: Knowledge and Human Interests in John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, The Jagged Orbit, and The Sheep Look Up"
(essay in '' Science Fiction Studies'') * Hephzibah Anderson
The 1968 sci-fi that spookily predicted today
10 May 2019, bbc.com {{BSFA Award Best Novel 1968 British novels 1968 science fiction novels British science fiction novels Doubleday (publisher) books Dystopian novels Fiction set in 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novel–winning works Novels by John Brunner Novels set in fictional countries Overpopulation fiction Zanzibar in fiction

Description

Characters

Critical reception

See also

References

External links