John Brunner

If you so much as touch him, I’ll have to smash every bone in your body—twice, to make sure I didn’t miss any the first time. I don’t recommend the experience.Section 5 p. 127

— John Brunner time

SCANALYZER is the one single, the ONLY study of the news in depth that’s processed by General Technics’ famed computer Shalmaneser, who sees all, hears all, knows all save only that which YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, wish to keep to yourselves.context 1 “Scanalyze My Name“

— John Brunner man

Like living creatures, automobiles expired when their environment became saturated with their own excreta. We ourselves are living creatures. We dont want the same to happen to us.context 2 Editorial Slot

— John Brunner men

Nothing short of religion could persuade a normal girl to make herself look so awful.tracking with closeups 2 “Yonderboy”

— John Brunner religion

COINCIDENCE You weren’t paying attention to the other half of what was going on.context 3 “You Have to Push Him Over”

— John Brunner you

“I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said at length. The stench and crackle of burning boats was vivid to him.continuity 3 “After One Decade”

— John Brunner change

“What are you going to do for a career?” Diverted from his orbit, Donald binked. “Well, something which uses up a minimum of my time, I imagine. So I can use the rest to mortar up the gaps in my education.”continuity 3 “After One Decade”

— John Brunner education

You don’t have to know everything. You simply need to know where to find it when necessary.continuity 3 “After One Decade”

— John Brunner you

“Ah, go to hell!” “That’s a remarkably Christian attitude, Donald. Both meaningless and barbaric.”the happening world 3 “Domestica”

— John Brunner christian

Who should know better than a cosmetician that human beings are less than rational creatures?tracking with closeups 4 “Masker Aid”

— John Brunner man

Rather painfully, we managed to digest Darwinian evolution so far as physical attributes were concerned within half a century of the initial controversy. I say “we,” but if you’re a Bible-thumping fundamentalist I expect you at this point to take the book by one corner at arm’s length and ceremonially consign it to the place where you put most sensible ideas, along with everything else you decline to acknowledge the existence of, such as mainly shit.context 5 “The Grand Manor”

— John Brunner knowledge

NEGRO Member of a subgroup of the human race who hails, or whose ancestors hailed, from a chunk of land nicknamed—not by its residents—Africa. Superior to the Caucasian in that negroes did not invent nuclear weapons, the automobile, Christianity, nerve gas, the concentration camp, military epidemics, or the megalopolis.context 6 “One Comes Out Where”

— John Brunner christianity

I love the place, and when they get love down to a bunch of factors you can analyse with a computer there’ll be nothing left of whatever makes it worth being human!tracking with closeups 6 “Which Side Am I On?”

— John Brunner love

We’ve always cared more about property rights than human rights in this country. You should know that.continuity 6 “Auction Block for Me”

— John Brunner man

In short order they fell into the same pit as their rivals, who had for decades ignored the plain and simple fact that to a starving man “freedom” implies a full rice-bowl—or, if he has an exceptional imagination, a healthy ox to pull his plough. It has nothing to do with voting for a political delegate.context 8 “Isolation”

— John Brunner freedom

How do you whip up resentment against absentee landlords and pocketers of bribes when the highest ambition of the people is either to become the former or be in a position to receive the latter?context 8 “Isolation”

— John Brunner people

I cant see heaven but I credit hell — I live in New York so I know it well. When they shut out heaven with the Fuller Dome God gave it up and He went home.the happening world 6 Street Seen

— John Brunner god

They’d have me out and shoot me the first day they took charge. Anyone like me is intolerably subversive to an authoritarian régime, because I’m not interested in imposing my ideas by force on other people.tracking with closeups 8 “Ill Wind”

— John Brunner people

Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who cant even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.context 9 Guncrit

— John Brunner history

“I don’t believe in God,” said the captain. “I wouldn’t care to believe in anyone who could make such a stinking lousy species as the one you belong to.”continuity 10 “Due Process”

— John Brunner god

In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprises that resulted in his losing precisely what he claimed he was trying to achieve; it is not less lunatic to do it on the international scale, but if you’ve been catching the news lately you’ll have noticed it’s being done more than ever.context 11 “Come Outside and Say That”

— John Brunner sin

“How does it feel to have just changed the course of history?” “I don’t know what you mean,” said the navigator. “To my way of thinking, by the time history happens I’m going to be dead.”tracking with closeups 11 “The Sealed Train”

— John Brunner time

If you want to know whats shortly due for the guillotine look for the most obvious of all symptoms: extremism. It is an almost infallible sign — a kind of death-rattle — when a human institution is forced by its members into stressing those and only those factors which are identificatory, at the expense of others which it necessarily shares with competing institutions because human beings belong to all of them.context 12 The Sociological Counterpart of Cheyne-Stokes Respiration

— John Brunner death

Faust felt like this. The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come and Faustus must be damnedHow long did he buy with the currency of his soul — ten years?continuity 12 Its Supposed To Be Automatic But Actually You Have To Press This Button

— John Brunner time

I don’t hate her personally, though if she were enough of a person to be worth such a strong emotion I think I easily could. What I hate is what she represents: the willingness of human beings to be reduced to a slick visual package, like a new television set—up-to-the-minute casing, same old works.the happening world 8 “Be Kind To Your Forfeited Friends”

— John Brunner work

So not only the world, but he himself, was different from what he had imagined.continuity 13 “Multiply by a Million”

— John Brunner world

“The whole of modern so-called civilised existence is an attempt to deny reality insofar as it exists. When did Don last look at the stars, when did Norman last get soaked in a rainstorm? The stars as far as these people are concerned are the Manhattan-pattern!” He jerked his thumb at a window beyond which the city’s treasure-house of coloured light glimmered gaudily.continuity 13 “Multiply by a Million”

— John Brunner people

Any society which gives lip-service to the idea of equal opportunity is going to generate jealousy of others who are better off than you are, even if the thing that’s in short supply can’t be carved up and shared without destroying it.continuity 13 “Multiply by a Million”

— John Brunner society

I can make a guess. There’s going to be trouble. Come to think of it, that’s a safe catch-all prophecy. Whatever happens in present circumstances there’s going to be trouble.continuity 13 “Multiply by a Million”

— John Brunner hate

First you use machines, then you wear machines, and then ? Then you serve machines.continuity 14 The Right Man For The Job

— John Brunner man

LEADERSHIP A form of self-preservation exhibited by people with autodestructive imaginations in order to ensure that when it comes to the crunch it’ll be someone else’s bones which go crack and not their own.context 14 “Storm Centre”

— John Brunner leadership

Watching their sets in a kind of trance were people in Mexico, people in France. They dont chase Jones but the dreams are the same — Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, thats the right name! Herr und Frau Uberall or les Partout, A gadget on the set makes them look like you. When the Everywhere couple crack a joke Its laughed at by all right-thinking folk. When the Everywhere couple adopt a pose Its the with-it view as everyone knows. It may be a rumor or it may be true But a gadget on the set has it said by you! What do you think about Yatakang? I think the same as the Everywhere gang. What do you think of Beninia then? The Everywheres will tell me but I dont know when. Whatever my country and whatever my name A gadget on the set makes me think the same.context 16 Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere: Calypso stanzas 2, 5, and 7

— John Brunner dreams

We’re aware of the scale of the planet, so we don’t accept that our own circumscribed horizons constitute reality. Much more real is what’s relayed to us by the TV.continuity 17 Timescales

— John Brunner war

They surely are condemned to Hell Who rule their lives by greed and lust And Satan waits for those as well Who in machines repose their trust.tracking with closeups 17 Brighter Than A Thousand Men

— John Brunner men

SHALMANESER That real cool piece of hardware up at the GT tower. They say hes apt to evolve to true consciousness one day. Also they say hes as intelligent as a thousand of us put together, which isnt really saying much, because when you put a thousand of us together look how stupidly we behave.tracking with closeups 17 Brighter Than A Thousand Men

— John Brunner war

“Governments don’t change things,” she said. “Only time does that.”continuity 24 “This Scene Not Shifted”

— John Brunner time

But there isn’t an outside. Talking about “society’s outcasts” or “opting out” is so much whaledreck. The fact that we generate huge quantities of waste is all that allows people to go outside; they’re benefiting from the superficial affluence which conformists use to alleviate boredom. In essence, using the term “out” is as meaningless as trying to define a location outside the universe. There’s no place for “outside” to be.context 21 “Letter”

— John Brunner people

UNFAIR Term applied to advantages enjoyed by other people which we tried to cheat them out of and didn’t manage.the happening world 12 “The General Feeling”

— John Brunner people

You have many years to live—do things you will be proud to remember when youre old.continuity 27 Manscape

— John Brunner man

“It would have been a longer and slower job, I’m sure, and probably there would have been a high price to pay. But what is the price of freedom?” “What’s the price of life?” Donald countered bitterly.continuity 37 “Storage”

— John Brunner life

Your country, mine, every other country in the world, has the same cause and what it does is, it takes people who don’t give a pint of whaledreck for it and sends them off to kill women and children. Yes, it’s the cause of every country on earth! And you know what I call that cause? I call it naked stinking greed.continuity 37 “Storage”

— John Brunner women

“I can at least comfort myself with the idea that whatever I’ve done I’ve helped to nail a lie, and I’m coming to think that lying is among the worst of all human failings. Next to actual killing. And experience has made us almost equally good at both of them.” “I have killed many people and seen many more killed on my orders,” Jogajong said. “It is what must be paid to buy what we want.” “What we’ve been told we want, by liars more skilled than ourselves.”continuity 37 “Storage”

— John Brunner people

I just haven’t been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can’t be a simple one. When I told you you’d been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong?continuity 38 “Not For Sale But Can Be Had On Application”

— John Brunner thinking

If the evidence says you’re wrong, you don’t have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.continuity 38 “Not For Sale But Can Be Had On Application”

— John Brunner change

LOGIC The principle governing human intellection. Its nature may be deduced from examining the following propositions, both of which are held by human beings to be true and often by the same people: “I can’t so you musn’t,” and “I can but you musn’t.”the happening world 15 “Equal and Opposite”

— John Brunner nature

He had decided it was better to be a volcano than a man; at least one set no store by what one’s acts destroyed.continuity 39 “Better To Be a Volcano”

— John Brunner man

I never thought of asking anyone to do it for me. Something’s wrong with me. In a time of trouble should people not be able to ask help without feeling demeaned?tracking with closeups 31 “Unto Us a Child”

— John Brunner time

Isn’t it typical? We train one man—one ordinary, inoffensive, retiring little man—to be an efficient killing machine and he kills the one person who stood a chance of saving us from ourselves!continuity 42 “And Say Which Seed Will Grow“

— John Brunner man

What in God’s name is it worth to be human, if we have to be saved from ourselves by a machine?continuity 42 “And Say Which Seed Will Grow“

— John Brunner god

Bathed in his currents of liquid helium, self-contained, immobile, vastly well informed by every mechanical sense: Shalmaneser. Every now and again there passes through his circuits a pulse which carries the cybernetic equivalent of the phrase, “Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.“tracking with closeups 32 “The Cool and Detached View“

— John Brunner imagination

THIS BEACH NOT SAFE FOR SWIMMING NOT Drinking Water UNFIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION Now Wash Your Hands Penalty for noncompliance $50 FILTERMASK DISPENSER Use product once only—maximum 1 hour OXYGEN 25¢December “SIGNS OF THE TIMES“

— John Brunner time

“Rumors that the sun is out at Santa Ynez are without foundation,” the radio said.December “NOT IN OUR STARS“

— John Brunner stars

Next, the stalled cars had their windows opaqued with a cheap commercial compound used for etching glass, and slogans were painted on their doors. Some were long: THIS VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB. Many were short: IT STINKS! But the commonest of all was the universally known catchphrase: STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!December “A ROOST FOR CHICKENS”

— John Brunner life

Most of the drivers, however, had the sense to stay put, fuming behind their blank windshields as they calculated the cost of repairs and repainting. Practically all of them were armed, but not one was stupid enough to pull a gun. It had been tried during a Trainite demonstration in San Francisco last month. A girl had been shot dead. Others, anonymous in whole-head masks and drab mock-homespun clothing, had dragged the killer from his car and used the same violent acid they applied to glass to write MURDERER on his flesh. In any case, there was little future in rolling down a window to curse the demonstrators. Throats didn’t last long in the raw air.December “A ROOST FOR CHICKENS”

— John Brunner pain

By the door, a large red object with a mirror on the upper part of its front. Installed last fall. Japanese. On a plate at the side: Mitzuyama Corp., Osaka. Shaped like a weighing machine. Stand here and insert 25c. Do not smoke while using. Place mouth and nose to soft black flexible mask. Like an obscene animal’s kiss. Usually he laughed at it because up here in the mountains the air was never so bad you needed to tank up on oxygen to make the next block. On the other hand some people did say it was a hell of a good cure for a hangover . . .December “IT’S A GAS”

— John Brunner art

Until last year, although this town was barely fifty miles from Denver, the road had been bad and only a handful of visitors had chanced on it. The increasing tendency for people to take mountain vacations, however, since the sea had become too filthy to be tolerable, could not be ignored. The road now was excellent and the area had exploded.January “SNOW JOB”

— John Brunner people

“A crank, like I say. Won’t let him fly. Says she wants her grandchildren to see the sun. What difference it makes if a plane flies with one seat empty, I don’t know!January “SNOW JOB”

— John Brunner children

General Kaika: Was it black men who filled the Mediterranean with poison? No, it was destroyed by the filthy wastes from European factories! Reporter: Well, the Aswan dam-- General Kaika: Yes, yes, the Aswan dam may have tipped the balance finally, but before that the sea was dying. Because so many had to starve on the African coast there began this war. That is why I say the white countries are responsible. It is the typical white habit to ruin what you have and then go to steal from other people. Reporter: Oh, General, you’re stretching the facts a bit! General Kaika: Is the fact that it is dangerous to swim in the Mediterranean? Is the fact that the fish have died? Reporter: Well, yes, but-- General Kaika: I have no more to say.January “CHARGE ACCOUNT”

— John Brunner war

. . . and Dr. Isaiah Williams, whose body was recovered from a ravine near San Pablo. Inquiries are being hampered by what an Army spokesman termed the obstinate attitude of the local people. “They won’t admit they know their left hands from their right,” he asserted. Here at home Senator Richard Howell Rep., Col. today launched a fierce attack on the quote chlorophyll addicts unquote who, he claims, are hamstringing American business, already staggering under the load of high unemployment and recession, by insisting that our manufacturers comply with regulations ignored by foreign competition. In Southern Italy rioting continues in many small towns formerly dependent on fishing. Meantime, dust storms in the Camargue . . .January “AND IT GOES ON”

— John Brunner time

Unto the third and fourth generation, General Motors, you have visited your greed on the children. Unto the twentieth, AEC, you have twisted their limbs and closed their eyes. Unto the last dawn of man you have cursed us, O Father. Our Father. Our Father Which art in Washington, give us this day our daily calcium propionate, sodium diacetate monoglyceride, potassium bromate, calcium phosphate, monobasic chloramine T, aluminium potassium sulphate, sodium benzoate, butylated hydroxyanisole, mono-iso-propyl citrate, axerophthol and calciferol. Include with it a little flour and salt. Amen.January “EARTHMOVER”

— John Brunner art

At night, when he lay down to sleep, he felt that his brain was resonating with the heartbeat of the planet.January “EARTHMOVER”

— John Brunner art

Grade-A MEXICAN HONEYBEES $165.95/gallon! Grade-A EUROPEAN BEES only $220/gallon! Best quality IRISH EARTHWORMS $67.50/quart! GUARANTEED live on delivery! Plant Fertility Corp., San Clemente, Calif. Licensed by California State Board of Agriculture.February “THE INDISPENSABLE ASSISTANTS”

— John Brunner art

Special this week at your Puritan Health Supermarket! Okinawa squash, reg. $0.89 $0.75! Penguin eggs low on DDT, PCB, reg. $6.35 doz. $6.05! Pacific potatoes unwashed, reg. $0.89 lb. $0.69! Butter from sunny New Zealand, reg. $1.35 qrt. $1.15! YOU TOO CAN AFFORD GOOD HEALTH AT PURITAN!February “EAT IT IN GOOD HEALTH”

— John Brunner good

Behind her chair, from a wall covered in a very expensive velvet-flock paper, a portrait of her grandfather looked down. He had been an Episcopalian bishop, but the picture showed him in the costume of a New England gentleman keeping up the Old English custom of riding to hounds: red coat, brown boots, distinguished with a white dog-collar and black silk front. Hugh referred to him as being dressed to kill. The salad was replaced—though Hugh had sampled only a mouthful of his—by a dish of cold fish with mayonnaise. He didn’t even touch this course. He was suddenly afraid of it because it had come from the sea.February “DISGRACE”

— John Brunner grace

“You and your ancestors treated the world like a fucking great toilet bowl. You shat in it and boasted about the mess you’d made. And now it’s full and overflowing, and you’re fat and happy and black kids are going crazy to keep you rich. Goodbye!”February “DISGRACE”

— John Brunner world

Even this far from shore, the night stank. The sea moved lazily, its embryo waves aborted before cresting by the layer of oily residues surrounding the hull, impermeable as sheet plastic: a mixture of detergents, sewage, industrial chemicals and the microscopic cellulose fibers due to toilet paper and newsprint. There was no sound of fish breaking surface. There were no fish.March “RIPOSTE”

— John Brunner age

It was cool and quiet in here because instead of windows there were cosmoramic projections, latest of late devices to prevent the intrusion of untasteful exterior reality. Nearby the chimneys reeked a twenty-four-hour day yet the view was of clean white clouds, blue sky, yellow sun not so bright that it dazzled. Superior to the natural article, yes. Also birds flew or perched between two layers of glass on real branches in air-conditioned environment. It was not ordinary to see birds. Very yes.March “THE MARVELS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION”

— John Brunner art

People didn’t fly the Atlantic any more if they could help it, except from bravado. Even if your plane wasn’t sabotaged or hijacked, it was certain to be behind schedule. Not that there was much to be said for ocean travel either, since the sinking of the Paolo Rizzi last summer and the drowning of thirteen hundred passengers in a sea made foul by a hundred and eighty thousand tons of oil from the tanker she’d collided with. Moral, definitely: stay home.March “RAVELED SLEEVE”

— John Brunner people

The plane droned on through the black sky, above the clouds masking the Atlantic. It suddenly occurred to Michael that he ought to look at the moon. He hadn’t seen it all the time he was in Paris, nor the stars. He slid up the blind of his window and peered out. There was no moon visible. When he consulted his diary he discovered that it had set, a tiny sliver, at exactly the time the plane had taken off from London.March “RAVELED SLEEVE”

— John Brunner time

All this time, though, this feeling that the world was ‘’bound’’ to go to hell! Okay, so it’s true these mothers have turned prairies into dustbowls and used the sea for a giant sewer and laid concrete where there used to be forests. So stop them! Don’t just let them walk over you, crush you face-down into the dirt! Crush them first!April “REHEARSAL”

— John Brunner time

Latro, California: “Terrible diarrhea, Doctor, and I feel so weak!”/”Take these pills and come back in three days if you’re not better.” Parkington, Texas: “Terrible diarrhea. . . .”/”Take these pills . . .” Hainesport, Louisiana: “Terrible . . .” “Take . . .” Baker Bay, Florida . . . Washington, DC. . . . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . . . New York, New York . . . Boston, Massachusetts . . . Chicago, Illinois: “Doctor, I know it’s Sunday, but the kid’s in such a terrible state—you’ve got to help me!”/”Give him some junior aspirin and bring him to my office tomorrow. Goodbye.”EVERYWHERE, USA: a sudden upswing in orders for very small coffins, the right size to take a baby dead from acute infantile enteritis.April “THE TRIAL RUNS”

— John Brunner good

This year we take our vacation somewhere else. Where is there where Americans aren’t likely to be stoned by a howling mob? Spain, Greece? No, got to be out of range of the stench from the Med. Looks like we might as well stay home.May “BLANKET”

— John Brunner pain

The wind was bad today. Hugh’s filtermask was used up, all clogged, and he didn’t have the seventy-five cents for another from a roadside dispenser, and anyway the quality of those things was lousy, didn’t even last the hour claimed for them. Lousy . . . Absently he scratched his crotch. He’d more or less got used to lice by now, of course; there just didn’t seem to be any way of avoiding them. For every evil under the sun there is a remedy or there’s none. If there is one try and find it, if there isn’t never mind it. There must be a hell of a lot of evils in the world nowadays that there aren’t any remedies for. Anyway: what sun? He hadn’t seen the sun in fucking weeks.May “BY THE DEAD SEA”

— John Brunner mind

What hurt him most of all, made him feel like a sick child aware of terrible wrongness and yet incapable of explaining it to anyone who might help, was that in spite of the evidence around them, in spite of what their eyes and ears reported—and sometimes their flesh, from bruises, stab wounds, racking coughs, weeping sores—these people believed their way of life was the best in the world, and were prepared to export it at the point of a gun.June “CRITICAL”

— John Brunner life

Fifteen minutes out of Mexico City for Tokyo a passenger aboard a 747 screamed that he was being eaten by red-hot ants, and managed to open the emergency door at 23,000 feet. He had been to the washroom and drunk from the faucet there before takeoff. It was, after all, labeled DRINKING WATER.July “BLOWBACK”

— John Brunner man

At the big Georgia paper mill the saboteur was obviously a chemist. Some kind of catalyst was substituted for a drum of regular sizing solution and vast billowing waves of corrosive fumes ruined the plant. Anonymous calls to a local TV station claimed it had been done to preserve trees. The same day, in northern California, signs were posted on a stand of redwoods that the governor had authorized for lumbering: about two hundred of the last six hundred in the state. The signs said: FOR EVERY TREE YOU KILL ONE OF YOU WILL DIE TOO. The promise was carried out with Schmiesser machine-pistols. The actual score was eighteen people for seventeen trees. Close enough.July “BLOWBACK”

— John Brunner people

“Yes? . . . Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Please convey him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. But the president did ask me to pass this message informally as soon as possible; I may say he feels very strongly about the matter. Of course, not knowing if the rumor is well founded, we didn’t want to handle it on an official level . . . Yes, I would be obliged if you could make sure the ambassador is told at the earliest opportunity. Tell him, please, that any attempt to nominate Austin Train for the Nobel Peace Prize would be regarded as a grave and—I quote the president’s actual word—calculated affront to the United States.”July “SCRATCHED”

— John Brunner peace

When the politicians claim that the public isn’t interested any longer in environmental conservation, they’re half right. People are actually afraid to be interested, because they suspect—I think rightly—that we’ll find if we dig deep enough that we’ve gone so far beyond the limits of what the planet will tolerate that only a major catastrophe which cuts back both our population and our ability to interfere with the natural biocycle would offer a chance of survival.August “CHECK AND BALANCE”

— John Brunner people

Not that a car would have been much faster anyway, what with the police posts at state lines, the searches, the restricted zones not merely in cities—one expected that during August—but right out in the country, in agricultural areas. Because of hijackers after food trucks, of course.August “THE END OF A LONG DARK TUNNEL”

— John Brunner food

I marvel’d how Man, by his GOD-sent wit, Thus tam’d the salamander Element And loos’d the Metal in the mountain pent To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows, Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows, The surgeon’s Scalpel, vehicle of Health, And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth . . . ”De Arte Munificente,” Seventeenth centurySeptember “MOTHER-RAPERS”

— John Brunner god

“Yes, for most people nowadays television is their only contact with the world beyond their work.”September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”

— John Brunner people

“Its natural for a man to defend what’s dear to him: his own life, his home, his family. But in order to make him fight on behalf of his rulers, the rich and powerful who are too cunning to fight their own battles—in short to defend not himself but people whom he’s never met and moreover would not care to be in the same room with him—you have to condition him into loving violence not for the benefits it bestows on him but for its own sake. Result: the society has to defend itself from its defenders, because what’s admirable in wartime is termed psychopathic in peace. It’s easier to wreck a man than to repair him. Ask any psychotherapist. And take a look at the crime figures among veterans.”September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”

— John Brunner life

He had once, for example, put down a spokesman for the pesticide industry with a remark that people still quoted at parties: “And I presume on the eighth day God called you and said, ‘I changed my mind about insects!’ “September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”

— John Brunner god

. . . include prima facie but not ipso facto the following: a Homosexuality or gross indecency with another male person; b Possession of or trading in an illegal narcotic or other drug; c Living upon the earnings of prostitution; d Membership in the Communist Party or one of its front organizations see schedule attached; e “Trainism”; f Advocating the violent overthrow of the government; g Slandering the President of the United States; h . . .October “THE ROUGH DRAFT”

— John Brunner art

“When did you last bask in the sun, friends? When did you last dare drink from a creek? When did you last risk picking fruit and eating it straight from the tree? What were your doctor’s bills last year? Which of you live in cities where you don’t wear a filtermask? Which of you spent this year’s vacation in the mountains because the sea is fringed with garbage?”November “THERE IS HOPE YET”

— John Brunner hope

Opening the door to the visiting doctor, all set to apologize for the flour on her hands—she had been baking—Mrs. Byrne sniffed. Smoke! And if she could smell it with her heavy head cold, it must be a tremendous fire! ”We ought to call the brigade!” she exclaimed. “Is it a hayrick?” ”The brigade would have a long way to go,” the doctor told her curtly. “It’s from America. The wind’s blowing that way.”November “THE SMOKE OF THAT GREAT BURNING”

— John Brunner men

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

— John Brunner war

First we had the legs race. Then we had the arms race. Now were going to have the brain race. And, if were lucky, the final stage will be the human race.Bk. 1, Ch. The Number You Have Reached

— John Brunner man

Its not because my mind is made up that I dont want you to confuse me with any more facts. Its because my mind isnt made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with.Bk. 1, Ch. Paradox, Next Stop After the Boondocks

— John Brunner mind

But I was never put on trial, never convicted! You are not entitled to a trial. Anybodys entitled to a trial, damn you! That is absolutely true. But you see you are not anybody. You are nobody.Bk. 1, Ch. The Conviction of His Courage His record having been erased from government computers.

— John Brunner courage

Bk. 1, Ch. The Conviction of His Courage His record having been erased from government computers.

— John Brunner courage

The theory was and always had been: this is the thing the solid citizen has no need to worry about. Important, later all-important question: what about the hollow citizen?Bk. 2, Ch. In the Beginning Was the Herd

— John Brunner zen

One might as well claim that the tide which rubs pebbles smooth on a beach is doing the pebbles a service because being round is prettier than being jagged. Its of no concern to a pebble what shape it is. But its very important to a person.Bk. 2, Ch. Lets All Be Different Same As Me

— John Brunner service

If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.Bk. 3, Ch. Like They Say, Its Bounce Or Break

— John Brunner men

The real universe has a marvellous and unique quality, inasmuch as it and only it can take us completely by surprise.

— John Brunner universe

I have always found fact infinitely more interesting than myths and falsehoods.

— John Brunner myth

On balance, I would say that anybody who reminds our lords and masters that the computerized society is fragile... has definitely done a service to the public at large.

— John Brunner society

The same computers that make it impossible for you to cheat on your income tax can ensure that the blood of your group is in the ambulance that picks you up from a car smash.

— John Brunner you

Weve been slaves to our tools since the first caveman made the first knife to help him get his supper. After that there was no going back, and we built till our machines were ten million times more powerful than ourselves. We gave ourselves cars when we might have learned to run; we made airplanes when we might have grown wings; and then the inevitable. We made a machine our God.

— John Brunner god

If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.

— John Brunner men

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