peteg's blog - noise - books - 2020 10 09 JohnBrunner TheLongResult

John Brunner: The Long Result.

Fri, Oct 09, 2020./noise/books | Link

Kindle. Continuing with the thin Brunners. This is a chatty noir that is padded with excess and unimaginative detail. The premise is what happens when the (imperial) centre is surpassed by its more grasping progeny. Read the USA versus Britain, with Japan and perhaps China looking benignly on. All of the plot moves are telegraphed too far in advance. He wants psychohistorical determinacy but doesn't have the patience to make it coherent, or vague enough for that not to matter.