Customer Reviews

Muddle Earth

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Muddle Earth caught my eye because of the title's resemblance to Middle Earth (Tolkien). It kept my eye because it reminded me of Douglas Adams. The book made me laugh while making me think a lot to try to sort things out. I really enjoyed it and am planning to read more of Brunner's books.

John Brunner (1934-1995) was a prolific science fiction writer, one of many from England that had great commercial success in the United States. Muddle Earth was published in 1993.

Admirers of Mr. Brunner's writings, and I count myself as a member of that large community, will, I believe, be somewhat disappointed in this, his last novel. The story is a tongue in cheek satire concerning an individual returned to life - resurrected - after being "frozen" for many years. Not an original story concept by any means but ripe with possibilities. Brunner employees this theme as an opportunity to lampoon just about everything - handled with a sharp barb this approach could be enchanting but Brunner uses a cleaver. There are lots of puns, plays on other science fiction authors names (a medical machine is THEODOR Surgeon, another quack in Wrong Ghoulart and on and on) and a mammoth assortment of robots and disguised aliens playing historical persons - and some from Earth fiction - Sherlock Holmes and Watson for example.

A interesting book for the dedicated Brunner fans, but casual readers would be better entertained reading his "The Sheep Look Up" - "Shockwave Rider" - or "Stand on Zanzibar".

Brunner's best is pretty spectacular, whether in thoughtful fables like Traveler in Black or crumbling futures like The Sheep Look Up. This, I regret, is not his best. Humorous SF has been around for years. "The Hitch Hiker's Guide" was relatively recent when this came out, and Pratchett's Discworld saga was well under way. Perhaps Brunner felt that he needed to write something in that genre to prove himself as a well-rounded writer.

It gets off to a promising start. There are potentially humorous misunderstandings just before the start of his centuries-long cryogenic sleep, more just before the end of it, and a steady stream that carry him on a wild ride through the weirdness of that far-future Earth. For some odd reason, he wakes from his hibernation with after-effects that initially flatten his emotions. That's a clue, dear reader: the dullness within him goes well with the dullness that drags him from one laugh-track episode to the next. Every skit in the sequence falls somehow flat, from the in-jokes of the 1990s SF world to the outlandish names assigned to hero Rinpoche Gibbs, the faux Tibetan, and Nixy Anangaranga-Jones. Perhaps naming the poor girl for a traditional Indian sex manual was to have been mitigated by the fact that she's genetically engineered for irresistable beauty, but that plan fell flat as well.

It doesn't really end, so much as collide with the back cover of the book, something it could have done long since without losing anything that mattered. I really did read it all the way through out of remembered loyalty to Brunner's finest work, but I'm not sure I should have bothered.

-- wiredweird

ahh in the vein of mr adams,monsiour rankin and jimmmy crankie,muddle earth brings together a veritable phalanx of amusing wriggling and splish-splashing in the shallow end shoal of ideas.having never read any of the authors previous work ,I was surprised to find that shockwave rider was among his many classic works.A well funny read that has the added attribute of getting the brain cells cranking over.If this book were a fruit it would be an amusing shaped dingbung.which exists only in my head.ah well thats what imaginations all about i suppose.buy this book.it will do you much good.