Customer Reviews

The Traveler in Black

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That's the job of the magical Traveler, to use his magic to end magic. That underlying paradox provides the premise of this connected set of short stories. He travels the world at intervals, surveying the realm of unreason on each trip, and taking satisfaction in watching it shrink. Where he can, he applies his subtle magic in support of Reason's expanding domain.

Brunner explores Chaos's control and degradation of humankind in several of its ways. The first story tweaks mindless religion. It might even show how one can choose atheism, after encountering a god face to face and finding him unworthy of belief. Another of these gentle stories undermines magical thinking - again, not because it fails, but because its success is not worth having. And so with the faith in luck that makes Las Vegas the holy city of Chance, and so the unwarranted sense of entitlement that demands ever-richer result for ever-poorer effort at earning it, and so for blind pursuit of power irrespective of the cost or of who pays it. Since these stories are built around layers of paradox, Brunner's mechanism is itself a paradox, the smallest of magics to achieve the largest of consequences.

Brunner was one of the best SF writers of the 70s and 80s, author of "Shockwave Rider" and other stories of chilling prescience. Among all of his writings, though, "Traveler in Black" may be his finest and most under-stated, under-rated achievements. These stories have held up well over the thirty years since they were written; since they pass in a distant place and age, there is little in them that can look dated. I recommend these stories to any thinking reader.

//wiredweird

My copy is almost falling apart; I think I bought it in 1970, in high school - This is one I've loved to share, and have re-read over and over. The traveler is an avatar of reason in a universe of Chaos, and one with a mandate to grant wishes and an ultimate goal of bringing order out of chaos, but not by direct action. The stories illustrate how love and innocence often trump greed, stupidity, and unenlightened self-interest. I love this book!

This is one of the most wonderfully incitefull fantasy books I have ever read. It is very unfortunate that this book is out of print but if you can get your hands on it, well, do. You will probably keep them there if you like intellagent fantasy is seeped with understanding of the human condition.

This is one of the most evocative, intriguing and thought provoking books in modern fantasy I have ever came across. Brunner creates a unique character in a unique world in a truely masterfull way. Recommended for all those who loved Gaiman's Sandman and similar novels, and people who like to think about life in general.

The magnetic opening line says it all: "He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In a compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force."

I read this book when it first came out and read it again a few years back and again just recently. John Brunner is one of my favorite authors. This is at the top of my list of all the books I've read by him. A concise description of The Compleat Traveller In Black would be -- poetic prose that sings an unknown myth.