⋙ PDF Free The Sheep Look Up John Brunner David Brin James John Bell 9781932100013 Books

The Sheep Look Up John Brunner David Brin James John Bell 9781932100013 Books

Download As PDF : The Sheep Look Up John Brunner David Brin James John Bell 9781932100013 Books

The Sheep Look Up John Brunner David Brin James John Bell 9781932100013 Books

Plot-wise this is a bit dated, because the book has a massive focus on pollution, which some countries are in the process of correcting. You can look at this another way, though: what if the world didn't uncover the concept of "green energy"? This is a good book in that sense. Lots of interesting thoughts and visuals. The main problem is that it's a tough read. It's disjointed with its scenes and characters, reading more like a short story collection than a true novel. There are also poems and fake commercials scattered throughout, along with ultra-short pieces (character interviews, conversations, quick events, and so on). So this is a good book to read, but I'm not sure I'd call it easy to get into. It can be enjoyable, it's just an unusual style which some people won't follow well. Lots of "slice of life" passages are peppered throughout The Sheep Look Up. Honestly this book is a bit of a slog to get through, particularly in the lengthy middle. Many parts are absolutely fascinating, though.

Another downside: The Kindle edition contains a significant amount of transcription errors, such as incorrect/missing punctuation in some chapters. I hope the physical editions of this book are better-made.

Would recommend this to fans of dystopian fiction, especially because it's a unique take. The Sheep Look Up doesn't have the overbearing government of 1984, the blatant censorship of Fahrenheit 451, the issues of The Handmaid's Tale, or the flawed yet pristine setting of Brave New World.


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The Sheep Look Up John Brunner David Brin James John Bell 9781932100013 Books Reviews

The Sheep Look Up is basically the chronicle of the end of civilization in the US, caused primarily by pollution and overpopulation. The writing is generally mediocre, with some good passages, but marred by a jarring style which jumps from character to character all over the world, often with no introduction to new characters. Some appear only briefly, some recur. One of the main characters, Austin Train, appears basically to be a mouthpiece for the environmental views of the author.

Some of the environmental crises, like antibiotic resistance, seem very prescient. Some, like overpopulation, seem almost comical to a modern reader.

** Spoilers Below**

The book is very, very pessimistic in tone. Technology is portrayed is feckless and constantly making things worse, not better. No one's ideas work, and most of the main characters are killed in the civil disorder. I enjoyed it as a change of pace -- I don't think I've ever read another book with as little hope as this one.

I enjoyed reading it, mostly as a change of pace.
This is a 40-year-old book that could have been written today. Climate change, breakdowns of the infrastructure, natural disasters that could have been prevented, and the voice of a prophet calling in the wilderness and being totally ignored. Brunner was prescient, and at times it seems he had a copy of today's newspapers being delivered to him in 1972.

There are times when he goes into long speeches that seem unlikely to be delivered in the context of the book, but it is fascinating to read him describing a frightening dystopian look at life today. He had a few misses, but most of his predictions are right on, at least in incidents if not in number. Thankfully we are not as bad as he describes it—yet.
While I love the bleakness of the world and how relevant it still is today, the reason why I'm rating it 3 / 5 stars is because of how frustrating the writing was. There are a lot of characters introduced very briefly and very quickly, mixed in with other random little snippets, that make actually following the story a pain. I was very close to quitting the book at about a third way through, although I'm glad I didn't.

If you're looking for a bleak and depressing story about the dangers of human nature and what we're doing to the environment, The Sheep Look Up is fantastic. Just be prepared to tackle the book with a lot of patience.
I first read this book in the 1970s, when the mid-1980s were still in the future. Brunner wrote this powerful dystopia when the Viet Nam War seemed endless, as it spilled over into other countries such as Cambodia.

Further, his portrayal of a world ravaged by the wastes and by-products, though still quite pertinent, are adorably anachronistic. One of the main characters drives an electric car which, she remembers comfortably, produced only water and carbon dioxide!

Brunner also took past concerns about over population and ran with it. While there are still some holdouts who believe that third world countries suffer starvation due to their birth rate and not politics, ignoring the facts that warlords requisition relief provisions for their own use - not to mention that we live in a country where there are "cookie bars" and diet food for dogs - the worry that if Americans have more than 2.5 children we are all going to die has itself died down greatly since this book was written.

Yet he was dot on in many other areas. He foresaw the concept of large supermarkets selling organic food well ahead of its time. (And I hope he's wrong about his prediction of unscrupulous companies altering produce so as to give it the appearance of having been nibbled on by little critters!)

He was also prescient when he portrayed the President of the United States as a celebrity refusing to take social problems seriously. For a writer who didn't live in the age of Twitter or "sound bites" it is uncanny how he captures their essence so completely.

I don't want to totally spoil the book, but he amazes me further in the way he illustrates future dystopian sexist and violent culture and music. How could someone who wrote nearly half a century before hard metal and "gangsta rap" envision entertainment so similar in some ways?

So, young readers, you who cannot understand old cartoons from the New Yorker about the Cold War or do not know anything about Southeast Asia, be patient with this out-if-date Classic. Even without Brunner's prophetic bulls eyes, this is still one of the best dystopian novels ever written.
Plot-wise this is a bit dated, because the book has a massive focus on pollution, which some countries are in the process of correcting. You can look at this another way, though what if the world didn't uncover the concept of "green energy"? This is a good book in that sense. Lots of interesting thoughts and visuals. The main problem is that it's a tough read. It's disjointed with its scenes and characters, reading more like a short story collection than a true novel. There are also poems and fake commercials scattered throughout, along with ultra-short pieces (character interviews, conversations, quick events, and so on). So this is a good book to read, but I'm not sure I'd call it easy to get into. It can be enjoyable, it's just an unusual style which some people won't follow well. Lots of "slice of life" passages are peppered throughout The Sheep Look Up. Honestly this book is a bit of a slog to get through, particularly in the lengthy middle. Many parts are absolutely fascinating, though.

Another downside The edition contains a significant amount of transcription errors, such as incorrect/missing punctuation in some chapters. I hope the physical editions of this book are better-made.

Would recommend this to fans of dystopian fiction, especially because it's a unique take. The Sheep Look Up doesn't have the overbearing government of 1984, the blatant censorship of Fahrenheit 451, the issues of The Handmaid's Tale, or the flawed yet pristine setting of Brave New World.