John Brunner (novelist)

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John Brunner (novelist) bigraphy, stories - Science - Other

John Brunner (novelist) : biography

24 September 1934 – 26 August 1995

John Kilian Houston Brunner (24 September 1934 – 26 August 1995) was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1969 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel, and the BSFA award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA award in 1970.

Life

Brunner was born at Preston Crowmarsh, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, and went to school at St Andrew’s Prep School, Pangbourne then to Cheltenham. He wrote his first novel, Galactic Storm, at 17, published under the name of Gill Hunt, but did not write full-time until 1958. He served as an officer in the Royal Air Force from 1953 to 1955, and married Marjorie Rosamond Sauer on 1958-07-12. His health began to decline in the 1980s, and worsened with the death of his wife Marjorie in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, on 27 September 1991. Brunner died of a heart attack in Glasgow, Scotland on 25 August 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there. Brunner was popular in science fiction fandom in his native Britain.

Literary works

At first writing conventional space opera, Brunner later began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar exploits the fragmented organizational style John Dos Passos invented for his U.S.A. trilogy, but updates it in terms of the theory of media popularized by Marshall McLuhan.

The Jagged Orbit (1969) is set in a United States dominated by weapons proliferation and interracial violence, and has 100 numbered chapters varying in length from a single syllable to several pages in length. The Sheep Look Up (1972) was a prophetic warning of ecological catastrophe. Brunner is credited with coining the term "worm" and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider, in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network. Together with Stand on Zanzibar, these novels have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet", named after the Club of Rome whose 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned of the dire effects of overpopulation.

Brunner’s pen names include K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Ellis Quick, Henry Crosstrees Jr., and Keith Woodcott.

In addition to his fiction, Brunner wrote poetry and many unpaid articles in a variety of publications, particularly fanzines, but also 13 letters to the New Scientist and an article about the educational relevance of science fiction in Physics Education.Physics Education (1971) volume 6 pages 389-391 "The educational relevance of science fiction" by John Brunner Brunner was an active member of the organization Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote the words to "The H-Bomb’s Thunder", which was sung on the Aldermaston Marches. He was a linguist, translator, and Guest of Honour at the first European Science Fiction Convention Eurocon-1 in Trieste in 1972.

Film and TV

John Brunner wrote the screenplay for the 1967 science fiction film The Terrornauts by Amicus Productions.

Two of his short stories, "Some Lapse of Time" and "The Last Lonely Man", were adapted as TV plays in the BBC science fiction series Out of the Unknown, in series 1 (1965) and series 3 (1969) respectively.