John Brunner had the chance to become the next big name in science fiction, but he disappeared for a lot of years, slowing his career and eventually bringing it to a halt before his death. What happened was a tragedy of timing, as with so many authors, where the writing business didn’t align with his life events.
Most science fiction fans know the name John Brunner from his Hugo Award winning novel, Stand On Zanzibar, a story about a corporate attempt to take over an African Nation and remake it from third world to first world with the help of AI. It’s a novel that stands the test of time with incredibly deep worldbuilding that drew a lot of praise.
Even though Brunner penned more than fifty novels in his career, he never truly made it like Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov, with most of his work going unnoticed by the greater public, despite his incredible talent.
Robert Silverberg, one of the most notable editors in science fiction history, commented on Brunner’s situation and why his career seemed to stall out.
He said, “He was still only in his mid-thirties; and it appeared that he was staking a claim for himself in the science fiction world as a natural successor to the aging titans, Heinlen, Asimov, Clarke. It was not the be. Something went wrong in John’s life.”
Silverberg continued, “Perhaps the critical moment of transition for John from successful writer to tragic figure — the true tragic overreaching that ultimately shattered him — was his decision, about 1975, to write a massive historical novel set in nineteenth century America, a book called The Great Steamboat Race. It was a book of a type remote from anything he had done before and very much unlike anything that John’s readers… were expecting. He worked on it for five terrible years, from 1976 to 1981, during which time the editor who had purchased the book and the agent who had arranged its sale both died. The effort cost John a prodigious amount of energy and undoubtedly weakened his health; and, because he did no other work during the time he was writing it, it became an enormous drain on his finances. Then the massive thing finally appeared, in February of 1983, and it failed utterly. It sank from sight and left no trace. He was never the same again.”
Authors often go on artistic tangents wanting to do something else in their careers to keep the work fresh, and when shifting genres and styles, it can be easy to lose sight of what made one a master in his craft to begin with. Brunner, apparently, became too embroiled in this book.
The apparent onus for Brunner to try his hand at this historical fiction was the success of John Jakes, who was a midlist author in sword & sorcery, and transitioned to write a historical fiction novel titled The Bastard. This book sold more than 55 million copies, and several sci-fi and fantasy authors tried to break out of genre fiction as a result, most of them failing in their efforts similarly to Brunner.
Looking at Brunner’s output of novels, it appears as if Silverberg’s comments line up with Brunner’s output. He had been releasing at least a novel a year, and between 1976-1980, he’d released nothing.
Silverberg added in his analysis after this, “He began to seem like a lost soul, haunted, despondent. In an astonishingly sad convention speech a couple of years ago, he spoke openly of the collapse of his career and expressed the hope that some publisher might offer him proofreading work to do to as a way of paying his bills… And yet — it was the final tragic twist — I understand that not long before he died John had resolved to embark on a major new novel, one that he hoped would restore his position in our field and replenish his depleted savings. In order to write with a clear head, though, he had to stop taking the medicine that controlled his blood pressure — a decision that surely must have been a contributing factor to his fatal stroke.”
After The Great Steamboat Race bombed in 1983, Brunner then faced the death of his wife in 1986, at about which time his health situation began to deteriorate further. At this point, he was only completing a novel every two or three years, with the 80s and 90s offering little for output from the former juggernaut of science fiction.
Though he remarried in 1991, he seemed never to recover before he died at the age of 60.
Bizarrely enough, John Brunner died of a heart attack while attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow in 1995, a situation adding to Worldcon’s dramatic and strange history.
With his late 1960s and early 1970s output, John Brunner had the chance to become one of the biggest names in science fiction, but his heel turn from the genre costing him valuable years in his prime proved his undoing in some ways. What output could we have seen from him if he didn’t take this turn? We can only know in an alternate history.
What do you think of John Brunner’s potential and downfall in sci-fi? Leave a comment and let us know.
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It's tough to make a shift in mid-career successfully. But it tends to demonstrate why it's a bad idea to chase the success of others rather than making your own way as best you can.
I don't think Brunner was ever going to be the next Heinlein, though. His books aren't bad, but they are somewhat overrated. I read a number of them back in high school and always found them to be a bit on the bland side despite the praise for them. I'd say he was low second-tier or high third-tier in the SF ghetto. Zelazny and Lee were both better writers who failed to break through to the mainstream.
I read Polymath and enjoyed it, then found Total Eclipse and the depressing ending turned me off to Brunner. I don't think I have read anything from him since.