Stand on Zanzibar
John Brunner · 1968
Published in 1968, set in an overpopulated 2010, and it reads as prophecy. Brunner's collage technique (fragmenting the narrative with ads, news snippets, social data) anticipates hypertext fiction. The most formally inventive SF novel of the 1960s.
The case against
Brunner borrowed the collage from Dos Passos and cranked the dial: the first hundred pages are pure static until the technique teaches itself. His invented slang dates the future badly ('shiggy,' the word for an interchangeable woman, says plenty), and the Beninia mystery gets solved by body chemistry, a hand-wave at the end of all that sociology.
Science Fiction & Fantasy · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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