Stand on Zanzibar

1969 Hugo Winner. This is a huge tome for a 60's sci-fi book (650 pages) and there is a lot going on, Although the "near" future is not one of my usual or favourite sub-genres, I am going through an early sci-fi greats binge right now. Brunner uses a variety of writing styles, touching on several characters' lives through cameos as well as several "context" chapters where he highlights the future with snippets of life, advertising bits and news headlines. A lot of his future predictions have come true and that serves to maintain this novel's relevance today. He discusses overpopulation, genetic mapping, eugenics, climate change, geo-terrorism, mass shootings, personal computers, and even artificial intelligence (the GT Corporation uses an early super computer). All of this is woven in around his main plot line, which involves a huge US Corporation's mutually beneficial development of a very poor African nation that has somehow avoided the pitfalls of so many other post colonial African nations (i.e. corruption, civil war etc). Interesting and worthwhile read.