So here's what I'm going to do: every so often I'm going to come along and hold forth about a certain book, series, author, short story, whatever - so long as it's literary SF. Maybe someone will be interested enough to go out and look it up and read it - if even one person does that, I'll have done something.

And so, I'm going to start with John Brunner (1934 - 1995). This British author was largely unknown and remained so at his death - even to me, I had only started reading him at the time. Far more tragically, all his books are put of print: I picked up a whole collection in a second-hand bookshop, one of my better purchases.

Mr. Brunner is chiefly remembered for four novels all of which dealt with specific issues in a near-future world - but a different vision of the future each time. These were:

Stand On Zanzibar (1969): The first of a loose trilogy of books dealing with specific problems that might affect a future world, SoZ tackled the subject of overpopulation (the title refers to the fact that if all the people of the world stood shoulder-to-shoulder they could fit on the island of Zanzibar) in a bizarre 'multimedia' style with little inserts of adverts and so forth to set the tone, while following a disparate group of people through their normal or not-so-normal lives.

The Jagged Orbit (1970): The fear of race warfare that struck some quarters in the late 60's is extrapolated to extremes in this novel, which features arms dealers exploiting the situation in order to sell "this year's model" of personal weapons to the public.

The Sheep Look Up (1972): The trilogy concludes with a world in which pollution has reached meltdown (the title comes from Milton's Lycidas). As with the two other books a pop-sociologist is on hand to explain it all, and is largely ignored.

The Shockwave Rider (1975): If you think William Gibson invented Cyberspace, think again. Data transfer becomes the subject where anyone can - literally - control the world if they know the right codes. A genius hacker sets out to breaks the US Government's policy of secrecy.

I'm not a big fantasy fan, but this is an exception:

The Traveller In Black (1971), expanded as The Compleat Traveller In Black (1987): In a chaotic universe, a lone black-clad traveller, with many names but a single nature, walks the roads of existence. He observes silently, only intervening to grant people's ill-advised wishes for good, or more often, ill.

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"But, it was so artistically done."
-Grand Admiral Thrawn