John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up – 50 Book Challenge

The Sheep Look Up
Brunner, John
As a long-time fan of Brunner, I’m not quite sure how it is I had never read The Sheep Look Up until now. It’s a very dark and disturbing tale in the “if this goes on…” school of science fiction. Dave Pollard in his excellent weblog, How to Save the World, makes compelling and persuasive arguments for why each of us should strive to reduce his or her footprint on the planet. Brunner skips past the rational arguments and goes straight for the emotional hooks. What I found especially disturbing about The Sheep Look Up is how closely aligned it feels with today’s news and headlines. Written in the 1970s, some credit it with encouraging the more radical wing of the environmental movement. Reading it now, I wonder how much the inevitable may have only been postponed for a short while. Disturbing.