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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

Currently reading The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner and '70s pessimistic eco-dystopias were really onto something.

My favorite era of sci-fi films, but I suppose I'm biased having grown up in that era.

Make no mistake, I was blown away when "Star Wars" came out like everyone else, but damn, it killed what had been a delicate and thoughtful genre of Hollywood.

The 70's are my favorite as well (born in the 80's).

There was a window after Kubrick’s “2001” and before “Star Wars” when science fiction in Hollywood was allowed to be for adults.

Robert Wise’s 1979 “Star Trek” is an interesting and unique transitional case because it retains the 2001-inspired ponderous abstract storytelling but got a Star Wars level budget. Personally I love it for that, but I know most people disagree.

(Speaking of Wise, his “Andromeda Strain” is an absolute 1970s sci-fi gem.)

> it killed what had been a delicate and thoughtful genre of Hollywood.

Well said. SF was just growing up and maturing into something important and worth having, and then that stupid fairy-tale-in-space came along and blew it all to hell. I still resent it for that.

Enjoy it mate, and all the other fat Brunners. (His Stand on Zanzibar is most of Gibson's Neuromancer ... more than a decade before.) Give the thin ones a miss.

Jagged Orbit fits in there as well.

Brunner in general is kind of proto-cyberpunk. Especially The Shockwave Rider.

TIL. Not sure how I missed this on my trawl of Hugo Winners/Seminal 20th Century Sci-Fi.

I’m baffled by any discussion of Brunner (on HN no less!) that doesn’t start and end with The Shockwave Rider.

Make sure you read The Shockwave Rider if you haven't already.

They were either into something, or suggesting something that we have picked up and run with.

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