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Cover of The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

The Sheep Look Up

  • 461 pages · about 8 hours
  • First published 1972
  • 24 editions

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1 About this book

In a near future, the air pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas masks. The infant mortality rate is soaring, and birth defects, new diseases, and physical ailments of all kinds abound. The water is undrinkable—unless you’re poor and have no choice. Large corporations fighting over profits from gas masks, drinking water, and clean food tower over an ineffectual, corrupt government.

Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The “trainites,” a group of violent environmental activists, want him to lead their movement; the government wants him dead; and the media demands amusement. But Train just wants to survive.

Good for readers who want: science fiction, dystopian fiction, and a long read.

  • Science fiction
  • Climatic changes
  • Dystopian fiction
  • Pollution

2 About John Brunner

1934–1995

John Kilian Houston Brunner (24 September 1934 – 25 August 1995) was a British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1969 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel and the BSFA Award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA Award in 1970. His first novel, Galactic Storm, was written under the pen-name Gill Hunt when he was seventeen.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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