I wrote late last month and early this month about British New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and '70s. John Brunner (1934-1995) is supposed to have been a New Wave writer. But then again, maybe he wasn't. Anyway, in his novel The Shockwave Rider (1975), he predicted the emergence of computer viruses.
Below is a reproduction of the cover of A Planet of Your Own (1966), another of Brunner's novels. And it depicts an alien life form that looks suspiciously like another kind of virus. We have lived with--and some have died from--this virus, the coronavirus, which maybe kind of sort of came about by a science-fictional process of human manufacture. We began this year still under the control of a worldwide coronavirus regime. Now here it is twelve months later and we are a little freer, but the regime wants its power back. It and its aims are also science-fictional. We should do our best in the coming year--and years, because it will take that long--to deny them.
Cover art by Jack Gaughan (1930-1985).
Text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley
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