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Give Warning to the World
paperbound
- GenresScience Fiction
158 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
1 person is currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
John Brunner
572 books479 followersJohn Brunner was born in Preston Crowmarsh, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, and went to school at St Andrew's Prep School, Pangbourne, then to Cheltenham College. He wrote his first novel, Galactic Storm, at 17, and published it under the pen-name Gill Hunt, but he did not start writing full-time until 1958. He served as an officer in the Royal Air Force from 1953 to 1955, and married Marjorie Rosamond Sauer on 12 July 1958
At the beginning of his writing career Brunner wrote conventional space opera pulp science fiction. Brunner later began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel "Stand on Zanzibar" exploits the fragmented organizational style John Dos Passos invented for his USA trilogy, but updates it in terms of the theory of media popularised by Marshall McLuhan.
"The Jagged Orbit" (1969) is set in a United States dominated by weapons proliferation and interracial violence, and has 100 numbered chapters varying in length from a single syllable to several pages in length. "The Sheep Look Up" (1972) depicts ecological catastrophe in America. Brunner is credited with coining the term "worm" and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider", in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network. Together with "Stand on Zanzibar", these novels have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet", named after the Club of Rome whose 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned of the dire effects of overpopulation.
Brunner's pen names include K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Ellis Quick, Henry Crosstrees Jr., and Keith Woodcott.
In addition to his fiction, Brunner wrote poetry and many unpaid articles in a variety of publications, particularly fanzines, but also 13 letters to the New Scientist and an article about the educational relevance of science fiction in Physics Education. Brunner was an active member of the organisation Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote the words to "The H-Bomb's Thunder", which was sung on the Aldermaston Marches.
Brunner had an uneasy relationship with British new wave writers, who often considered him too American in his settings and themes. He attempted to shift to a more mainstream readership in the early 1980s, without success. Before his death, most of his books had fallen out of print. Brunner accused publishers of a conspiracy against him, although he was difficult to deal with (his wife had handled his publishing relations before she died).[2]
Brunner's health began to decline in the 1980s and worsened with the death of his wife in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, on 27 September 1991. He died of a heart attack in Glasgow on 25 August 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there
aka
K H Brunner, Henry Crosstrees Jr, Gill Hunt (with Dennis Hughes and E C Tubb), John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott
Winner of the ESFS Awards in 1980 as "Best Author" and 1n 1984 as "Novelist"..
At the beginning of his writing career Brunner wrote conventional space opera pulp science fiction. Brunner later began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel "Stand on Zanzibar" exploits the fragmented organizational style John Dos Passos invented for his USA trilogy, but updates it in terms of the theory of media popularised by Marshall McLuhan.
"The Jagged Orbit" (1969) is set in a United States dominated by weapons proliferation and interracial violence, and has 100 numbered chapters varying in length from a single syllable to several pages in length. "The Sheep Look Up" (1972) depicts ecological catastrophe in America. Brunner is credited with coining the term "worm" and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider", in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network. Together with "Stand on Zanzibar", these novels have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet", named after the Club of Rome whose 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned of the dire effects of overpopulation.
Brunner's pen names include K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Ellis Quick, Henry Crosstrees Jr., and Keith Woodcott.
In addition to his fiction, Brunner wrote poetry and many unpaid articles in a variety of publications, particularly fanzines, but also 13 letters to the New Scientist and an article about the educational relevance of science fiction in Physics Education. Brunner was an active member of the organisation Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote the words to "The H-Bomb's Thunder", which was sung on the Aldermaston Marches.
Brunner had an uneasy relationship with British new wave writers, who often considered him too American in his settings and themes. He attempted to shift to a more mainstream readership in the early 1980s, without success. Before his death, most of his books had fallen out of print. Brunner accused publishers of a conspiracy against him, although he was difficult to deal with (his wife had handled his publishing relations before she died).[2]
Brunner's health began to decline in the 1980s and worsened with the death of his wife in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, on 27 September 1991. He died of a heart attack in Glasgow on 25 August 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there
aka
K H Brunner, Henry Crosstrees Jr, Gill Hunt (with Dennis Hughes and E C Tubb), John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott
Winner of the ESFS Awards in 1980 as "Best Author" and 1n 1984 as "Novelist"..
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 18, 2020
DAW Collectors #112)
Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan
Name: Brunner, John Kilian Houston, Birthplace: Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, England, UK,(24 September 1934 - 25 August 1995)
Alternate Names:K. Houston Brunner, Kilian Houston Brunner, Henry Crosstrees, Jr., Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Ellis Quick, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott,
The action begins in London when Sally Ercott, an amnesiac young woman experiencing unusual visions, is rescued from a tenement house whose owners, an aging prostitute and her boyfriend, have been holding her prisoner and performing experiments of some sort on her with the help of a disreputable physician named Argyle. Sally's rescuer Nick Jenkins makes it his business to help figure out what's happened to her. As Nick's good friend is a doctor who once worked under Argyle, and knows a lot about the man's legal troubles (deliberately over prescribing to junkies so they could sell the extra drugs on the street), Nick feels some degree of connection to the strange goings-on. Are Sally's visions memories, hallucinations...or visions of another world?
It also happens that Scotland Yard has been investigating the boarding house in connection with a rash of disappearances all over the country; Sally is not the only one, it seems.
Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan
Name: Brunner, John Kilian Houston, Birthplace: Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, England, UK,(24 September 1934 - 25 August 1995)
Alternate Names:K. Houston Brunner, Kilian Houston Brunner, Henry Crosstrees, Jr., Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Ellis Quick, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott,
The action begins in London when Sally Ercott, an amnesiac young woman experiencing unusual visions, is rescued from a tenement house whose owners, an aging prostitute and her boyfriend, have been holding her prisoner and performing experiments of some sort on her with the help of a disreputable physician named Argyle. Sally's rescuer Nick Jenkins makes it his business to help figure out what's happened to her. As Nick's good friend is a doctor who once worked under Argyle, and knows a lot about the man's legal troubles (deliberately over prescribing to junkies so they could sell the extra drugs on the street), Nick feels some degree of connection to the strange goings-on. Are Sally's visions memories, hallucinations...or visions of another world?
It also happens that Scotland Yard has been investigating the boarding house in connection with a rash of disappearances all over the country; Sally is not the only one, it seems.
September 11, 2021
Give Warning to the World is neo-noir pulp with strong Lovecraftian themes. Many reviews on here point out how it feels like a lazy commissional work; while it may have originated this way, I still enjoyed it dearly. It's comparatively undemanding on the reader, but still interesting enough to keep your attention.
Sally Ercott lives in a filthy boarding house on London's Mamble Row. She is squalid, abused by her landlady (who push her into the prostitution business), and most of all, she is suffering from amnesia. She is having terribly vivid nightmares of horrific creatures and near-death experiences. Sometimes these visions strike her during daytime even, and in one of these episodes she approaches a man called Nick Jenkins, who she deliriously takes for someone else.
The man prides himself in being open for the unexpected and when he eventually agrees to help her, he comes to believe in the reality of her visions. As they fight back against Sally's oppressors, they begin to discover a conspiracy of cosmic scope that may endanger the entire human population.
It's clear that her visions are not just visions, and I was quite intrigued by the mystery. The opening, with the dominant tentacle creature that reveals how it removes the brains of humanoid beings to plant its descendants, really made me wonder what they would discover in the end. When Jenkins hypothesizes that her visions are the thoughts of beings on other planets, Lovecraft turns into Doctor Who, and I liked that.
The resolution - a cosmic field that records thoughts before an individual's death, women of similar species that are able to receive the messages, parasites, different development stage of the alien usurper, explosions - it wasn't great, but I was entertained alright. I didn't expect the concluding info dumping of species history, the surprisingly elaborate portrait of the Yem's culture, strategies, abilities, form of intelligence, and division of labor, but I thought it wrapped up the story quite nicely and provided the main events with additional meaning. The cosmic oneiromancy of Sally's vision was another cool touch.
As you would expect, the novel certainly doesn't read like high literature. Some plot developments, especially in the beginning, are introduced as if with the sledgehammer. For instance, Jenkins runs into a man in a very crowded bar who turns out to be Sally's neighbor. I guess it's not unlikely that he would talk about the strange things that are happening at his building, but that he meets him in the first place sure is quite the coincidence. To be honest, I didn't really mind. The police perspective on the events (which was added in the expanded version of Echo in the Skull) is kind of inconsequential, but it added this pulpy detective atmosphere that I enjoyed very much.
Compared with the only other of John Brunner's novels I've read, Catch a falling star , is much more silly and in a sense even quite trashy. I've appreciated it just the same. As with movies, sometimes a stupidly easy sci-fi read is all I need to enjoy myself.
Rating: 3/5
Sally Ercott lives in a filthy boarding house on London's Mamble Row. She is squalid, abused by her landlady (who push her into the prostitution business), and most of all, she is suffering from amnesia. She is having terribly vivid nightmares of horrific creatures and near-death experiences. Sometimes these visions strike her during daytime even, and in one of these episodes she approaches a man called Nick Jenkins, who she deliriously takes for someone else.
The man prides himself in being open for the unexpected and when he eventually agrees to help her, he comes to believe in the reality of her visions. As they fight back against Sally's oppressors, they begin to discover a conspiracy of cosmic scope that may endanger the entire human population.
It's clear that her visions are not just visions, and I was quite intrigued by the mystery. The opening, with the dominant tentacle creature that reveals how it removes the brains of humanoid beings to plant its descendants, really made me wonder what they would discover in the end. When Jenkins hypothesizes that her visions are the thoughts of beings on other planets, Lovecraft turns into Doctor Who, and I liked that.
The resolution - a cosmic field that records thoughts before an individual's death, women of similar species that are able to receive the messages, parasites, different development stage of the alien usurper, explosions - it wasn't great, but I was entertained alright. I didn't expect the concluding info dumping of species history, the surprisingly elaborate portrait of the Yem's culture, strategies, abilities, form of intelligence, and division of labor, but I thought it wrapped up the story quite nicely and provided the main events with additional meaning. The cosmic oneiromancy of Sally's vision was another cool touch.
As you would expect, the novel certainly doesn't read like high literature. Some plot developments, especially in the beginning, are introduced as if with the sledgehammer. For instance, Jenkins runs into a man in a very crowded bar who turns out to be Sally's neighbor. I guess it's not unlikely that he would talk about the strange things that are happening at his building, but that he meets him in the first place sure is quite the coincidence. To be honest, I didn't really mind. The police perspective on the events (which was added in the expanded version of Echo in the Skull) is kind of inconsequential, but it added this pulpy detective atmosphere that I enjoyed very much.
Compared with the only other of John Brunner's novels I've read, Catch a falling star , is much more silly and in a sense even quite trashy. I've appreciated it just the same. As with movies, sometimes a stupidly easy sci-fi read is all I need to enjoy myself.
Rating: 3/5
July 8, 2021
Originally published in 1959 as “An Echo in the Skull” ( and later revised, expanded, and rewritten in 1974 for copyright reasons), GWTTW is obviously contract work done by Brunner to satisfy a publisher’s deadline ( probably Ace, at least in the US). A cross between Space Opera and Aliens-are-among-us stories, the book bears a passing resemblance to Heinlein’s “The Puppet Masters” while at the same time using the ideas of panspermia,mind control, and shared memories to drive the plot. As often happens in these kind of stories, the set up is intriguing and the development is interesting until it falls apart with the explanation at the end. One-dimensional characters and merely competent writing don’t help, either. On the whole, this is lesser Brunner- diverting while being read, then instantly forgotten.
October 16, 2009
OK, so, this slim volume came in a stack from a relative. (I periodically get books shipped to me; apparently I am like a goodwill for the family libraries.) This is very much of its period. Just, with the descriptions and gender roles and all that. I mean, it's clearly progressive, but, still a little quaint. The plot is also so bizarrely put together that the entire last chapter explains what happened. So, I wouldn't go out of my way to read it, but if you're on a plane and have it, it's better than the movie. (Which is more than I can say for some of the stuff I've read!)
December 19, 2013
Good characters, but not one of Brunner's better works. It was very rushed, and the readers only found out the real story by having characters do about 20 pages of exposition at the end. Still, Brunner doing a story in the same genre as Heinlein's "Puppet Masters" or of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was certainly interesting enough as a concept, and the characters really did hold my interest. I really couldn't figure out the basic mystery element, but that's because he withheld crucial clues until the exposition.
October 21, 2015
Decent pulp. Super fast read. Brunner does well at writing clearly and concisely.
March 14, 2021
A fun read. BEMs are taking over the world! It is a dated book written originally in the '50s. However, I enjoyed it for the characters, more than the plot. Recommended.
July 19, 2024
review of
John Brunner's Give Warning to the World
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 19, 2024
Brunner is one of my favorite writers. What continues to please me is when I read a new bk by him & it surprises me, his approach to the subject is different than in other bks by him I've read, the overall idea seems fresh, his imagination hasn't run dry. That's the case here, it's been especially the case in the last several bks I've read by him. He's NOT formulaic.
The main character is a woman trapped in a fearful squalor, uncertain about what's going on & seemingly unable to escape it.
"Eventually she was able to master her misery. Her next—automatic—reaction was to look at her left wrist. Her watch wasn't there, of course, It was at the pawnbroker's in Pared Street, and had been since the last time she managed to leave the house. How long ago? More than a week." - p 6
The house she's in is under surveillance by the police, even they aren't really sure why they're there. The house she's in has other boarders, one of them is a black man who thinks the white woman is snubbing him.. but then?
"But—but damn it! That snooty blonde girl in the next room who won't so much as smile at me! I think they're holding her prisoner!" - p 25
Slowly, little details come out.. the story is just too fantastic! Who wd believe it?!
John Brunner's Give Warning to the World
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 19, 2024
Brunner is one of my favorite writers. What continues to please me is when I read a new bk by him & it surprises me, his approach to the subject is different than in other bks by him I've read, the overall idea seems fresh, his imagination hasn't run dry. That's the case here, it's been especially the case in the last several bks I've read by him. He's NOT formulaic.
The main character is a woman trapped in a fearful squalor, uncertain about what's going on & seemingly unable to escape it.
"Eventually she was able to master her misery. Her next—automatic—reaction was to look at her left wrist. Her watch wasn't there, of course, It was at the pawnbroker's in Pared Street, and had been since the last time she managed to leave the house. How long ago? More than a week." - p 6
The house she's in is under surveillance by the police, even they aren't really sure why they're there. The house she's in has other boarders, one of them is a black man who thinks the white woman is snubbing him.. but then?
"But—but damn it! That snooty blonde girl in the next room who won't so much as smile at me! I think they're holding her prisoner!" - p 25
Slowly, little details come out.. the story is just too fantastic! Who wd believe it?!
December 11, 2022
A fun pulp sci-fi story from one of the greats. This one deals with a mysterious woman with amnesia and strange creatures that reproduce through spores and attach and control the minds of the host. As usual, Brunner brings us to a crazy solution and an all around good adventure.
October 18, 2017
good for those who aren't paranoid enough
June 2, 2014
Brunner is one of my favorite writers and even though I have read his books before, over the last few years I have been rereading them in publication order. This book is a rewrite of an earlier book first published as part of an Ace Books double novel.
December 9, 2015
I've read several books by Brunner, and I liked every one of them. You feel very quickly that he is a natural, gifted writer.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews