John Brunner (1934–1995)

It takes time for the plot to unfold to the point that the inverted Cold War setting comes into focus: Russia is the enlightened, hip, and more open society; U.S. is the isolated, aggressively exploitative (both globally and towards its own citizens) society; and the narrative POV is that of Russian agents planted in the U.S. (It's unclear to me if Brunner's use of Russia over USSR is deliberate and knowing, or reflects Western sloppiness prevalent at the time.) Brunner toys with reader expectations in a number of ways in this brief novel, and handles them adroitly enough not to require lots of padding to hide it in.

Brunner also weaves in multiple themes, with two I found most mysterious or intriguing actually receiving the smallest word count. That was not detrimental, and while initially taken separately these are threaded together in the end, in a satisfying way. Though I suspected from the beginning they would link up, precisely how was not clear. Setting the plot in motion is intelligence that an alien species has been detected outside Pluto, with communication possible but limited to images. Separately; a character's clairvoyant powers strongly suggest by their presence as a pivotal "new perspective" for making communicating more effective. What wasn't evident is that both the alien species and the clairvoyance are directly linked to time's arrow. The alien species lives through time in "reverse" sequence from human species, and clairvoyance somehow accesses time from the other end of lived experience, allowing Danty to know in advance ("wrong end of time").

Brunner glances over a premise explored iconically in Clarke's 2001 and later by Banks in his Excession novel of the Culture: the Out of Context / First Contact threat. Brunner places the alien threat "outside Pluto". Funny it's there, knowing as we do now there is nothing "there" to park around, and assume that decision is simply Brunner's alignment with then-accepted model of solar system. The resolution is interestingly anticlimactic, ending on a note of interspecies communication, handled offstage.

As with my reading of Sturgeon, the classic SFnal plot and premise are slight at first blush, but Brunner is unconstrained by this, leavening his tale with all manner of ideas and cultural observations, the cumulative effect of which is denser world-building than suggested by the small page count. Among these: future dialect used realistically in dialogue and left for the reader to interpret; global political alignments, permutated from 20th Century but not always in orthodox directions; consumer trends reflecting political balance of power; the further development of familiar racial relations, at least in the US. There's a lot to take in as the landscape flashes past the novel's windows.… (more)