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The Super Barbarians
The Acre was the only part of an entire world where Earthmen were allowed to live as they pleased and as they were accustomed. For elsewhere on Quallavarra, humanity was forced into servitude by the Vorra, THE SUPER BARBARIANS, who has somehow managed to conquer space.
But within the Acre, the underling Terrestrials had cooked up a neat method of keeping teir conquerors from stamping them out altogether. They had uncovered a diabolical Earth secret the Vorra couldn't abide - and yet couldn't do without.
But within the Acre, the underling Terrestrials had cooked up a neat method of keeping teir conquerors from stamping them out altogether. They had uncovered a diabolical Earth secret the Vorra couldn't abide - and yet couldn't do without.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
58 people want to read
About the author
John Brunner
572 books486 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 19, 2017
I've enjoyed many of John Brunner's science fiction stories. Stand on Zanzibar stands as one of my favourites of all time and is a true classic of the genre. The Super Barbarians was published in 1962 and comes relatively early in his writing career. It's an entertaining, eminently readable story about Earth fighting to overthrow the Vorra, an alien race that defeated them many years ago in a space battle.
Gareth Snow is an Earthman, living on Qualavarra, serving as a major domo of sorts in the household of one of the powerful families on the planet. He also has a secret embedded in his memory that makes him a powerful enemy and a hope of Earth in their planned uprising against the Vorra. On Qualavarra is an area known as The Acre, where Earthlings are allowed to live in relative freedom. The meeting of Snow and the leaders of the city brings about the events that will commence this uprising.
I think I'll leave the story at that as it is a relatively short, but action packed and quick moving tale. I enjoyed my further reading into John Brunner's writing and found the story to be a pleasure to read. It reminds me of many of the stories I read as a teenager when I could delve into another world, another adventure that held my attention and let me enjoy these great imaginations as they create new worlds, new peoples, new adventures. (3.5 stars)
Gareth Snow is an Earthman, living on Qualavarra, serving as a major domo of sorts in the household of one of the powerful families on the planet. He also has a secret embedded in his memory that makes him a powerful enemy and a hope of Earth in their planned uprising against the Vorra. On Qualavarra is an area known as The Acre, where Earthlings are allowed to live in relative freedom. The meeting of Snow and the leaders of the city brings about the events that will commence this uprising.
I think I'll leave the story at that as it is a relatively short, but action packed and quick moving tale. I enjoyed my further reading into John Brunner's writing and found the story to be a pleasure to read. It reminds me of many of the stories I read as a teenager when I could delve into another world, another adventure that held my attention and let me enjoy these great imaginations as they create new worlds, new peoples, new adventures. (3.5 stars)
March 22, 2023
Ever since the mid-15th century, and continuing on for some 600 years now and counting, coffee has been one of planet Earth's favorite beverages. Today, I believe, it holds the No. 3 spot, with only water itself and tea being consumed more frequently. But whether taken black or light, as an espresso or cappuccino, with sugar or not, the fact remains that the men and women of our 21st century drink something on the order of 2.25 billion cups a day, or over 800 billion cups a year. (Heck, I just had a nice big one before starting to write these words!) And really, who can blame us? With its delicious flavor and the agreeable jolt provided by its psychoactive stimulant caffeine, coffee is perfect for waking up, staying up, drinking with friends, and sipping with dessert. And, if a certain sci-fi book of the early 1960s can be believed, it also makes for an invaluable tool when confounding the plans of conquering space aliens! But more on that in a moment.
The book that I am leading up to here is John Brunner's "The Super Barbarians," which was released as a 35-cent Ace paperback (D-547, for all you collectors out there) in 1962, when the author was 28. The book sports a somewhat unfaithful, non sequitur cover courtesy of Ed Valigursky. Sadly, the novel has not been reprinted in the 61 years (as of this writing) since its initial publication, although I believe that there might be a Kindle option available today. The fact that the book has fallen into publication oblivion strikes me as a very sorry state of affairs, as a recent perusal of this novel has revealed it to be a highly entertaining piece of work indeed, and one that has not dated a jot since its Cold War debut.
Today, of course, John Brunner is best known for his big, award-winning books of the late '60s and early '70s; books such as "Stand on Zanzibar" (1968) and "The Jagged Orbit" (1969), as well as "The Sheep Look Up" (1972, and which was nominated for a Nebula Award). But before he entered his sophisticated and more "mature" period, Brunner was busy crafting well-done space opera fare for publishers such as Ace. Indeed, between 1959 and 1967, he would release no fewer than three dozen such! Just recently, I had some words to say about one of his four efforts from 1960 alone, "The Atlantic Abomination," which, monster movie that it is at heart, I just loved. For my second experience with Mr. Brunner, I opted for "The Super Barbarians," which similarly had sat on a bookshelf here at home, unread, for ages. And now I am kicking myself for having put both books off for so long.
As for those "super barbarians" of the title, as we find out early on, they are the Vorra, who, some 50 years before the events in Brunner's book properly commence, had defeated Earth by employing their faster-than-light (FTL) space vessels. And the fact that the Vorra have these advanced space capabilities, far beyond Earth's own, is something of a mystery, as the Vorra society is basically a feudal one, and with nothing much in the way of high-tech industry to speak of. Brunner's book begins some five decades after the Vorran subjugation, and is narrated to us by Gareth Shaw, a young Terran who had served as tutor to the son of the Vorran governor on Earth, Pwill. After his term as a tutor was finished, Shaw had been asked to return to the Vorran home world of Quallavarra to be the personal secretary of Pwill's head wife, Llaq. Thus, when we first encounter Shaw, he has already been a resident at Pwill's enormous estate for seven months, the feudal house of Pwill being one of the largest and most powerful of the 60 competing houses on the planet. Shaw's complacent existence is given a jolt one day when Pwill's ninth wife (out of 10), the Under-Lady Shavarri, has the Earthman report to her in the estate's seraglio to send him on an errand. Thus, Shaw gets to visit the Acre for the first time: an area of a few square blocks in the nearby Vorran city where the people of Earth are allowed to live unmolested. But Shaw's first visit to the enclave of some 14,000 Terrans does not go well. He is shot at by Vorrans on the way and rescued by three Earth folks--Ken and Marijane Lee, a brother and sister, and their friend Gustav--who look down on him in contempt for the Vorran aide that he is. Shaw is interviewed by the Acre's de facto leader, Judge Olafsson, who similarly does little to hide his disgust, but he does manage to complete his errand; namely, picking up a love potion from an Earth druggist named Kramer, with which Shavarri hopes to usurp Llaq's No. 1 wife position.
In the days to come, things get even more complicated for Shaw, who can't help wondering why he has never taken advantage of his unique position to help the people of Earth, and why he seems to have tantalizing gaps in his memory. Pwill, Jr., the heir apparent, has developed a very serious addiction to (you guessed it!) Earth coffee, which acts on the Vorran metabolism more grievously than heroin does on an Earthling's. Twill Himself orders Shaw to go back to the Acre and prevent all sources of coffee from entering his house, but our narrator decides to play a dangerous game, as, under instructions from Judge Olafsson, he keeps Pwill, Jr. well supplied...for a while, anyway. And soon enough, the plans of the Acre residents are made known to Shaw: Using drugs (including coffee), rumors, psychology and superstition (the feudal Vorrans, at heart, are a very superstitious lot), the Terrans are plotting to sow confusion not only in Twill's house, but in some of the other houses, as well, hopefully resulting in a general civil war amongst the 60 feudal lords. But as Pwill, Jr. gets increasingly out of control, and Pwill Himself and especially Lady Llaq grow ever more suspicious of the Earthman in their midst, Shaw's position becomes more and more untenable....
Now, on the front cover of my Ace edition there is a blurb that reads "What chance had the Earthmen against...the super barbarians?," and based on what we see of the ghettolike existence of the Acre residents, the reader is initially tempted to think "Very little." But, oh, those wily Earthlings! Using the above-mentioned tricks at their disposal, they surely do manage to even the odds against their better-equipped foes. As did "The Atlantic Abomination," the novel evinces a high degree of intelligent and convincing storytelling from beginning to end. Brunner's work here is finely detailed, and the author takes pains to describe something of the Vorran language (with its differing syntaxes depending on whether one is addressing a superior, an equal or an inferior), the politics between the Vorran houses and the in-house plotting amongst Pwill's wives, the customs on the Pwill estate, and something of the Vorran history. The novel's largish cast of characters, both Vorran and human, is efficiently sketched in by Brunner, and any number of wonderful scenes are included. Among them: the trick that Shaw pulls on the sadistic torturer Dwerri the whipmaster...namely, smearing that murderous weapon with a peyotl derivative that sends the Vorran off on quite a "bad trip," indeed; the fight that Gareth has with the 20-year-old Pwill, Jr., when the latter is in the final throes of caffeine withdrawal; and the finely depicted civil war between the houses toward the novel's conclusion. And, oh, that early scene with the hopelessly addicted Pwill, Jr. will surely strike a chord with anyone who has ever been jonesing for some java. As the youth piteously moans, "What devil's seed you make the drug from, I don't know. But it's wrecking my body to do without it. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't move my bowels, I can't throw a harpoon, and I can't take a woman!" And it gets even worse for the miserable lad later on; a marvelous depiction, truly, of drug withdrawal in an alien and futuristic setting!
"The Super Barbarians" features little in the way of the high-tech gizmos of superscience that some readers might be expecting, and, other than that mysteriously obtained Vorran FTL drive, are limited to a few novel drugs and some anesthetic gas capsules. The weaponry shown in the book, on both the Vorran and Terran sides, is surprisingly conventional and unremarkable. But perhaps the single best aspect of Brunner's novel is Gareth Shaw himself. The reader worries about him as his position on the Pwill estate becomes flat-out dangerous, at the same time that we marvel at his unknown (even to himself) abilities that keep cropping up, as well as the blank spots in his memory. We can't help wondering what his earlier background may have been, and when it's finally revealed, it is a highly satisfying moment. Similarly, the central question as to how the feudal Vorrans ever managed to acquire interstellar capabilities is also neatly explained eventually, and it does make for a nice surprise; one that might have even led to a sequel had Brunner chosen to do so. Still, the book is perfectly self-contained as is.
Actually, I have only one very minor complaint to lodge against Brunner's very fine work here, and that is that no date is ever given for the events described. Thus, I'm not sure if the Vorrans conquered the Earth in 1965 or 2965. It is a minor point, to be sure, but one that couldn't help bugging me as I proceeded. But really, that's about it. "The Super Barbarians" was a tremendous lot of fun for me, and I do wholeheartedly recommend it. I find myself wishing that some savvy publisher would start reprinting these early, short novels by Brunner; perhaps put three of them in one volume, in a series of volumes, as has been done with some of Robert Silverberg's early work. I for one look forward to reading many more of Brunner's early- to mid-'60s books.
And now, for finishing this review, I think I am going to reward myself...perhaps with a nice cup of coffee....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of John Brunner....)
The book that I am leading up to here is John Brunner's "The Super Barbarians," which was released as a 35-cent Ace paperback (D-547, for all you collectors out there) in 1962, when the author was 28. The book sports a somewhat unfaithful, non sequitur cover courtesy of Ed Valigursky. Sadly, the novel has not been reprinted in the 61 years (as of this writing) since its initial publication, although I believe that there might be a Kindle option available today. The fact that the book has fallen into publication oblivion strikes me as a very sorry state of affairs, as a recent perusal of this novel has revealed it to be a highly entertaining piece of work indeed, and one that has not dated a jot since its Cold War debut.
Today, of course, John Brunner is best known for his big, award-winning books of the late '60s and early '70s; books such as "Stand on Zanzibar" (1968) and "The Jagged Orbit" (1969), as well as "The Sheep Look Up" (1972, and which was nominated for a Nebula Award). But before he entered his sophisticated and more "mature" period, Brunner was busy crafting well-done space opera fare for publishers such as Ace. Indeed, between 1959 and 1967, he would release no fewer than three dozen such! Just recently, I had some words to say about one of his four efforts from 1960 alone, "The Atlantic Abomination," which, monster movie that it is at heart, I just loved. For my second experience with Mr. Brunner, I opted for "The Super Barbarians," which similarly had sat on a bookshelf here at home, unread, for ages. And now I am kicking myself for having put both books off for so long.
As for those "super barbarians" of the title, as we find out early on, they are the Vorra, who, some 50 years before the events in Brunner's book properly commence, had defeated Earth by employing their faster-than-light (FTL) space vessels. And the fact that the Vorra have these advanced space capabilities, far beyond Earth's own, is something of a mystery, as the Vorra society is basically a feudal one, and with nothing much in the way of high-tech industry to speak of. Brunner's book begins some five decades after the Vorran subjugation, and is narrated to us by Gareth Shaw, a young Terran who had served as tutor to the son of the Vorran governor on Earth, Pwill. After his term as a tutor was finished, Shaw had been asked to return to the Vorran home world of Quallavarra to be the personal secretary of Pwill's head wife, Llaq. Thus, when we first encounter Shaw, he has already been a resident at Pwill's enormous estate for seven months, the feudal house of Pwill being one of the largest and most powerful of the 60 competing houses on the planet. Shaw's complacent existence is given a jolt one day when Pwill's ninth wife (out of 10), the Under-Lady Shavarri, has the Earthman report to her in the estate's seraglio to send him on an errand. Thus, Shaw gets to visit the Acre for the first time: an area of a few square blocks in the nearby Vorran city where the people of Earth are allowed to live unmolested. But Shaw's first visit to the enclave of some 14,000 Terrans does not go well. He is shot at by Vorrans on the way and rescued by three Earth folks--Ken and Marijane Lee, a brother and sister, and their friend Gustav--who look down on him in contempt for the Vorran aide that he is. Shaw is interviewed by the Acre's de facto leader, Judge Olafsson, who similarly does little to hide his disgust, but he does manage to complete his errand; namely, picking up a love potion from an Earth druggist named Kramer, with which Shavarri hopes to usurp Llaq's No. 1 wife position.
In the days to come, things get even more complicated for Shaw, who can't help wondering why he has never taken advantage of his unique position to help the people of Earth, and why he seems to have tantalizing gaps in his memory. Pwill, Jr., the heir apparent, has developed a very serious addiction to (you guessed it!) Earth coffee, which acts on the Vorran metabolism more grievously than heroin does on an Earthling's. Twill Himself orders Shaw to go back to the Acre and prevent all sources of coffee from entering his house, but our narrator decides to play a dangerous game, as, under instructions from Judge Olafsson, he keeps Pwill, Jr. well supplied...for a while, anyway. And soon enough, the plans of the Acre residents are made known to Shaw: Using drugs (including coffee), rumors, psychology and superstition (the feudal Vorrans, at heart, are a very superstitious lot), the Terrans are plotting to sow confusion not only in Twill's house, but in some of the other houses, as well, hopefully resulting in a general civil war amongst the 60 feudal lords. But as Pwill, Jr. gets increasingly out of control, and Pwill Himself and especially Lady Llaq grow ever more suspicious of the Earthman in their midst, Shaw's position becomes more and more untenable....
Now, on the front cover of my Ace edition there is a blurb that reads "What chance had the Earthmen against...the super barbarians?," and based on what we see of the ghettolike existence of the Acre residents, the reader is initially tempted to think "Very little." But, oh, those wily Earthlings! Using the above-mentioned tricks at their disposal, they surely do manage to even the odds against their better-equipped foes. As did "The Atlantic Abomination," the novel evinces a high degree of intelligent and convincing storytelling from beginning to end. Brunner's work here is finely detailed, and the author takes pains to describe something of the Vorran language (with its differing syntaxes depending on whether one is addressing a superior, an equal or an inferior), the politics between the Vorran houses and the in-house plotting amongst Pwill's wives, the customs on the Pwill estate, and something of the Vorran history. The novel's largish cast of characters, both Vorran and human, is efficiently sketched in by Brunner, and any number of wonderful scenes are included. Among them: the trick that Shaw pulls on the sadistic torturer Dwerri the whipmaster...namely, smearing that murderous weapon with a peyotl derivative that sends the Vorran off on quite a "bad trip," indeed; the fight that Gareth has with the 20-year-old Pwill, Jr., when the latter is in the final throes of caffeine withdrawal; and the finely depicted civil war between the houses toward the novel's conclusion. And, oh, that early scene with the hopelessly addicted Pwill, Jr. will surely strike a chord with anyone who has ever been jonesing for some java. As the youth piteously moans, "What devil's seed you make the drug from, I don't know. But it's wrecking my body to do without it. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't move my bowels, I can't throw a harpoon, and I can't take a woman!" And it gets even worse for the miserable lad later on; a marvelous depiction, truly, of drug withdrawal in an alien and futuristic setting!
"The Super Barbarians" features little in the way of the high-tech gizmos of superscience that some readers might be expecting, and, other than that mysteriously obtained Vorran FTL drive, are limited to a few novel drugs and some anesthetic gas capsules. The weaponry shown in the book, on both the Vorran and Terran sides, is surprisingly conventional and unremarkable. But perhaps the single best aspect of Brunner's novel is Gareth Shaw himself. The reader worries about him as his position on the Pwill estate becomes flat-out dangerous, at the same time that we marvel at his unknown (even to himself) abilities that keep cropping up, as well as the blank spots in his memory. We can't help wondering what his earlier background may have been, and when it's finally revealed, it is a highly satisfying moment. Similarly, the central question as to how the feudal Vorrans ever managed to acquire interstellar capabilities is also neatly explained eventually, and it does make for a nice surprise; one that might have even led to a sequel had Brunner chosen to do so. Still, the book is perfectly self-contained as is.
Actually, I have only one very minor complaint to lodge against Brunner's very fine work here, and that is that no date is ever given for the events described. Thus, I'm not sure if the Vorrans conquered the Earth in 1965 or 2965. It is a minor point, to be sure, but one that couldn't help bugging me as I proceeded. But really, that's about it. "The Super Barbarians" was a tremendous lot of fun for me, and I do wholeheartedly recommend it. I find myself wishing that some savvy publisher would start reprinting these early, short novels by Brunner; perhaps put three of them in one volume, in a series of volumes, as has been done with some of Robert Silverberg's early work. I for one look forward to reading many more of Brunner's early- to mid-'60s books.
And now, for finishing this review, I think I am going to reward myself...perhaps with a nice cup of coffee....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of John Brunner....)
January 28, 2024
The Voora conquered Earth with superior ships and weaponry. Even with the superior weapons Earth was able to inflict major damage on their fleet. As the Voora are subjugating Earth Gareth Shaw gets a job as a tutor for the Pwill heir. After five years the Pwill go home and Shaw is taken along to become a steward. For seven years he works his job, just doing his job and surviving. One day Shavarri, one of the lesser Pwill wives, sends him into the Acre, a part of the city where the Earthmen live. After that errand, seeing the people there, he thinks why has he just done his job and not thought of resistance. This changes his outlook and he is determined to do something.
Fast read, Gareth is likable. We learn that the Voorish have a feudal culture, the infrastructure on the planet is hundreds of years behind the technology that defeated Earth and they are now using Earth tech on Voora to raise the standard of living. The way Shaw transforms from humble serf to knowing that there is something amiss with the technological level of the Voora and being able to exploit it is very good. The ending seemed too contrived. For one there's a lot that has been brought in [from off stage] and then is that really how the different Voorish houses would act? 4.0 stars.
Fast read, Gareth is likable. We learn that the Voorish have a feudal culture, the infrastructure on the planet is hundreds of years behind the technology that defeated Earth and they are now using Earth tech on Voora to raise the standard of living. The way Shaw transforms from humble serf to knowing that there is something amiss with the technological level of the Voora and being able to exploit it is very good. The ending seemed too contrived. For one there's a lot that has been brought in [from off stage] and then is that really how the different Voorish houses would act? 4.0 stars.
August 14, 2025
If you enjoy books with covers that show space battles for control of Earth, but are actual about a feudal society on a different planet and an attempt from Earthlings to overthrow that society through the use of...coffee, then this is the book for you.
It's a pretty simple read with a protagonist who operates within one of the big feudal houses, gaining their trust, but works with the small resistance on the planet to cause their downfall.
This is certainly not "Stand on Zanzibar" Brunner, but rather one of his "put food on the table" stories that he likely sold to a sci-fi mag for a paycheck, as many authors of the time did. They work on these shorter stories while building their masterpieces.
It's a pretty simple read with a protagonist who operates within one of the big feudal houses, gaining their trust, but works with the small resistance on the planet to cause their downfall.
This is certainly not "Stand on Zanzibar" Brunner, but rather one of his "put food on the table" stories that he likely sold to a sci-fi mag for a paycheck, as many authors of the time did. They work on these shorter stories while building their masterpieces.
August 3, 2014
review of
John Brunner's The Super Barbarians
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 2, 2014
I'm trying to alternate here between reading & reviewing bks that have deep personal significance for me &/or substantial content to be addressed carefully AND SF, mostly John Brunner bks. The Brunner's are always a relief, they're fun but not throwaways. I have a bag of Brunners in my bedrm & I'm gradually making my way thru the bag. It won't be long now before I've read them & I'll have to start picking from other pleasure reading possibilities.
The Super Barbarians is a sortof Poetic Justice bk, a bk about invading barbarians digging their own grave - w/ a little help from those conquered. Alas, in 'real' life, the 'barbarians' might not be so 'easy' to get out of the way.
The Earthling protagonist is on the home planet of the conquerors as a well-pd servant. Regardless of the perqs of the job he's still a 2nd-class citizen (or not a citizen at all): "There were only four other passengers aboard—two unprosperous-looking private individuals and two retainers wearing the arms of the House of Shugurra, a cleft skull on a black ground. They were all Vorrish; accordingly I took the rearmost seat as befitted an Earthman." (pp 10-11)
The reader learns that the Earthlings lost the war against the Vorrish even tho 'it cd be worse':
"All kinds of subtle things reminded us of our defeat. For instance, we ourselves now called that engagement the Battle of Fourth Orbit instead of its original Earthly title, the Battle of the Martian Sphere. The Vorrish, naturally, referred to the Solar planets by numbers, not names." - p 12
But Earthmen have managed to have special status in relation to other subjugated worlds, even tho defeated:
"Earth was the only one which had had to be reduced by all the houses working in unison. This was another point they bore in mind when thinking of us.
"And that was why Earthmen were the only subject race of the Vorra permitted to walk occasionally on the surface of Qallavarra. That was why there was an Acre of Earth and not an Acre of any other planet." - p 18
What really made this bk fun for me was a particular plot element that I don't want to spoil but still want to refer to. SO, I'll quote the following & put a blank where the 'punchline' is. I'll leave it to yr imagination:
""As for you, Shaw!" Pwill resumed. "If I thought you'd been at all responsible for what's happened, I'd have had you gutted and spitted on pikes long ago. But since my son tells me you didn't, I'll accept that. I think he's still capable of telling the truth occasionally. I think!" He threw a venomous scowl at his heir, who returned it with interest.
""What do you know about—?" he continued, and stopped short, as though a word were on the tip of his tongue and he could not complete it. Llaq closed her hands on the arms of her chair and hissed between her teeth.
""______!" Pwill finished, catching the hint his wife threw him." - p 51
[LET IT BE HEREBY ANNOUNCED THAT I MIGHT START USING THIS BLANK TECHNIQUE MORE OFTEN IN FUTURE REVIEWS - THIS BEING THE 1ST REVIEW TO DO SO]
"I turned the paper over, and began to understand. The other side bore what the uneducated among the Vorra might very well take for a magical symbol of some kind—especially if they had been suitably primed beforehand by some of Kramer's mumbo-jumbo." - p 58
As I've often fantasized before, what if things like Voodoo sigils were actually circuit diagrams or some other sort of scientific symbol for wch the science has been lost? Of course, some Voodoo practitioners might claim that the science isn't lost, that the science is Voodoo. What "might very well [be] take[n] for a magical symbol" in the preceding quote is actually a molecular diagram.
Philip K. Dick enthusiasts may find some slight plot similarity between this (1962) & Dick's "We Can Remember It for you Wholesale" (1966) - although Dick's story is more twisted. "That, though, was surely a bonus. What mattered was the regaining of my lost knowledge. i could even recall how it was lost. I had been compelled to hide it from myself." (p 108)
Once the chaos of war's unleashed how many disasters have happened just as a result of misunderstandings & 'friendly fire'?:
"The first direct attack on the House of Shugurra was not made by the House of Pwill at all, it was discovered later. A detachment commander of one of the allied lesser houses wanted to silence a gun-post enfilading some ground he needed to move his men across. He had only a mortar capable of reaching the gun-post, and the mortar was not wholly accurate. Still, he set it up behind a small hillock and let fly. The bomb dropped fair on the huge glass dome crowning the house, and fell through before exploding and killing over a thousand noncombatants—women, children and sick old men—gathered there from outlying buildings.
"Mad with rage, and still thinking, thanks to inadequate intelligence reports, that only the House of Pwill was ranged against him, Shugurra Himself ordered retaliation." - p 145
"From then on the Vorra were content to fight anyone and everyone they could find. That was the way they were." - p 146
It seems to me that the reason why blacks replaced Irish & other criminalized British subjects as slaves in the early days of what became the USA is b/c they were easier to subjugate b/c of their recognizability. Sometimes I think the USA military picks on Asians & Arabs for much the same reason.
John Brunner's The Super Barbarians
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 2, 2014
I'm trying to alternate here between reading & reviewing bks that have deep personal significance for me &/or substantial content to be addressed carefully AND SF, mostly John Brunner bks. The Brunner's are always a relief, they're fun but not throwaways. I have a bag of Brunners in my bedrm & I'm gradually making my way thru the bag. It won't be long now before I've read them & I'll have to start picking from other pleasure reading possibilities.
The Super Barbarians is a sortof Poetic Justice bk, a bk about invading barbarians digging their own grave - w/ a little help from those conquered. Alas, in 'real' life, the 'barbarians' might not be so 'easy' to get out of the way.
The Earthling protagonist is on the home planet of the conquerors as a well-pd servant. Regardless of the perqs of the job he's still a 2nd-class citizen (or not a citizen at all): "There were only four other passengers aboard—two unprosperous-looking private individuals and two retainers wearing the arms of the House of Shugurra, a cleft skull on a black ground. They were all Vorrish; accordingly I took the rearmost seat as befitted an Earthman." (pp 10-11)
The reader learns that the Earthlings lost the war against the Vorrish even tho 'it cd be worse':
"All kinds of subtle things reminded us of our defeat. For instance, we ourselves now called that engagement the Battle of Fourth Orbit instead of its original Earthly title, the Battle of the Martian Sphere. The Vorrish, naturally, referred to the Solar planets by numbers, not names." - p 12
But Earthmen have managed to have special status in relation to other subjugated worlds, even tho defeated:
"Earth was the only one which had had to be reduced by all the houses working in unison. This was another point they bore in mind when thinking of us.
"And that was why Earthmen were the only subject race of the Vorra permitted to walk occasionally on the surface of Qallavarra. That was why there was an Acre of Earth and not an Acre of any other planet." - p 18
What really made this bk fun for me was a particular plot element that I don't want to spoil but still want to refer to. SO, I'll quote the following & put a blank where the 'punchline' is. I'll leave it to yr imagination:
""As for you, Shaw!" Pwill resumed. "If I thought you'd been at all responsible for what's happened, I'd have had you gutted and spitted on pikes long ago. But since my son tells me you didn't, I'll accept that. I think he's still capable of telling the truth occasionally. I think!" He threw a venomous scowl at his heir, who returned it with interest.
""What do you know about—?" he continued, and stopped short, as though a word were on the tip of his tongue and he could not complete it. Llaq closed her hands on the arms of her chair and hissed between her teeth.
""______!" Pwill finished, catching the hint his wife threw him." - p 51
[LET IT BE HEREBY ANNOUNCED THAT I MIGHT START USING THIS BLANK TECHNIQUE MORE OFTEN IN FUTURE REVIEWS - THIS BEING THE 1ST REVIEW TO DO SO]
"I turned the paper over, and began to understand. The other side bore what the uneducated among the Vorra might very well take for a magical symbol of some kind—especially if they had been suitably primed beforehand by some of Kramer's mumbo-jumbo." - p 58
As I've often fantasized before, what if things like Voodoo sigils were actually circuit diagrams or some other sort of scientific symbol for wch the science has been lost? Of course, some Voodoo practitioners might claim that the science isn't lost, that the science is Voodoo. What "might very well [be] take[n] for a magical symbol" in the preceding quote is actually a molecular diagram.
Philip K. Dick enthusiasts may find some slight plot similarity between this (1962) & Dick's "We Can Remember It for you Wholesale" (1966) - although Dick's story is more twisted. "That, though, was surely a bonus. What mattered was the regaining of my lost knowledge. i could even recall how it was lost. I had been compelled to hide it from myself." (p 108)
Once the chaos of war's unleashed how many disasters have happened just as a result of misunderstandings & 'friendly fire'?:
"The first direct attack on the House of Shugurra was not made by the House of Pwill at all, it was discovered later. A detachment commander of one of the allied lesser houses wanted to silence a gun-post enfilading some ground he needed to move his men across. He had only a mortar capable of reaching the gun-post, and the mortar was not wholly accurate. Still, he set it up behind a small hillock and let fly. The bomb dropped fair on the huge glass dome crowning the house, and fell through before exploding and killing over a thousand noncombatants—women, children and sick old men—gathered there from outlying buildings.
"Mad with rage, and still thinking, thanks to inadequate intelligence reports, that only the House of Pwill was ranged against him, Shugurra Himself ordered retaliation." - p 145
"From then on the Vorra were content to fight anyone and everyone they could find. That was the way they were." - p 146
It seems to me that the reason why blacks replaced Irish & other criminalized British subjects as slaves in the early days of what became the USA is b/c they were easier to subjugate b/c of their recognizability. Sometimes I think the USA military picks on Asians & Arabs for much the same reason.
October 31, 2024
Leído e la versión española, publicada en abril de 1963 por Ediciones Vértice.
Una space-opera bastante convencional, con todos los tópicos del género. Entretenida.
Una space-opera bastante convencional, con todos los tópicos del género. Entretenida.
May 10, 2017
Enjoyed the story, but the Gollancz/SF Gateway edition of it was utterly dreadful, clearly having been scanned in and never checked, with ridiculous mistakes from start to finish. Typical errors include: "On the Vorrish side it was tempered with a land of puzzlement", "This was another point they bore in mind when dunking of us", "Where is he JIOW?" and an order "not to supply any more of this poison to my 8011".
April 17, 2018
** 2 Stars
Just an average Sci-fi. The story lacks cliffhangers and the thrill that would hook a reader.Also there are no jaw dropping aspects that a sci-fi would normally carry.
A fast and simple read
May 17, 2010
As with many science fiction paperbacks of childhood, I recall the cover clearly, but little of the contents. Later, with Stand on Zanzibar, Brunner was to become one of my favorite science fiction authors.
October 24, 2012
Add space-age technology to savages and what do you get? Super Barbarians. They've kicked mankind's a**e* and now it's our turn. Find out what the future looks like from 50 years ago. Who doesn't love a good ACE paperback?
July 2, 2015
A good, early Brunner novella. The cover has nothing to do with the story, however.
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