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A LADDER IN THE SKY-----Signed-----
"One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves." --SF Site For each generation, there is a writer meant to bend the rules of what we know. Hugo Award winner (Best Novel, STAND ON ZANZIBAR) and British science fiction master John Brunner remains one of the most influential and respected authors of all time, and now E-Reads is pleased to re-introduce many of his classic works. For readers familiar with his vision, it's a chance to re-examine his thoughtful worlds and words, while for new readers, Brunner's work proves itself the very definition of timeless. In THE LADDER IN THE SKY, a starving youth, trapped in poverty and with no hope of escape, is taken prisoner and offered up in an actual "deal with the devil,"--servitude for a year and a day in return for helping a resistance group free their imprisoned planetary leader. When he returns to consciousness, he is told that the devil has taken up residence inside him. At first, he thinks nothing is changed and he can take advantage of the situation but some upsetting surprises are in store for him. With an SF setting and a fantasy premise, this is one of Brunner's best hybrids of action, magic, technology and suspense.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
11 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
John Brunner
567 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 27, 2018
A nice little sci-fi with fantasy notes, this book tells the tale of a thief (from the Thieve's Quarters, essentially!) who is offered up as a sacrifice to a demon in exchange for freeing a captured prince.
This works well for a lot of reasons. While it starts out with conjuring, magic spells, even a monster-filled moat, this isn't just a fig-leaf for an SF writer who wanted to take a turn at swords and sorcery. The fantastical nature of things has a lot to do with the limited mindset of the main character. We get a very concrete demonstration of Clarke's third law.
Another reason this works is you start out thinking this is going to be a tale of revenge and revolution: Our hero is used to free said captured prince, and you think maybe now that he has some demon-powers he's going to thwart the prince's schemes. But that whole story ends up a footnote as most of the book takes place on an entirely different planet.
This leads to probably the best aspect of the story. Our hero is now gaining greater and greater understanding of things (with the assistance of a no-nonsense woman who felt much more real to me than the one from the book on the back, The Darkness Before Tomorrow) but as the Notorious B.I.G. might say: "Mo' IQ, mo problems." Besides being a figure of some superstitious dread, our hero is also haunted by the demon whose contract he has yet to fulfill, or even understand.
It creates some reasonably good existential tension of the sort one doesn't see much in SF of this type and era. The story also has a nice romantic ending.
When I read these old school paperbacks, I'm reminded of how much writers used to pack into small spaces.
This works well for a lot of reasons. While it starts out with conjuring, magic spells, even a monster-filled moat, this isn't just a fig-leaf for an SF writer who wanted to take a turn at swords and sorcery. The fantastical nature of things has a lot to do with the limited mindset of the main character. We get a very concrete demonstration of Clarke's third law.
Another reason this works is you start out thinking this is going to be a tale of revenge and revolution: Our hero is used to free said captured prince, and you think maybe now that he has some demon-powers he's going to thwart the prince's schemes. But that whole story ends up a footnote as most of the book takes place on an entirely different planet.
This leads to probably the best aspect of the story. Our hero is now gaining greater and greater understanding of things (with the assistance of a no-nonsense woman who felt much more real to me than the one from the book on the back, The Darkness Before Tomorrow) but as the Notorious B.I.G. might say: "Mo' IQ, mo problems." Besides being a figure of some superstitious dread, our hero is also haunted by the demon whose contract he has yet to fulfill, or even understand.
It creates some reasonably good existential tension of the sort one doesn't see much in SF of this type and era. The story also has a nice romantic ending.
When I read these old school paperbacks, I'm reminded of how much writers used to pack into small spaces.
September 24, 2023
If the limit constrains didn't butchered the book so bad I would give it the 5 stars it deserves, what a sweet romp, really well crafted tale, the genre fussion and the trope play is a delight, the way you see the main character and his extrange situation through other people eyes is well done and fun to read.
The prose is really good too, have the weirds quirks of it's era but is really well crafted and some paragraphs are really beautyfully done, is also very captivating and the first chapters grips you with it's premise.
The genre shift its not jarring and is done so graually you don't even notice, it's themes are atemporal and the conflicts withing it very humane, is a pity that some characters don't have the screentimes they deserve or some relationshis aren't well developed because the characters interactions are engaging and fun to read.
Also, this is a very romantic tale, its not romantic in the way modern people understand, is romantic in the way only old SfiCi tales are, even though there's traditional... romance? frienship? that ties up to the human conflict, but that's only a footnote on the novel.
All in all is a very short novel with a lot of shortcomings because of it, but filled to the brim with stuff that can be enjoyed, give it a shot.
The prose is really good too, have the weirds quirks of it's era but is really well crafted and some paragraphs are really beautyfully done, is also very captivating and the first chapters grips you with it's premise.
The genre shift its not jarring and is done so graually you don't even notice, it's themes are atemporal and the conflicts withing it very humane, is a pity that some characters don't have the screentimes they deserve or some relationshis aren't well developed because the characters interactions are engaging and fun to read.
Also, this is a very romantic tale, its not romantic in the way modern people understand, is romantic in the way only old SfiCi tales are, even though there's traditional... romance? frienship? that ties up to the human conflict, but that's only a footnote on the novel.
All in all is a very short novel with a lot of shortcomings because of it, but filled to the brim with stuff that can be enjoyed, give it a shot.
April 29, 2025
Brunner is best known for his dystopian science fiction - but that is yet to come at this point in his career, written six years before his best known novel, the dystopian Stand on Zanzibar. Here is one of his rare forays into fantasy, a genre which provides my favourite novel of his (more accurately, collection of closely related short stories), The Compleat Traveller in Black. This is, for me, the start of his peak writing, a nicely written fantasy in which a thief is to be sacrificed to save the life of a prince. Lots of fun!
March 25, 2023
"Black magic—or unimaginable super-science?"
Half of an old Ace Double, written by Brunner in his Pulp Space Opera phase, The Ladder In The Sky, is a fun, fast-paced adventure sure to please fans of Golden Age SF.
Half of an old Ace Double, written by Brunner in his Pulp Space Opera phase, The Ladder In The Sky, is a fun, fast-paced adventure sure to please fans of Golden Age SF.
February 21, 2023
The story was ok, but somewhat predictable as you went through each section, but I just really like this author's writing, so I enjoyed the book overall and got through it quite quickly
December 1, 2016
Read this when it first was published as an ACE double novel in 1962. An okay read for its time. Brunner under his pen-name Keith Woodcott spins a fantastic tale of the human condition in the far future. He was always entertaining and he got better as things went on. It was nice to revisit this minor classic.
February 11, 2025
I picked this up from my towering stacks of Babel for one simple reason: the writing of the first chapter is brilliant. From the first sentence onward this tale by John Brunner, writing under the pen name of “Keith Woodcott,” proves high above most efforts in the Ace Double publications.
June 11, 2015
Ade Double Novel F141
1983 grade B
published under Keith Woodcot
1983 grade B
published under Keith Woodcot
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews