I'm a huge PA fan... and there is a lot of hype about this book (try finding a cheap copy.. its not easy). I finally found one and read it... while I managed to make it all the way through... it was not very good.

Lots of parts that you just want to skip through (or I did) as they don't seem to have anything to do with anything...

The whole premise (that people are sheep and just let the world/environment goto hell around them without taking action) is different and interesting.

However the story telling is hard to follow, with multiple plotlines and characters throughout and it jumping around like mad. When you finally get to where you want to stay with the plot line that's going--that's when it jumps. There are a few passages where it doesn't even stay with a single plotline for more than a page or two... that's too much work for me to keep track of. I had a hard time getting a bead on the characters in the story or seeing what they were contributing.

Like I said I finished it... but definitely not at the top of my favorites list.

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Release Date: May 12, 1987

An enduring classic, this book offers a dramatic and prophetic look at the potential consequences of the escalating destruction of Earth. In this nightmare society, air pollution is so bad that gas masks are commonplace. Infant mortality is up, and everyone seems to suffer from some form of ailment. The water is polluted, and only the poor drink from the tap. The government is ineffectual, and corporate interests scramble to make a profit from water purifiers, gas masks, and organic foods. Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The Trainites, environmental activists and sometime terrorists, want him to lead their movement. The government wants him in jail, or preferably, executed. The media wants a circus. Everyone has a plan for Train, but Train has a plan of his own. This suspenseful science fiction drama is now available to a new generation of enthusiasts.

There is a new edition of this book recently released... Sheep Look up in 2003.

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To my way of thinking, this is one of John Brunner's best books ever....I have read it multiple times over since it was first published in 1972.

I grade fiction using two metrics...is it good enough to have kept my interest until the end of a first reading and secondly, did I like it enough to keep the book (or buy it) and re-read it again some years later. This one has made the grade and has earned a permanent place on my shelves.

The writing style veers more to the normal "paragraph and chapter" and this makes the book easier to read than his earlier "Stand on Zanzibar" which contains many abrupt sentences that are left to stand completely on their own.

I won't give the plot line away other than to say that it is an early view of " a possible future" and can compete with any "apocalytic" story line.

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