Book Review: Good Men Do Nothing by John Brunner

 

 

Good Men Do Nothing by John Brunner

 204 pages, Paperback
Published May, 1971 by Pyramid

This is the second part in a trilogy?  I didn’t find out this fact until after I finished reading and that explains many of the shortcomings I felt. Not sure it is fair to rate or review this book as most of my issues were the lack of set-up and how we seemed to jump into the middle of a story. 

John Brunner is one of my favorite SF authors so the weird oddity of a popular genre author (who is a very white dude) writing a black James Bond was strange to me.  As good as John Brunner’s finest work is, he has written plenty of quickie books for money and less quality.  So what is this book?  Outside of the curiosity factor, there is little reason a modern reader would be interested. As a John Brunner fan and eventual completionist (I am not even close to reading all his stuff) I had to read this. John Brunner is one of the best authors who like Philip K. Dick started publishing in the tail end of the Golden Age and ended up benefitting from the weird direction of the New Wave. 

His novel Stand on Zanzibar is to me the best SF novel of the 20th century, he has several bonafide masterpieces including The Jagged Orbit(I have not read it yet, but I have read about it) that deals with racism. As good as a proper liberal leaning in radical ideals could be on race issues in 1970 John Brunner probably had good intentions when he decided to write a black James Bond.

I wonder who thought of this? Max Curfew is an interesting character, had he been written by a black author might have seen a little better of a story/reaction. In recent years there has been a push for Idris Elba to be Bond. The problem of course is his age. Maybe John Boyega would be better.  

Regardless, this book is hard or nearly impossible to judge on its own, so I am going to at least find book one before I judge it.