Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and Shockwave Rider all feel like variations on a theme. If you start with Shockwave and absolutely love it then you are in luck because there's more where that came from. But all of his books are worth reading imho.

> as a guess at what 40-50 years in the authors future would look like, it's almost freakily realistic.

Yeah, I should really revisit Future Shock. That book might have been a little ahead of its time.

> Although it feels like reading Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" at times - familiar tech described with alien words.

100% agree, and I think it's almost a bigger flaw here. I'm not saying "it gets better in the second season" but I wouldn't be surprised if some people bounce off the future slang.

Interestingly enough, Brunner might be one of the only white authors I've read who describes his characters by skin tone.