Book Tasting: The World Swappers by John Brunner

The World Swappers, Ace Books, copyright 1959, 156 pages


About Book Tastings:
In a book tasting, we read only the opening 25 pages of a book. We’ll tell how the book begins and then say whether those pages inspired us to continue reading the book. A book tasting is not a book review; it doesn’t evaluate the entire book. (For more about Book Tastings, click here)


The World Swappers is science fiction book by John Brunner (1934-1995) who was a British author of science fiction novels and stories.

The first 25 pages are chapters 1 through 3 plus two pages of chapter 4.

Chapter 1 begins with a man, Counce, alone on a boat in the middle of the Pacific awaiting the landing of a starship on the ocean. The starship lands at high speed, comes to a stop less than a half mile away, then disappears using “blanking frequencies.” The deck of Counce’s boat becomes hot and Counce jumps overboard. The starship blows up his boat using a “sonic” weapon.

Counce swims underwater to where the starship was. When he surfaces, he sees two men. One man has a gun; the other man is Bassett. Counce is ordered aboard the starship. Bassett asks Counce what he wants, not who he is. Counce boldly claims that he knows what Bassett wants, which is to rule the galaxy.

Chapter 2 starts with an infodump. It’s the 26th century and human populations exist on Earth plus 31 more planets. Nearly all the colony planets hate Earth. Computers predict Earth will go through a severe crisis in around fifty years. Earthlings who become dissatisfied during this crisis will have no place to escape to because there are no uninhabited, livable worlds within explored space.

Counce and Bassett, who are apparently both men in positions of power, think Earth needs to improve relationships with the colonial planets so that they’ll accept new immigrants from Earth. But they disagree where to start. Counce demands to be allowed to deal with the planet Ymir for Bassett or to be let go to swim to a nearby sub. Bassett orders his starship to jump a couple of miles. Bassett threatens Counce, and his goons unsuccessfully attempt to take Counce prisoner. Counce disappears.

Chapter 3 is set on the planet Regis, the farthest outpost of humanity. At the north pole of Regis, there’s an excavation site where a crew are digging for evidence of a supspected, although not yet encountered, non-human, space-traveling species they call the Others. An empty food container which was not human-made is found. Almost all the crew leave Regis via “transfax” with their proof aliens had been on Regis. They apparently work with Counce. Recent recruit Anty Dreean is ordered to stay behind with another crew member to search for what else the Others left behind. Anty is fascinated when he digs up a broken cathode-ray tube made by aliens.

In the first two pages of chapter 4, back on Earth, Counce arrives via “transfax” on a crowded sub borrowed from Dateline Fisheries near where the starship landed. Counce meets up with two of his probably important allies.

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I’m not sure where the plot of The World Swappers will eventually go, but the first 25 pages were interesting enough to make me want to read more.

The book features science fictional unreal technology such as the transfax (a teleporter), blanking frequencies (a cloaking field), a sonic weapon (which destroys by finding critical resonance), the Metchnikov drive (a FTL propulsion system), and speculative vibrations in space which spread like wakes from FTL ships.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find either Counce or Bassett to be particularly relatable characters. They are supposedly powerful men, but the author Brunner doesn’t provide any background of who they are, not even their first names. It makes their conflict feel less real. Counce seems set up to be the protagonist and Bassett the antagonist.

Anty Dreean, the young recruit at the polar dig on Regis, is a potentially a more relatable character. He might become important later regarding contact with the alien Others.

The first 25 pages didn’t seem overly dated. That’s good comsidering this was book was published in 1959. Although several details reflected its age: Counce’s small boat was powered by a (nuclear) reactor and it leaked radiation when the boat was blown up and that radioactivity wasn’t depicted as worrisome or harmful; the technological artifact found on Regis was a cathode-ray tube (which is considered old technology now); and Counce and Bassett were depicted as casually smoking cigarettes and cigarillos.

I believe there are story ideas worth exploring in this science fiction book.


Book Tasting post by Amy Peterson

Book Tasting: My Brother’s Keeper by Tim Powers

My Brother's Keeper, Baen Books, copyright 2023, 301 pages as trade paperback, cover art by Eric Williams


About Book Tastings:
In a book tasting, we read only the opening 25 pages of a book. We’ll tell how the book begins and then say whether those pages inspired us to continue reading the book. A book tasting is not a book review; it doesn’t evaluate the entire book. (For more about Book Tastings, click here)


My Brother’s Keeper is a fictionalized book featuring English literature’s famous Brontë family in the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, England.

The prologue takes place in the Brontë children’s past. A young teenage Branwell comes into the kitchen where he tells his younger sisters about his dream where he saw their dead older sister Maria at the crag called Ponden Kirk, which lies beyond the parsonage and into the moors. He then insists that his younger sisters Anne and Emily accompany him there that very day. At Ponden Kirk, the three do a ritual where they slice their hands with a knife and mix their blood on the rock. Branwell believes that act will bring back their dead sister Maria. But it doesn’t, so they go home to tell their older sister Charlotte about their adventure.

Chapter One begins years later with 27-year-old Emily feeling drawn to Ponden Kirk again. She takes her dog Keeper with her. There she finds a wounded man with a patch over one eye who reveals nothing about himself or his serious deadly wounds. Emily runs to the nearest neighbor for help, and a memory from seven years ago crosses her mind. A huge weird looking dog had bitten the back of her hand, leaving a strange scar. When Emily and her neighbors get back to Ponden Kirk, the wounded stranger has gone. But he left without his bloodied double-bladed knife that Emily decides to secretly pick up and put in her pocket.

Emily shows her siblings and father the knife when she returns home, telling them about her adventure. Mr. Brontë knows what the wounded man looked like before Emily could describe him. Branwell remembered the first time he saw a double-bladed knife, when he was coerced into participating in a weird “baptism.”

It was 10 years ago when Branwell was drunk and met a Reverend Farfleece who asked Branwell about the scar on the back of his hand. Branwell’s scar, just like Emily’s, was from the bite a large malformed dog. Rev. Farfleece tells Branwell he must go through a special baptism to protect himself from that evil dog-like creature. Branwell follows Farfleece to a church where he meets a woman holding the double-bladed knife, which Branwell knows must be part of this baptism. All this he keeps secret from his family.

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I’m intrigued with this alternate reality novel where Tim Powers pulls historical information about the Brontë family and then recreates storyline around those facts, taking it into a different genre altogether. My only issues with continuing this novel are twofold. First, within the first twenty-five pages the storyline jumps from one age of the characters to other ages, introducing backstory. Emily is around twelve and her brother is one year older. Then we read about Anne being 6, but wait, that was 4 years earlier, which makes her 10? Switch then to an older Emily, but then we read about when she was four years younger than that. Then something happened when Branwell was 18 but now Emily is 27. You get the picture.

The second issue is with Branwell. His character is one of idleness filled with social anxiety, where he worries a lot about what people think of him. His actions have the opposite effect from what he’d like, which makes him look foolish rather than in charge of his life. It’s tough to read his story.

Still, I’m enjoying this book, mostly the storyline that follows Emily. Tim Powers has a way with words that pulls me into the story and vividly lets me visualize in detail. I will continue reading this book, and I’m looking forward to reading about the different elements that might come forth in the next pages. The gothic looking cover art makes me think Tim Powers will enter the horror genre.

Powers usually writes science fiction and fantasy, so I expect more crazy plots and twists for the remaining pages with some weird fantastical or alternate reality elements.


Book Tasting post by Jackie Sachen Turner