The Compleat Traveller in Black [Paperback]

The eponymous traveller winds his way through a strange and bizarre world, maybe of the future, maybe of the past, 'tidying up' the chaotic beings he finds there - imprisoning capricious and vicious elementals, punishing the wicked and granting the wishes of the high- and low- born.

.. but none of the recipients of the wishes get *exactly* what they want ...

That's the job of the magical Traveller, to use his magic to end magic. That underlying paradox provides the premise of this connected set of short stories. He travels the world at intervals, surveying the realm of unreason on each trip, and taking satisfaction in watching it shrink. Where he can, he applies his subtle magic in support of Reason's expanding domain.

Brunner explores Chaos's control and degradation of humankind in several of its ways. The first story tweaks mindless religion. It might even show how one can choose atheism, after encountering a god face to face and finding him unworthy of belief. Another of these gentle stories undermines magical thinking - again, not because it fails, but because its success is not worth having. And so with the faith in luck that makes Las Vegas the holy city of Chance, and so the unwarranted sense of entitlement that demands ever-richer result for ever-poorer effort at earning it, and so for blind pursuit of power irrespective of the cost or of who pays it. Since these stories are built around layers of paradox, Brunner's mechanism is itself a paradox, the smallest of magics to achieve the largest of consequences.

Brunner was one of the best SF writers of the 70s and 80s, author of "Shockwave Rider" and other stories of chilling prescience. Among all of his writings, though, "Traveller in Black" may be his finest and most under-stated, under-rated achievements. These stories have held up well over the thirty years since they were written; since they pass in a distant place and age, there is little in them that can look dated. I recommend these stories to any thinking reader.

//wiredweird

If you know John Brunner's other work, well, this isn't like that. Traveller in Black is a collection of several mid-length stories that fit together in a progression. The nameless eponymous traveller, an agent of order, goes about imprisoning various chaotic entities and granting certain wishes. This works on several levels to give you allegories for the unexamined life, as well as a gripping adventure yarn.

In some ways, this book is a bookend to Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" (and various sequels, etc.). The flavor and style is similar, although this book is very different. In any event, this is one of those touchstone books of fantasy: you'll see where other writers (including Niven's works cited above!) have "borrowed" some of the dazzling images in Brunner's classic. This gem is a great read and I recommend it highly.