num_pages: 400
description: Matthew Flamen, the last of the networks' spoolpigeons, is desperate for a big story. He needs it to keep his audience and his job. And there is no shortage of possibilities: the Gottschalk cartel is fomenting trouble among the knees in order to sell their latest armaments to the blanks; which ties in nicely with the fact that something big is brewing with the X Patriots; and it looks as if the inconceivable is about to happen and that one of Britain's most dangerous revolutionaries is going to be given a visa to enter America. And then there's the story that just falls into his lap. The one that suggests that the respected Director of the New York State Mental Hospital is a charlatan... John Brunner's brilliant and scathing vision of a society disintegrating under the impact of violence, drugs, high-level corruption and the casual institutionalization of the 'insane' was a powerful and important statement in 1969. It remains a compelling and chilling tour de force three decades on.
language: English
title: The Jagged Orbit
titlecomplete: The Jagged Orbit
genres: 20th Century, Science Fiction, Classics, Novels, Science Fiction Fantasy, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Amazon, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction
ratings_count: 901
awards: awardedAt: -31507200000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 28800000
name: British Science Fiction Association Award
category: Novel
publisher: Victor Gollancz (Orion Books)