Both are written in a parallel-linear style, with events seeming random and unconnected but clicking together by the end of the story. The reader is zoomed back and forth between characters and their events very quickly, adding a feel of urgency to these two quite lengthy tomes. The first readers of this story, back in 1968, might have seen this story as a warning of what could come if society continued with the downward spiral that Brunner observed us all starting on in the middle of this century. Today's readers can find relevance in these themes just by looking around themselves. This also happens with Sheep.
Beaches become unsafe as toxic dumping goes unchecked.
Air pollution levels rise each year, and more and more children are born sickly and asthmatic. Some people will say that there have always been doomsayers, and that John Brunner is no different. And these people could be us someday, but I think they already are. It can be hard work getting into it, and feeling the hopeless depression that can set in can be overwhelming, but it is so worth it. All good works of art touch us, enrich us, change us in someway, and these two books are no exception.