Stand on Zanzibar

Shalmaneser — a supercomputer that does the world's serious thinking, rented out by the corporation that owns it.

Corporate contracts, eugenics paperwork, advertising, tranquillisers, and a media environment engineered to absorb the attention of people whose judgement is no longer required.

Capital captures it — Nothing is abolished. The gains are simply owned by someone.

Brunner shows you the commute and the pills, not just the machine. Almost nobody else in 1968 was writing the texture of an ordinary day under automation.