"[6] In a retrospective review for The Guardian in 2010, Sam Jordison found the novel a "skilfully realised future dystopia", writing that it allowed Brunner "to express his most interesting ideas regarding corporate ethics, free will, the question of whether scientific progress is always good for humanity and the conflict between the individual and the state".

[7] Ursula K. Heise declared that "Stand on Zanzibar, to some extent, sets the tone for literary texts from the 1980s and 1990s that re-engage the issue of population growth against the background of a multitude of interacting political, social, economic, ecological, and technological problems".

[8] In his 2021 book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, historian Niall Ferguson lauds Stand on Zanzibar for foreseeing the future better than more popular novels such as Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale and Anthem.

[9] Yet, on further reflection, none of these authors truly foresaw all the peculiarities of our networked world, which has puzzlingly combined a rising speed and penetration of consumer information technology with a slackening of progress in other areas, such as nuclear energy, and a woeful degeneration of governance.

The real prophets turn out, on closer inspection, to be less familiar figures—for example, John Brunner, whose Stand on Zanzibar (1968) is set in 2010, at a time when population pressure has led to widening social divisions and political extremism.

Brunner also foresees affirmative action, genetic engineering, Viagra, Detroit's collapse, satellite TV, in-flight video, gay marriage, laser printing, electric cars, the de-criminalization of marijuana, and the decline of tobacco.