Re: (Shockwave Reader) The Squares of the City by John Brunner

James Nicoll wrote:

The Squares of the City by John Brunner
 Arrogant traffic analyst Boyd Hakluyt is just a pawn in the struggle
for Ciudad de Vados' future.
 https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/moves
 

According to Brunner, he submitted essentially this same book for publication in 1960.  It's rejection prevented him from being taken as a serious SF writer until "The Whole Man", which I think was in 1964.
I have the Ballantine 1965 edition, with a cover which is somewhat representative of the novel and in which the two people portrayed are unaccountably clothed.  Even the woman.  Sixties, eh?
Brunner is no Leiber, who was a strong chess player, but he knows what he is talking about and  there are no moments when, as a chess player, I have to sigh and/or wince.
When I read the book, Liona Boyd's father was my art teacher, so the character in the book wound up looking more like an artist than a traffic analyst.  I think that made me a tad more sympathetic to him.
William Hyde