its environment. He also reveals the source of the Ergot poisonings. In 1963, the government stored drums of Ergot-based nerve gas in the mountains surrounding Denver. One day, just before Christmas, an injection induced earthquake caused the drum to rupture and to leak its contents into the water table supplying the Nutripon factory, which contaminated the food it produced. Another one caused a much larger leak, which poisoned all of Denver. As he finishes his speech, a cameraman informs him that the President has ordered the broadcast to cease. Ossie's bomb then detonates and presumably kills everyone in the courtroom. Tom Grey, an actuary at Angel City, had been throughout the novel, devising a computer simulation of earth to figure out a solution to earth's ecological problems. The ironic and morbidly-humorous results are reported on the Petronella Page show. The final scene takes place in Ireland, where a woman is letting a doctor into her home. She sees billowing plumes of smoke and suggests them to call the fire department. The doctor responds, “The brigade would have a long way to go, it’s from America. The wind’s blowing that way.” Next Year The final chapter of the book is simply a few lines from John Milton's poem Lycidas from which the novel derives its title: The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.... Publication notes Despite being nominated for a Nebula Award, the book fell out of print, only later being republished in 2003. The new edition contains a foreword by David Brin and an afterword by environmentalist and social change theorist James John Bell. Brin's foreword attempts to ground the book in Brunner's time, and in the context of his other writings. In the afterword, Bell treats the book almost as prophecy, drawing parallels between events in the book and subsequent real-world developments: "His words have a kind of Gnostic power embedded in them that gives his characters passage into our world," and notes that "Brunner's puppet of a president, affectionately called Prexy, is a dead ringer for our Dubya". Writer William Gibson made a similar remark in a 2007 interview: See also Quotes from The Sheep Look Up on Wikiquote References External links Review by Science Fiction Weekly Stephen H. Goldman, "John Brunner's Dystopias: Heroic Man in Unheroic Society", Science Fiction