The Shockwave Rider

I remember buying all Brunner novels I could find as he wrote them back in the 20th C. His were among the few science fiction novels that were in the book racks at the grocery, back in the late 70's and early 80's. I guess I was about 14 or so when I got my little paws on this one. I was enticed and excited, much as I was by other sci-fi novels back then, but it was only when I began reading Gibson and Walter John many years later that I began to recall ... dated, of course, and Brunner's characters are all very much 1950-70's type characters, very neurotic and uptight. (People are not so much like that any more, of course ;-). They are now just whacked, or stupid.) And it is amusing to see Brunner's future world where everybody logs into a massive mainframe for the entire continent. It's amusing to think maybe we could have gone that route technologically; a central monolithic network instead of a zillion anarchistic distributed networks. Then perhaps Windows would be the "good guys" and Nix would be the "Evil Empire!" In this techno-dystopian novel, it seems the wrong people have been given root privileges. And although the word "hacker" had not been invented yet, our protagonist is indeed an anti-social computer whiz/underachiever, who devises a virus that ... well, enough spoiling for today. Read teh book! And if you enjoyed this, consider looking at the "Future Shock" trilogy by Alvin Toffler, a major inspiration to Brunner, both intellectually and stylistically, and Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up," his other greatest novel -- one of very many, as Brunner was very prolific.

Little is to be added to the other reviews. This 28-year old book not only decribed the internet as it will become very soon long before its inception, but computer viruses (called "worms" by Brunner) before the first PC too, plus a few other things and issues not even mentioned yet. Since a friend gave it to me to read many years ago, I've bought every copy of it I could find. I have kept one German and one English version and as I will not let them out of my bookshelf under no circumstances I gave all others away as gifts, still looking for more copies to give away. It has been sold out so often and for such a long time, each time and in each of those two languages available to me, that if one were to be a follower of conspiracy theories, well, the fact that this book is not reprinted as often as some other books of Brunner are would be reason for suspicion.

This is a great great book! It was first published in 1975 with was a year before the first personal computer! Before the internet! But it forsaw all of these things and more. This book is also rumored to the inspiration for the first computer "worm" written by Robert Morris. It is in my opinion one of the greatest sci-fi books ever written. And equal to Neuromancer in terms of cyber genera books in greatness.

The late Mr. Brunner predated the cyberpunk genre in this and it's two companion volumes (The Sheep Look Up and Stand On Zanzibar). Unfortunately for the cyberpunks, John Brunner was a far better writer than any of them, and his vision more far-reaching. The plots of all three of these books almost have to be absorbed rather than analyzed to get the full effect (show, don't tell), and each has at least one character that really stands out, in this case Nicky Halflinger. I still have the hardcover copy that I stole from the library, so I wouldn't have to keep buying it like I did Stand On Zanzibar, which was on its second go-round with me. Buy it, steal it, get it at the library, whatever. Just read it.

The title comes from Alvin Toffler's "FutureShock." In the best of his books (Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and Shockwave Rider), Brunner takes one problematic element of modern society and extrapolates into the future. In Stand on Zanzibar it is population pressure; in The Sheep Look Up it is environmental pollution; in Shockwave Rider it is the increasing rate of change and its effect on us. (BTW, the rest of his books are very different; and he's written some of the most depressing SF I've ever read; it might have been therapy for him but his "Total Eclipse" might send me into it!) The increasing rate of change has sent most Americans into mental distress. The most obvious cause (i.e. the most identifiable thing with an increasing rate of change) is the internet (Brunner doesn't call it that, but he has it right nonetheless) -- everything one does is subject to scrutiny by the Feds and by anyone who can hack the net. The flip side is that oneself is rarely able to find out important information. In other words: there are those around one who know things they shouldn't, are improperly profiting from it, and one can't do anything about it. The protagonist is a goverment-trained programmer who becomes hacker extraordinaire. The structure of the book takes getting used to, but is also the reason its a desert island book. Shockwave Rider is arranged in short sections, the shortest only a paragraph, the longest rarely more than a few pages. The scene jumps around and there seems to be no continuity. Stick with it! It will become clear soon enough, and it worth plowing on till it does. One hint: one type of section is commentary, not plot. Each section has a heading -- a quote or a reference. I would spend my time on my hypothetical desert island reading this book; but most importantly tracking down the references and discovering the relevance of the heading and commentary to the plot. Writing about Shockwave Rider makes me want to reread it; I think I'll do that now.