The Shockwave Rider
Ratings16
Average rating3.5
In a world drowning in data, a fugitive tries to outrun the forces that want to reprogram him, in this smart, edgy novel by a Hugo Award–winning author. Constantly shifting his identity among a population choking on information, innovation, and novelty, Nickie Haflinger is a most dangerous outlaw, yet he doesn’t even appear to exist. As global society falls apart in all directions, with corporate power run amok and personal freedom surrendered to computers and bureaucrats, Haflinger is caught and about to be re-programmed. Now he has to try to escape once again, defy the government—and turn the tide of organizational destruction, in this visionary science fiction novel by the author of The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar. “Brunner writes about the future as if he and the reader were already living in it.” —The New York Times Book Review “When John Brunner first told me of his intention to write the book, I was fascinated—but I wondered whether he, or anyone, could bring it off. Bring it off he has, with cool brilliance. A hero with transient personalities, animals with souls, think tanks and survival communities fuse to form a future so plausibly alive it as twitched at me ever since.” —Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock “One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves.” —SF Site
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Considering this was written in 1975, Brunner's knack for prescient writing predicts the Internet, smartphones, and many of the Computing tools we now take for granted. Not much in the way of a plot, and at times, disjointed, but nonetheless awesome.
Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 7.5
Prose: 4
Themes: Software, hacking, government, spying
Overall, a read, but has some technical flaws a review would be remiss not to mention:
Brunner was cyberpunk before cyberpunk was cyberpunk. The Shockwave Rider was written years before Neuromancer, and ARPAnet less than 50 nodes. As far as I know, the first recorded use of the word worm to describe a self-replicating - without human intervention - computer program. He brought up the concept of “Information wants to be free” years before Brand, if only his wording had been more clever. Much of the high concept sci-fi narrative is excellent. His dystopic vision is excellent. Basically, if you're reading sci-fi because you like good ideas, go, read it. It's short, which compensates for the flaws nicely.
So, why only three stars? It's a personal thing. There's something about Brunner's style - his one-dimensional characters, his deus ex machina, his flat writing style which just seems somehow... boring. The closest comparison I could make was Ayn Rand - but Brunner is several degrees better than that.
Still, once I had mentally made the comparison, it wouldn't go away. Every time a new character was introduced, I could tell almost immediately which side in the coming finale that person would be on. And the reports that broke up some of the ending chapters were some of the most interesting writing in the book!
5/5 for ideas, cleverness. It's still applicable today, though in different ways than when it was written. 2/5 for execution.
