The Shockwave Rider

Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 7.5
Prose: 4

Themes: Software, hacking, government, spying

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.

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.