Customer Reviews

Hardwired

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this book, like Neuromancer, is one of the founding books in the cyberpunk movement, the two books could not be more different - except they are the same.

That is, Hardwired is a story set in a future dystopia where people are caught up in events that lead to changes that seem beyond the scope of changes that people like them could make. Of course, there are drugs and other fun stuff, a network of computers that are hacked, and large corporations.

Hardwired is different in that it is a much better action story, with the main characters being a street samurai and a panzer driver. Gives the book a much different focus than Neuromancer with a decker as a main character.

And the world is much more alive. Dirtboys and mudgirls are moving, struggling, alive in glorious MOTION.

It's a book that you can immerse yourself in for the hours it takes to read it, blink, stagger outside, and look around at the world, disappointed, because it's not the right world. Somehow, the world of Hardwired is so compelling that you forget for a while our world.

That's about as high a recommendation as a book can get.

Three works define cyberpunk as a genre -- William Gibson's "Neuromancer," Bruce Sterling's "The Artificial Kid" and Walter Jon Williams' "Hardwired."

Of the three, "Hardwired" is certainly the most fun to read.

Williams' writing has always jumped off the page, but none of his other books move quite as fast or quite as gracefully (with, perhaps, the exception of the three Drake Maijistral books) as "Hardwired."

A chugging, gut-wrenching, pulse-pounding juggernaut of a book -- if you haven't read "Hardwired," you haven't even started understanding modern sci-fi.

This is cyberpunk at its best.

Hardwired is about a panzerboy called Cowboy and a dirtgirl/assassin named Sarah and their unlikely alliance. The megacorporations that rule the earth from orbital platforms don't care too much about what goes on as long as they continue to gain in power and wealth. Sometimes the people being stepped on don't like it, but what can they do? They may not be as helpless as the people in charge think.

The setting reminds me of Blade Runner, but maybe a bit grungier. The characters are well crafted and convincing. The plot is gripping, and the writing flows off the pages.

This books is from 1986, so it is not the same stale cyberpunk junk that you may be used to. Check it out!

This is one of the pioneering books in the cyberpunk genre, but is less well known than most. This is not because it is a bad book, or dull, far from it; but rather is because there are a couple of differences that distinguish it from the cyberpunk pack.

Contrary to most Science Fiction writing, cyberpunk tried to show and explicate its fictional world through the eyes of comparatively low-ranking people on the margins of their society, perhaps thrown into a situation where their actions are important to it (although not necessarily) but virtually always with the characters' mental environment shaped by, and immersed in, the larger social and physical/technical environment, and with their actions constrained by outsider and lowly status. This was a gesture towards realism, as most all people are greatly constrained by their circumstances and are much more caught up in the present than are typical characters in Science Fiction. The limited power and vantage points available to cyberpunk characters are complemented by the characteristic cyberpunk immersion into the techno-cultural environment of the story. Just as most people have more contact with DVDs, bottled water, and PCs than with nuclear reactors, so cyberpunk immerses the reader in the common environment present in the story.

By contrast, Hardwired, while utilizing the iconic technologies, imperfect world, corporate domination, assassins and smugglers of cyberpunk, is a far more traditional Science Fiction story in that the characters are that extra (unrealistically) bit mobile, are rather more powerful and connected to the center of events than is typical, and are concerned with the core issues of their world, rather than with a tiny fraction of it. In this way, Hardwired is not quite cyberpunk, and the criticism that this is "not real cyberpunk" is understandable. In a similar vein, the language, while comparatively poetic in true cyberpunk fashion, fails to completely immerse, indeed flood the reader with the world of the story (as opposed to the events of the story).

All this being said however, Hardwired is not only an entertaining and adventurous story, and a relatively "hard" one (as in "hard", meaning scientifically viable science fiction), but it also very usefully explores the stereotypical themes and characters of cyberpunk. The smugglers and assassins that populate the genre are less two dimensional, and the reader will get a much stronger feel for what such a profession or what corporate domination might MEAN. An additional bit of cyberpunk credit is due in that cyberpunk is very much about the intersection of culture and technology, and Williams has a keen sense of how future technology and trends might interact with world, particularly US culture. For these reasons, while this book differs from most cyberpunk (hence my description, "left handed cyberpunk"), I think that it is indispensable to understanding it, and this book should be considered a crucial part of the cyberpunk canon.

For those readers not interested in canonical status in their reading, I would again highlight that this is a great adventure story, and well written, with interesting characters. So long as you are not put off by a dark and gritty environment, this book has high entertainment value.

Gibson and Sterling are often considered the masters of 80's cyberpunk fiction, with Stephenson trying to keep it alive in the 90's, but this effort by Williams proves he could master that genre. The fast-paced adventures of his protagonist are only exceeded by the unforgetable panzer-run sequence across the great plains. I found the ending a bit simplistic and predictable, but your taste may vary. Overall I enjoyed the setting, the characters, and the action as much as any cyberpunk I've read. This was the book that made me always look for Williams' latest on the shelves. What more can you say than that

One of the best Cyberpunk stories I have ever read. There is no black and white in this story, all the main characters have both flaws and admirable traits. This wonderfull characterisation together with the outstanding action sequences make Hardwired a must read

Can't wait for this classic tales re-release in October 2006. It's been too long! I haven't re-read it in a while since I lent my copy to a friend. (sigh) Oh well, soon I'll have it back. If they redo the cover art, hopefully it won't suck!

Walter Jon Williams may have set this novel in a world first created by Roger Zelazny in DAMNATION ALLEY, but Williams takes that world to another level here, developing it and refining it, its geography, history, and scope, into something that is entirely this author's own.

HARDWIRED tells the exciting stories of the pilot of a futuristic aircraft and a sort-of female hit man, both in a futuristic cyber-era in which everyone is very plugged into a virtual world of extreme connectivity, and most of the earth is controlled by the Orbitals--people who live in floating cities surrounding the earth.

HARDWIRED could be considered a difficult read for anyone not already familiar with the modus operandi of cyberpunk sci-fi, but for anyone willing to commit themselves to it, the book offers a future that, for the most part, actually seems possible, seems believable.

Walter Jon Williams is a great writer, and he does a terrific job here with a unique cast of characters, some really bizarre ideas, and the daunting task of fully realizing a sci-fi world you can really lose yourself in. His descriptions of a futuristic New Mexico--and of a world in which your enemies fill the sky and can drop asteroids on you if you don't do what they want--are top notch and visually solid.

This is visionary work, ahead of our time, and definitely ahead of its time (1986). Read it, and be rewarded.

I've had this book for nine years, and re-read it probably three times per year. This book offers a great deal more complexity and action than most science fiction on the shelves today. There is a huge amount of hardware in this book, but it does not get in the way of a very good story. The characters are complex, with each having his or her own ideas about honor, loyalty, and self-preservation.

That being said, I have to agree with the above reviewer about the panzer run across the Midwest--it's one of the best action sequences ever put on paper.

This was a really fun read for me back in the 80s, and fulfills most of the requisites for what came to be known as cyberpunk. I might make a crude comparison by saying that this book is to cyberpunk sort of as AC/DC or Black Sabbath was to punk rock. We used to joke that AC/DC is punk rock because they are punks and they rock.

What this book had that most other cyberpunk books lacked was the pulp (with the exception of Rudy Rucker.) Remember, this was almost pre-Tarantino, and that hunger for "the pulp" was a living, growing thing here in the U.S. and abroad. The characters in this novel are definitely leatherclad bad_ss fantasy creations inspired by Heavy Metal Magazine, rock videos, H.R. Geiger, and maybe the gun-crazy movies of Bronson, Eastwood and others from the 70s. All together, this novel was a real slice of the life and times that created such artistic masterworks as Doom.

Thinking about the comparisons to Gibson I'm seeing in these reviews, including the website's own, I'm vaguely offended. The claims that Williams is not "true" cyberpunk and such are hogwash. There is no "true" cyberpunk. A purist attitude regarding a subgenre like this, well, get real. Either you like it or you don't, but it's only a novel, not a religion. He may be no Gibson, but that's OK. It's only a paperback.