Customer Reviews

The Shockwave Rider

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

 

 

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.

I'm going to focus my thoughts on the visionary event that everyone seems to have missed in their reviews of this book. Certainly along with Vinge (True Names), this book predicts the rise of the Internet, but there is another prediction in there that people don't seem to be paying attention to.

The Plug-in lifestyle.

Corporations as a game, and not a source of all that is good. People leave and change companies and towns as easily as... you and I do today. Remember when switching jobs wasn't regarded as a smart career move and a chance at promotion?

It's easy to forget that even as recently as the 80's (ack. It's not recent to me, but it is in certain senses) the corporation was a place to spend life and retire with a pension and a gold watch. Since then, the concept of a pension is foreign to most of us, as is life-long employment. The early 90's took care of that.

The 50's and 60's were the time of the "organization man", not one who could or would switch places or jobs easily, and easily meld in with the newest grouping. It's a shallow lifestyle, but how many people do you know that are experienced at it. After Chainsaw Al (among others), how many people owe loyalty to a company?

A far-reaching vision. The book is worth reading to see how true it has become in certain senses. Predicting the future is a hit or miss proposition. This book is a solid hit. At least for me - in the Internet/Information Technology industry.

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.

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.

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.

There is so much to be said about The Shockwave Rider, that it can leave one speechless. I read it for school, and 90 pages in, was ready to throw it across the room. If you are reading it, I urge you not to (throw it, that is). It is a wonderfull, well-composed plot that is simply unclear at first. It pulls all together at the end, so don't give up! Nick is an extremely complex character, and from the people he sleeps with, I gather Brunner wanted to make a statement about the lack of emotional attachment he saw being a result of the computer based world. Kate is an excellently written character, and the novel is a pleasure, once you've figured out what is happening, even though Freeman - bith in name and in character - is a little cliche. Still, he makes you feel good. Excellent Book!

I think I was 10 years old when I first read this book. Every summer after that, I would search for it in the library again. Then I would lock myself away from distractions so as to be totally immersed in the science that was not to be fiction for long. With sweaty palms, I would engross myself in the story of a child prodigy whose childhood was stolen from him by a society that only wanted to abuse him - and how he took it all back in spades. Imagine how ecstatic I am that it is still in print, and so many others have discovered and enjoyed it! As someone else mentioned, stick with it, even though the staging method takes some getting used to. Also, keep an unabridged dictionary nearby unless you have a PhD in English. Brunner really pulls out some obscure words, but that's one of the hallmarks of an excellent writer.

John Brunner's Shockwave Rider is a compelling novel successfully combining a stunning vision of a/the/our future society and a meticulously crafted plot that never lets you leave the book for anything but primordial necessities. The characters are intense and truly believable, while the social structure and technological developments are so realistic that their implications - especially in conjunction with where we stand today - leave you wondering whether the proper reaction should be a shudder down the spine or a thrill of joy. The only thing I dare question is the author's optimistic view of our intrinsic qualities, but that does not change anything about the quality of this novel. This is a must-read.

Shockwave Rider uses a fictional vision of the society constructed in Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, basically 'family' is a legacy concept and the majority of people are 'plug and play' in terms of work, personal relationships, and living arrangements. The novel only follows the intellectual elite, as Toffler never really covered what would happen to lower classes. Brunner puts them into violent gangs.

The first half of the novel is slow (two stars), as Brunner mangles the plotline into a series of flashbacks, introduced by ethical policy arguments between Nick Halfinger and his sage-like inquisitor, which are not always chronologically connected. While it does highlight the 'plug-in and live' theme of the society, it also is annoying to read for a coherent story. The early book introduces our main character, the Shockwave Rider. 'Nick' is a man without an identity who has hacked his current system, so he can ride the 'Transition Shock' of his future society into as many system-assigned new identities as he wants. He is a chameleon-like genius, changing identities searching for the meaning he didn't find while being raised by government creche for brilliant minds.

In the second part of the novel, our unflinchingly rational main character finds love. This leads him into changing his pattern and getting caught (where the flashbacking comes from). The latter half, especially towards the end, is much more interesting (four and a half stars) as all the elements of the book merge, leading to an interesting climax that attempts to redefine the entire Dystopian society into a more Utopian ideal.

What makes the book wild is the integrated use of today's technology. I can see calling it 'cyberpunk' when I think it isn't (though you probably will). This is more like a 70's version of a 2010 bond movie, and what it reminded me of was Jason Bourne The Bourne Identity: A Novel. That whole 'one-supremely competent man vs. the system' vibe.

Prediction wise, Toffler predicted 'neural devices that increase sensitivity' and most of the described society. Brunner does have an internet with cloud computing and bot-net like worms. The really important parts of technology were spot-on for 1975, and that's why I bump my final rating up to the 'I liked it' four stars despite my distaste for the early novel. Like other good philosophic novels, I found positions I both agreed and disagreed with, and those which were insightful.

Finally for additional reviews look here: The Shockwave Rider. This is the version I own, so I reviewed this one.