The Shockwave Rider (nonfiction)

PARADOX, NEXT STOP AFTER THE BOONDOCKS / "It's not because my mind is made up that I don't want you to confuse me with any more facts. / "It's because my mind isn't made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with. / "So SHUT UP, do you hear me? SHUT UP!" —John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider"

The Shockwave Rider is a science fiction novel by John Brunner, originally published in 1975. It is notable for its hero's use of computer hacking skills to escape pursuit in a dystopian future, and for the coining of the word "worm" to describe a program that propagates itself through a computer network.

Excerpts

Set-destruction.

"No — yes — no . . . I don't know. But I'm okay." Dropping his arm, he blinked this way, then that. "It just hit me. This is town — yes! But it doesn't feel like it. I simply know it must be, because . . ." He swallowed hard. "Seeing it from the railcar, could you have mistaken this place for anything else?"

"Never in a million years. Hmm!" Her eyes rounded in wonder. "That's a hell of a trick, isn't it?"

"Yes, and if I didn't realize it was therapeutic I could well be angry. People don't enjoy being fooled, do they?"

"Therapeutic?" She frowned. "I don't follow you."

"Set-destruction. We use sets constantly instead of seeing what's there — or feeling or tasting it, come to that. We have a set 'town,' another 'city,' another 'village' . . . and we often forget there's a reality the sets were originally based on. We're in too much of a hurry."

"For the convenience of the lazy plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn were converted into a daily allowance of bread … and when the popular clamor accused the dearness and scarcity of wine … rigid sobriety was insensibly relaxed; and although the generous design of Aurelian does not appear to have been executed in its full extent, the use of wine was allowed on very easy and liberal terms … and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. … But the most lively and splendid amusement of the idle multitude depended on the frequent exhibition of public games and spectacles … the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race."

—Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

• Post @ Threads (21 September 2023)

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• John Brunner (nonfiction)

External links

• The Shockwave rider @ Wikipedia

Social media

• Post @ Twitter (12 September 2022) - Paradox, Next Stop After the Boondocks