The Shockwave Rider (nonfiction)
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
"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."
In the News
Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
External links
- The Shockwave rider @ Wikipedia
Social media
- Post @ Twitter (12 September 2022) - Paradox, Next Stop After the Boondocks