Shockwave Rider :: essays research papers

There atomic number 18 numerous intelligences on the science fictionmarket, that get across with the myriad of possibilitiesinvolving the engineering science of the future. John Brunnersbook, Shockwave Rider, is 1 of the most popular, aswell as one of the most famous, books dealing with thisissue. Brunner presents many different realities to thereader, and they be all potentially really realistic interms of the current state of technology. For the mostpart, Brunner seems to illustrate that technology, as itrelates to the world capacious datanet, is a good thing. Thisis not to say that he does not illustrate it as a genuinelynegative reality in the world he presents to the reader,but he does indicate that the world wide datanet andtechnology has great potential to need the world a betterplace for all concerned.In Brunners book we have a reality that is fabulously tense, and almost plausible today. The quadriceps femoristhat the author deals with is filled with endless bits ofinformation (information overload to be more precise),corporate domination, and it appears, just like manyscience fiction books that deal with the planet earth inthe future, everything is known about everyone. there areno secrets from the system. Brunner illustrates this as areality that is not necessarily very desirable. He plantsa character, Nickie Haflinger, onto the scene. As withmany books we can look at this character and see theauthor within. Haflinger is a prodigy whose talents allowhim to confuse identities with a simple phone call. By theadvanced technology and the adroitness that is completelyHaflingers, we see that the author is not one to be sate with the realities that may be a possibility inthe future of technology.Brunner all the trend illustrates, by the previousdescription of Haflinger, that technology and the advanceswithin that field, are incredibly beneficial, or they canbe. but he is clearly unhappy with the way things haveturned out due to the controll ing nature of thegovernments. This is still illustrated in the fact thatBrunners hero is a young man who is readiness on changing theworld. He struggles to evade the officials and uses allskills available to him, whether entire skills ortechnological ones, to the best of his ability, to put anend to the misuse of occasion that is so much a part of hisworld which involves the entity of the world wide datanet.Perhaps, one of the most insightful parts of the bookcomes in the first half, when Haflinger is experiencingflashbacks due to interrogations. It is in these sectionsthat we see the inner mind of Brunner as he deflty