Shockwave Rider :: essays research papers

There are numerous books on the science fictionmarket, that deal with the myriad of possibilitiesinvolving the engine room of the future. John Brunnersbook, Shockwave Rider, is one of the most popular, aswell as one of the most famous, books dealing with thisissue. Brunner presents umteen divergent realities to thereader, and they are all potentially very realistic in basis of the current state of applied science. For the most man, Brunner seems to lucubrate that technology, as itrelates to the field full(a) datanet, is a good thing. Thisis not to say that he does not illustrate it as a verynegative public in the world he presents to the reader,but he does indicate that the world wide datanet andtechnology has great potential to make the world a better go under for all concerned.In Brunners book we have a reality that is unbelievably tense, and almost plausible today. The spacethat the author deals with is filled with endless bits of nurture (information overload to be more precise),corporate domination, and it appears, just like somescience fiction books that deal with the planet earth inthe future, everything is cognise 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 switch identities with a simple phone call. By theadvanced technology and the ingenuity that is completelyHaflingers, we see that the author is not one to becontent with the realities that may be a disaster inthe future of technology.Brunner clearly 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 controlling nature of thegovernments. This is further illustrat ed in the fact thatBrunners hero is a young man who is bent on changing theworld. He struggles to turn off the officials and uses allskills available to him, whether inherent skills ortechnological ones, to the best of his ability, to honk anend to the misuse of power that is so much a part of hisworld which involves the entity of the world wide datanet.Perhaps, one of the most insightful split of the bookcomes in the first half, when Haflinger is experiencingflashbacks due to interrogations. It is in these sectionsthat we see the internal mind of Brunner as he deflty