The Shockwave Rider

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There's far more to it than this, and though the ending wraps things up a little too neatly (I'm afraid the bad guys would almost certainly have won), this remains a brilliant net-based SF novel. dalilllama on Five SF Visions of Society Free From Rules, Regulations, or Effective Government 11 mins ago Haflinger's, we see that the author is not one to be content with the realities that may be a possibility in the future of technology.

The Shockwave Rider Quotes by John Brunner - Goodreads The Shockwave Rider Quotes by John Brunner - Goodreads

You can bet on “Delphi boards” that predict coming social trends, and everyone does, even though the government are fixing the odds. A rattle of agreement: from the students on principle, but from several reporters too, who looked so glum one might presume they’d encountered that kind of trouble.

Every now and again, of course, there does come a hilarious misstep, as when it's suggested the cost of shutting down a particularly smart tapeworm would be the net losing "thirty or forty billion bits of data" - which must have sounded loads at the time, but which we'd now say was around four gigabytes, or somewhere around a seventh of the information I currently have stored on my 'phone. But as with Brunner's other great near-future dystopia, Stand On Zanzibar, the main problem is that he's far too optimistic. Brazil and the Philippines are specifically mentioned as being much better off for the new age of big data. Tarnover, the sinister institute squatting at the heart of the story, is a factory for disruptive young supergeniuses straight out of Dominic Cummings' wet dreams – but it does at least produce disruptive supergeniuses, instead of just corralling and empowering twatty edgelords. Most painful of all, despite being common to much of what was once considered paranoid fiction, there's that touching faith that exposing the truth about wrongdoing will make the least bit of difference. I genuinely winced at the line "Lots of things make people angry, but political graft and the notion of deliberately maltreating children are among the most powerful". Well, you say that, but it turns out that for the majority of the population, they don't make people nearly as angry as libs and the paramount importance of owning same.

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner | Goodreads

And — no, it can’t be killed. It’s indefinitely self-perpetuating so long as the net exists. Even if one segment of it is inactivated, a counterpart of the missing portion will remain in store at some other station and the worm will automatically subdivide and send a duplicate head to collect the spare groups and restore them to their proper place. Incidentally, though, it won’t expand to indefinite size and clog the net for other use. It has built-in limits.” I continue to watch for disclosures about peak oil. Nothing so far, but apparently we’ve only seen a small part of what is to come. Already there have been revelations about the U.S. climate change strategy in Copenhagen, and Saudi influence on U.S. climate policy.Deus Est Machina: Well, the machine isn't exactly God, but it does see all and the ending is, without giving it away, interesting. My name is Nicholas Haflinger.” In a loud clear voice, capable of filling the auditorium without the aid of microphones. “You’re wondering why I’ve called you here. The reason is simple. To answer all your questions. I mean — all. This is the greatest news of our time. As of today, whatever you want to know, provided it’s in the data-net, you can now know. In other words, there are no more secrets.” That claim was so sweeping that his listeners sat briefly stunned. Long seconds slid away … It’s not because my mind in 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!” Long hold the Intercom Button to enter Intercom pairing mode, you will hear an 'Intercom Pairing' message. Born in 1934 in the Thames riverside hamlet of Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, John Kilian Houston Brunner was just six years old when he discovered science fiction. As Professor Jad Smith relates in his comprehensive study, John Brunner, with World War Two raging, the family moved to Herefordshire, where Brunner’s father intended to support the war effort by running a farm. In the chaos of the move, his grandfather’s rare 1898 edition of HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds ended up shelved in the playroom. Brunner devoured it and from that moment, as he would later explain in a short autobiography, was imprinted by the genre “as permanently as one of Konrad Lorenz’s geese”.