The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (book review).
John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider was among the books mentioned in Vernor Vinge’s True Names. It is divided into three sections that follow the unfolding events. Captured Nickie Haflinger has all his body hair removed, apart from his eyelashes, and is wired into a machine so that the Federal Bureau of Data Processing can record his memories. He is briefly mentioned by name in the opening chapter, but it takes another fifty pages before his full name is given.
The pace of this opening section made me read faster, while bits and pieces of the world gradually emerge, along with a woman called Sandy Locke who is important in Haflinger’s life. Even so, I’m still not entirely sure what was going on.
The second section has a similarly fast tempo. For those who don’t know, if you write a story that is dialogue-orientated, readers tend to move through it at a different speed. When it is more text-orientated, the brain has to reset for new scenes and the pacing changes. It’s a useful tool for any writer to understand.
Much of what appears here feels like a stream of consciousness covering a variety of subjects. There is still the search for Haflinger, which is odd because these are supposed to be his memories. There is also an indication that the people in the town of Tarnover live under a variety of different names. Sandy Locke’s first name is given as ‘Alexander’, which had me wondering what sex the character is, especially as an associated name is Ina Grierson, who might be a relative. One hopes it’s a spelling mistake, but it does show I’m paying attention.
The third section at least has more action, and we see a little more of Haflinger, although the circumstances of his capture are now largely ignored. Of particular interest, on page 220, there is a reference to a ‘mobile phone’ with various connection links. As if that will ever happen. There is also a ‘tapeworm’, slang for an invasive computer program used to sort something out. I’m still not entirely sure what Brunner’s title refers to.
From the look of things, I think they won, but I’m still not certain how or why. I have a feeling Brunner was playing around with the idea of computers becoming invasive, with the establishment using them to keep citizens under control and reel in dissidents until they eventually fought back.
It isn’t quite cyberpunk, but rather speculation about a society in which computer technology keeps rolling forward. No doubt, at the time, it probably looked revolutionary. Today, we would question the programs being used because we know they can be far more complex and written in many different computer languages. In those days, unless you had worked with early computers, they probably sounded a lot like magic.
Then again, who would have thought home computers would become possible, certainly not the RAM monsters we have today?
Something else I should point out, which I’ve noticed across the Brunner books I’ve now read, is that he often includes place names from our native Somerset. This time, it’s Crediton, although that is actually in Devon.
If you’re interested in how computers were imagined as evolving in early science fiction, then this may be worth reading.
GF Willmetts
July 2026
(pub: Methuen, 1975; reprinted 1988. 288-page paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-413-17960-5)
