The Shockwave Rider
by John Brunner · first published 1975
63% recommend35% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Proto-cyberpunk novel from 1975 about a hacker fighting a surveilled network society, valued for eerily accurate foresight on networks, privacy and self-propagating worms; suits readers curious about cyberpunk's roots.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This 1975 book pretty much nailed the contradictions inherent in global networking, long before the network was created. It's full of wiretapping spooks, genius kids, networked churches, fake identities, network worms, encryption, nonprofits that outfox the spooks to help society, the works.
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> Neuromancer, William Gibson’s first novel, was published in 1984. It helped to establish the cyberpunk genre of science fiction Cyberpunk dates at least a decade before Neuromancer -- Brunner's Shockwave Rider form 1974 comes to mind (and is a pretty interesting and strangely timely read, given that it is almost 50 years old).
on “Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades” ↗Or Fire, then The Peace War. Maybe dip into True Names, followed by Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Many people didn't like Deepness much. But the sequel to Fire, Children of the Sky, was interesting.
on “The Unix timestamp will begin with 16 this Sunday” ↗The Morris Worm had a literary inspiration in the form of John Brunner's 1975 "The Shockwave Rider", one of the earliest depictions of computer hacking [0]. A great book that still stands the test of time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider
on “The Morris Worm at 30” ↗If you haven't read The Shockwave Rider, do yourself a favor and read it ASAP. One fascinating aspect of it, aside from the whole "computer hacker hero before there were any" bit, is that it was largely based on a non-fiction work - Alvin…
on “John Brunner's “Stand on Zanzibar” spookily predicted today” ↗…were the basis for the Altered Carbon series on Netflix if you're familiar with that at all. 4. John Brunner - not really "cyberpunk" but some of his work is often described as "proto-cyberpunk". The Shockwave Rider is one of his most famous works, and it is really good IMO. I haven't read Stand on Zanzibar yet, but it is also highly regarded. 5. Pat Cadigan - I haven't read any of her stuff yet, but she is on my…
on “Neal Stephenson reacts to Facebook name change” ↗Also excellent is 1975's proto-cyberpunk novel "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, which was directly influenced by "Future Shock."
on “Alvin Toffler, Author of ‘Future Shock,’ Dies at 87” ↗It's astonishing that Brunner was not only prescient about this event in The Shockwave Rider, but also predicted sophisticated high-tech terroristic attacks in Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up. If you haven't read this trio of dystopian novels (you can read them in any order) you really…
on “Rejection Letter” ↗…the melt for salmon runs.) Now our mountains are bare most of the year, of course. Terrifying. Maybe because I read a lot of sci-fi, I've always "known". Most memorable to me have been John Brunner's Shockwave Rider, The Sheep Look Up, and Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia. But of course, post-apocalyptic is a popular storyline, so there have been zillions others. -- PS, for the down voter(s), one of the minor plot…
on “Extreme climate change has arrived in America” ↗…the "Laundry Files" novels by Charles Stross, or Glasshouse also by Stross. Permutation City by Greg Egan. Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer. Any of the "Dresden Files" novels by Jim Butcher. The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Neuromancer by William Gibson. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
on “Ask HN: Best non-business books to read on vacation” ↗This is great! Placed a couple of wagers and created a market. Have you read Shockwave Rider? John Brunner envisioned a network that placed odds on everything, just like this.
on “Show HN: Create your own prediction market in two minutes” ↗Talking of books, I think we should all (re)read Brunner's "The Shockwave Rider" [1], inspiring and prophetic. The book that coined the term 'computer worm', maybe parts of the 'remedy' are written within... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider
on “Why Facebook’s Political Moves Should Terrify Us All” ↗…length treatment of the idea is not quite as amazing as the original short story. One author that I find sadly missing from the list is John Brunner. Each of "Stand on Zanzibar", "The Sheep Look Up", and "Shockwave Rider" would arguably deserve a place on this list.
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗If we're going to plump for prescient John Brunner books Shockwave Rider was a better book; and may have been closer to the mark in some respects. And I think the protagonist of that book would be someone most HN readers could identify with, the super smart genius trying hard…
on “Los Angeles in 2013 as Predicted in 1988” ↗…a book, but the various writings of Douglas Engelbart - http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/library.html Glasshouse - Charles Stross Permutation City - Greg Egan Neuromancer - William Gibson The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner The Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society - Eric Beinhocker The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas…
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗There are two novels from the 1970s by John Brunner that are astonishingly prescient: The Shockwave Rider (on computer networks and privacy, also introducing the idea of self-propagating malware) and Stand On Zanzibar (on the politics of global resource crises). Neither gets current-day stuff perfectly (he…
on “What Science Fiction Movie or Novel Is Most Prescient Today?” ↗