It would appear that most science fiction is given over to the figuring that if a strong enough case is made against the total emersion in technology, that mankind will not be prey to the worst possible future imaginable. Ok, maybe not all, but a huge portion of Phillip K. Dick’s and John Brunner’s work do. And each of those figures comes from drastically different backgrounds in different countries.

Brunner’s best known novel, based partially on Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, is entitled The Shockwave Rider and covers an interesting possible future for the United States subsequent to a tremendous earthquake centered in the Bay Area.

The book hasn’t reached as wide an audience as Dick’s work, but there’re still a few bands that have found the book compelling enough to render its contents in song form – Chicago’s Plastic Crimewave Sound being one of them.

Regardless of the book’s popular culture status, The Shockwave Rider details the exploits of Nick Haflinger, a government employee (kinda), who finds a way to disappear into anonymity after becoming tired of ‘the plug in lifestyle.’ What’s amusing about that phrase, is that it’s become a reality within the last decade or so as personal electronics make traversing a wider range of territory while still being jacked into the internet an easy process.

Presaging precisely what was going to happen doesn’t seem to be Brunner’s main objective – he would have then perhaps eschewed the genetically modified animals that serve as police protection towards the end of the book.

Being a Britisher, it’s interesting that the author chose the States as the setting of his book – name checking Cleveland as well as any number of other specific locales throughout the narrative.

Setting up the book in a sort of flashback mode doesn’t necessarily do the work justice. Over the first few chapters the sudden shifts in time make it a bit difficult to figure out who’s where – all of this being compounded by Haflinger needing to change names and identities frequently. But after readers get a handle on that, the brief asides that occasionally only function as commentary as opposed to enriching the plot become welcome breaks from the straight narrative.

With all of the plundering of literature and old films in Hollywood over the last decade – oddly coinciding with the realization of ‘the plug in lifestyle’ – it’s surprising this book hasn’t been picked up on. We’ll see, though. Any day now.