Subject: REVIEW: HEADCRASH (1995)

From: Simon Speed <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 17:22:02 GMT

Headcrash by Bruce Bethke
		Review Copyright 1996 Simon Speed

Rating on a scale of 0 to 10 : -  er dunno.

Summary:- Good humoured cyberfun

I read this book.  I enjoyed this book.  But when it comes to reviewing it
for other people I have a slight problem.  It was written by a computer
programmer with a knowledge of cyberpunk fiction.  The programming life and
the conventions of the cyberpunk genre are its main subjects.  If you're
another cyberpunk reading programmer like me, you'll get all the jokes.  But
as for all you zombies out there I don't know.

This is Betke's first novel.  Its hero is a computer programmer in an urban
near future America, who in his spare time surfs the near future equivalent
of the internet - a parody of the "cyberspace" depicted in the novels of
William Gibson.  He is the hapless individual caught up in an action
adventure plot that ranges across the modern office environment, the urban
jungle and cyberspace.

Ostensibly the plot is a vehicle for satire, on the corporate world, the
urban world and the cyber world, but really its just a vehicle for humour.
Bethke always pulls his punches in favour of a bit of rib tickling - in a
rundown part of town the hero's parked car is attacked by a street gang who
fix it up for him rather than damaging it.  The satire is sharpest when it
comes to describing office life: but even here I've heard worse stories for
real, than the hero's fictional misadventures.  The cyberspace parody is
simply that, using the holes that just about every other critic has poked in
Gibsonian cyberspace, as an opportunity for a bit of harmless fun.  I won't
describe the plot, not that this would spoil the book, it's just that it's
not worth describing.

One point worth noting is the decline of the "computer wiz-kid" character in
fiction, which is very much exemplified in this book.  I can remember when
these were geniuses who worked with banks of controls and meaningless
flashing lights and helped save the world.  Gibson's hero's still had some
of this glamour though they were limited by having to live in the capitalist
system (poor guys!).  But after the crooked and incompetent slob in
"Jurassic Park" we now have Bethke's "total wankers and losers."  No I am
not quoting out of context.

But enough of the criticisms.  The jokes are funny and they come thick and
fast.  From conventional gags in the plot to funny chapter titles to little
window-like boxes embedded in the text and used to carry yet more jokes.
The effect is like that created in the movie "Airplane" - jokes hit you
continuously from every angle keeping you permanently off balance.  Its here
that the book really succeeds and its the reason that I enjoyed it.

There's also plenty of fellatio in the plot, so it should prove good and
educational for your kids.

Distribute freely in cyberspace - if you can find it.