The Shockwave Rider (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: John Brunner
- First Published: 1975
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—dystopia
- Time of Work: The early twenty-first century
- Setting: The United States
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction, Dystopian fiction
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Future, Twenty-first century, Government, Totalitarianism, Technology, Computers
- Locales: United States
The Plot
The Shockwave Rider opens with Nick Haflinger having been captured by some government agency and being held at Tarnover. Machines force him to recall and explain his memories to an interrogator, Paul Freeman. The majority of the book alternates between past memories and present interrogation.
As Haflinger’s memories unfold, the reader discovers that the United States of the early twenty-first century is a swirl of high technology, racial tension, difficult recovery from a powerful San Francisco earthquake, and a race to discover the genetic elements of...
[The entire page is 939 words long]

