Headcrash

Bruce Bethke managed to write a mostly unfunny novelization of three or four Dilbert strips. The book was relevant for some two weeks, I guess, and they were gone before the hardcover edition saw the light of day (perhaps the reviewers at the publishing house read the manuscript at that time?). The protagonist is an unmitigated, weapons-grade J.E.R.K. with the declared IQ of two million and the tested one around minus ten. Other characters rustle when moving around - theyre paper, not even cardboard. The reality of 2005 is more like June 3, 1994, with snazzy car names. All in all, forget you saw this book. Buy something else, a Coke, a burger, anything would be healthier - even a pack of untipped Gauloises. The environmental impact would be smaller, too.

HeadCrash by Bruce Bethke is a cyber-satire with a great mix of action, plot and humor. Jack Burroughs, the protagonist, is a computer nerd who works for an exceptionally large corporation by day, and by night on the Internet as the too-cool Max_Kool. But, when Jack is fired, he takes up a job as a free-lance cyber-mercenary. The action and hilarity ensues from there including hand-to-hand combat with seven-foot virtual Vikings, Nazis, and cross-dressing mob girls. Bethkes writing style is so entertaining and fluid that you dont ever want to put down the book. This book is like a cyberpunk version of the movie OfficeSpace, but unlike most other cyberpunk books, HeadCrash does not take itself seriously in the least. This comes as a refreshing change to anyone who has read many cyberpunk novels, but despite that, I would recommend this book to anyone (with the exception to young children, if you get my drift).

From all the other rewiews you can see what the book is about, some applaud it others do it down. The Humour of this book is rather good, its got a type of humour i can relate to easily The cyberpunk view of how the nets gonna b like in the furutre with VR using datagloves, socks etc to feel and move in VR not excluding the haply named ProctoPod (which u dont wanna where that goes) MAX_COOL AKA Jack Burroughs looses his job, but gets offered something in VR he cannot refuse, a hacking job that could get him £1mill in real life if he succeeds. The storyline has twists n turns and you c ppl from Jacks (PYLE) VR past and who they are in real life. However my gripe is with the end of the book, everything goes out of the window and the courtroom chapters simply are confusing beyond belief and i feel rushed when they were being put down into words. However for some good laffs and a insight into how the net could turn out i recommend this book, as long as you dont wanna read it till the end, shut it at one of the end chapters and make ur own one up i think.

What more can I add about this super cool and classic novel? Im very happy I read this.

This is the funniest cyberpunk novel I have ever read. This book takes a crack at evrything from political correctness to whacked out religion. Some parts are so funny you have to stop reading because of the tears in your eyes!

Neal Stephenson meets Alfred Bester and the result is quite wonderful. I read at least half of it out loud to my <long suffering> girlfriend. A *great* summer read.

Delightful take on the whole cyberpunk genre. Particularly amusing to me, because I went to work at the IRL inspiration for Monolithic Diversified Enterprises and I worked for a Director who kept a laser-cut, transparent aluminum model of one of his products from his work in the Sanguinary Tech-Systems Division on the credenza in his office.

Bruce Bethke is one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre and the man who invented the term cyberpunk itself. I love his short story of the same title which started it all! Headcrash was his first novel and its a crazy ride through the early days of cyberpunk. Many authors and readers take the genre extremely seriously, some even see it as a political movement--which is, of course, total nonsense. Others believe cyberpunk is dead while some purists dont want to touch anything that was written after 1990. In Headcrash Bruce Bethke makes fun of this in a hilarious way. The book is a parody of the most common cyberpunk tropes and he even makes fun of the term cyberpunk itself. At a certain point in the story, the hero of the book, a hacker named Max Kool is introduced to several secret groups in cyberspace. There are cryopunks, cipherpunks, ciderpunks...and the worst of them all: the cyberpunks. This is clearly a very loving slap on the hand to those who complain theres not enough punk in cyberpunk... Sadly, this wonderful book is out of print and hard to come by. But if you can find it somewhere secondhand, I highly recommend giving Headcrash a shot. Its brilliant and a must-read for all cyberpunks!

Bethke did a great job of getting into the details of network technology, extrapolating the future, including the inside jokes, and keeping the book readable. On top of all that, its funny and it has a good plot with some seriously STRANGE twists to it. With any luck, well see more books in this style from Bethke. Ill be first in line to pick one up.

This is the official notice that cyberpunk isnt really dead, but maybe it should be. An excellent send up of both the oh so cool cyberpredators and their heartless corporrate foes. Dilbertesque management humor meets cyberpunk and neither side wins. Highly recommended.