Title: Headcrash

By - Bethke, Bruce

Publishing Info: - Warner Books: New York, 1995

Genre: - Novel

Sub-genre: - Science Fiction

Nationality: - American

Time Period: - 20th Century

First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick - January 1997

Rated: - B [86]

Location: - Mount Vernon Public Library

Comments: - Fun read but language and suggestive situations may offend some.

This was a fun read--light and appealing to my juvenile side. That means that there is a lot of foolish cultural references, healthy self-ridicule and suggestive eroticism (but no hard core sex). He's always about to but never does. If the book were made into a movie it would probably be rated "R" more because of language than actions. The on-going relationship between Jack (Pyle) Burroughs [a name charged in the sci-fi culture because of Tarzan fame] with an older black woman and co-worker,

T-shombe makes me wonder if like me Bethke had a thing for Nicol Nicholus-Star Trek's Uhura. However since most of the relationships as well as the action takes place in Virtual Reality there is no depth and no real danger. The whole story has the feel of a cartoon. (In fact only animation, computer and otherwise, would work to make the book into a film. It's stupid, but it knows its stupid since Bethke's tongue is firmly in his cheek all through the novel.

What originally interested me is the books form. Burroughs, the narrator, complains all through the work that he is not used to writing in straight text. He's far more comfortable with web sites and with hypertext ability. So all through the work there are info blurbs and information dumps just as if he had pointers to send you on the web. Its the first straight novel I've read to acknowledge the development of a new kind of text.

However, not much was new in the plot. The elements of multiple virtual realities has been done even as far back as Disney's Tron. The world of cyber-space has been introduced to readers by Gibson (who created the environment described as "cyberpunk" apparently by Bethke himself) and has been explored by so many that even the actor William Shatner has been able to competently use it in his Tek series. Bethke knows all of this. In fact his character, Jack (Pyle) Burroughs, looks back on cyberpunk from the plateau of the near future as a passé cultural development.