Hardwired Series by Walter Jon Williams
Hardwired #1
Hardwired
Walter Jon Williams
Earth lies prostrate beneath the lash of the Orbital powers, and Earth’s Balkanized nations have no choice but to let the Orbitals plunder their remaining wealth. Below the zone of Orbital control, buttonheads, panzerjocks, dirtgirls, and hustlers scramble for their ticket out of the gravity well.But now, if the criminal underworld and the guerilla underground can join forces, there is a chance to shift the balance of power— in a war fought on the ground by hardwired commandos, in the air by high-flying deltajocks, and by genius hackers in the neural interface.As Roger Zelazny said, “Hardwired” is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars— glittering, nasty, and noble— and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all of my favorite things— blood, love, fire, hate and a high ideal or two. I wish I’d written this one.”From Publishers WeeklyAfter his thoughtful, elegant novel Knight Moves, Williams wrenchingly shifts gears for this heavy-metal adventure. It is set with acknowledgement in Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, when corporate Orbitals control what's left of a postwar America, now balkanized and armed to the teeth. Ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his lethal electronic hardware, teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals. The story, though, is buried under an elaborate techno-punk style of the sort William Gibson popularized in Neuromancer. In both cases, it is a pose, a baroque nostalgia for Hemingway and film noir; it only plays at nihilism, terror and despair. The best effect is Williams's future version of a brain-scrambled vet: a dead buddy of Cowboy's whose scattered bits and pieces of computer memory now constitute a ragged semblance of a man. Such nuggets are hard to find amid the amplified, rock-'n-roll prose. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review''Hardwired is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe-light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars--glittering, nasty, and noble--and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all my favorite things--blood, love, fire, hate, and a high ideal or two. I wish I'd written this one.'' --Roger Zelazny, Hugo, Locus, and Nebula award-winning author''Williams' use of language is as explosive and as techno tinged as the world he describes. Reading the book is like taking a jet ride across a futuristic America, with acceleration forcing you back in your seat all the way.'' --Tom Von Malder, writer and arts critic''Heavy-metal adventure.'' --Publishers Weekly
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Hardwired #3
Voice of the Whirlwind
Walter Jon Williams
Steward is a clone. A beta. His memories are fifteen years old, because his alpha never did have a brain-scan update. And in those fifteen years, the entire world has changed: The Orbital Policorp which held his allegiance has collapsed; dozens of his friends died in an off-planet war which he survived; an alien race has established relations with humanity; both his first and second wives have divorced him. And someone has murdered him.From Publishers WeeklyWilliams's novel Hardwired was a well-written but standard entry in the cyberpunk sweepstakes launched by William Gibson's Neuromancer. This followup, however, is much more interesting and successful. Etienne Steward is the clone ("Steward Beta") of a hero of the Artifact Wars, in which multinational corporations fielded armies to plunder alien ruins. He's been given Steward Alpha's memories minus the last years of the hero's life: the war and its aftermath. Now Steward Beta begins an investigation, tracking down Alpha's wife, friends, enemies and fellow vets to fill in the picture and learn why Alpha was murdered. In particular, Beta probes the war, its horrors, its betrayals and The Powers, the aliens who ended it. Resonances of Vietnam-era moral concerns make this deft updating of the postWorld War II genre of psychological thrillers about amnesiacs one of the best of its kind. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review''Slick and intelligent entertainment. The tension remains high throughout. A taut, satisfying tale of space-age skulduggery.'' --San Francisco Chronicle''Resonances of Vietnam-era moral concerns make this deft updating of the post-World War II genre of psychological thrillers about amnesiacs one of the best of its kind.'' --Publishers Weekly
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