Hardwired - Softcover

Williams, Walter Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597800627 ISBN 13: 9781597800624

Publisher: Night Shade, 2006

Synopsis

ears ago, the last desperate hopes of Earth were crushed as corporate Orbital blocs ruling from on high devastated the planet's face. Today, the autocratic Orbitals indulge in decadent luxury far above the mudboys, dirtgirls, zonedancers, and buttonheads who live out violent lives of electronic distraction and dependence amid the flooded, ruined cities and teeming slums of a balkanized America.

But there are heroes; those who would stand against the Orbital powers and keep freedom's cause alive. Two such heroes are the metal-eyed ex-fighter pilot turned panzer-driver Cowboy, and Sarah, the cybernetic assassin desperate to find a better life for her drug-addicted brother. Together, Cowboy and Sarah embark on a high-octane odyssey across the shattered face of the American west.

From Walter Jon Williams comes Hardwired, the hard-hitting, seminal classic that feels as prescient today as when it was first published. Like a steel-guitar fueled Damnation Alley, as directed by Sam Peckinpah, Hardwired demonstrates how Williams's singular vision helped defined the cyberpunk genre.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

About this title

About the Author:

Walter Jon Williams has been nominated for every major science fiction award, including Hugo and Nebula award nominations for his novel City on Fire. His books include The Sundering, The Praxis, Destiny's Way, and The Rift. He lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife.

From Publishers Weekly:

After 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Night Shade
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1597800627
• ISBN 13: 9781597800624
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300