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From: @RUTGERS.ARPA:A.ANDY@SU-GSB-HOW.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Book identification
Message-ID: <659@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 15-Feb-85 23:42:34 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.659
Posted: Fri Feb 15 23:42:34 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 06:42:19 EST
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Andrew "VaxBuster" Gideon <A.ANDY@SU-GSB-HOW.ARPA>

Office Phone: (415) 497-4816/9717

>From: ukma!red@topaz (Red Varth)
>Subject: Here's another book that needs identification:
>Date: 12 Feb 85 21:14:00 GMT
>
>This book starts out about a professor whose wife has left him. He
>gets depressed one night, and tries to commit suicide. He's saved by
>his hat.  His wife is a nurse, I think.
>
>Anyway, his sister comes to visit him (she's had a falling-out with
>her boss), and ends up living with him for a while. Then she gets
>kidnapped. The prof just about bankrupts himself trying to track her
>down, and finally pinpoints her location. Then he gets caught by the
>same guy who kidnapped her.
>
>At this point, the story shift to another person. This guy
>officially doesn't exist -- he doesn't have the equivalent of a SS
>number. He's a burglar by profession (and a good one, too). Then he
>breaks into this apartment, and discovers that the tenant (a woman
>about 24-26) is trying to commit suicide.
>
>[Note: This society has something very similar to the "tasp" from
>Ringworld, except that anyone can buy one. They call it
>"wire-heading" in this book]
>
>The woman had plugged herself into the wire, and was starving
>herself to death. The guy unplugs her, and saves her life (she
>breaks his nose in the process). He performs a little rough
>psychology on her, and gets her unaddicted to wire-heading. Then she
>decides that she wants to "get back" at the companies that make the
>wires. She wants him to help her, and he declines.  His reasoning is
>that a man who doesn't officially exist would be worth a lot of
>money to those companies. He could do dirty work for them, and no
>one would every know. Or words to that effect.
>
>To make a long story short, he discovers a good bit of his past, and
>yes, he's the professor. Then he goes on a rampage to rescue his
>sister. End of story.  I don't remember anything about how he did
>(or didn't) succeed.

The Book is titled _Mindkiller_, and is by Spider Robinson.  There
was a chapter or so printed quite a while back in Omni.  It is an 
excellent book; perhaps his best work.

				Andy Gideon
				(Gideon@SU-Score.ARPA)

P.S.	Niven's Known Space had both the Tasp and wire heading.  Louis
	Wu became a wire head after being hit (twice) by a tasp.
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